PART TWO
AYAAN HIRSI ALI's "THE CAGED VIRGIN"
As usual, what I started out doing has turned into more than I bargained for. I ran into this very nice book in my local library by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, “The Caged Virgin, An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam,” (Free Press, New York, 2006).
I read the book and was dismayed at much of its content. I did not realize that there were populations of Muslims still mutilating very young girls to remove the organ that allows them to feel pleasure in sex, and sew them up to assure virginity; that there are still those killing or simply abandoning older girls and their out of wedlock baby to restore family honor (meaning sexual activity before marriage is extremely dishonorable, for a girl). Apparently, in some cases such abandonment comes about when there is not a baby but only a suspicion or an accusation.
I thought these things had largely stopped, especially in Muslims groups that had migrated to the West. But here is Hirshi Ali’s very point: in the European West, especially in the Netherlands, the official attitude of multiculturalistic tolerance together with a government dole on which refugees can live quite adequately, (1) removes the necessity for working, largely, and (2) removes the necessity for integration into the Western society in which the refugees have been placed. This, Hirshi Ali maintains, together with the laws of the Netherlands not being enforced in such separated communities, in the interest of tolerating other cultures, places women, especially, in a very vulnerable and bad situation, they are virtually captives in their own ghettos.
Ms. Hirsi Ali is a beautiful black woman raised as a strict Muslim in Somalia, Kenya and Saudi-Arabia who emigrated to the Netherlands, learbed Dutch, and became a Dutch legislator. Had it not been for the Dutch connection, which intrigued me greatly having emigrated from the Netherlands myself in the 1950's, and having seen only one black person during my entire 12 years of early life in the Netherlands, I may not have picked up this book. I did not realize until reading this book that large populations of North African Muslims, now live in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the two largest cities. And they have re-created their home-country culture in the Netherlands, given that Dutch law simply is not being applied in the interest of respecting their culture.
Hirsi Ali says that in North America, the problem with the integration of Muslims into mainstream society also exists but not at nearly the level of severity that exists in Europe, and in the Netherlands in particular. In North America (U.S. and Canada) emigrants are required to have a sponsor who arranges work, and so the class of Muslims emigrating into these countries is an educated one, with skills and professions, rather than the largely illiterate, low-skilled worker emigrants entering European countries who quickly find out that if they do not work, everything is OK anyway. That is simply not the case in the U.S. or Canada.
This led me, after finishing the Hirsi-Ali book, to see if there was a discussion of the integration of Muslims into U.S. society readily available at the local library, which led me to a book by Asra Q. Nomani called “Standing Alone in Mecca, An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam” (HarperSanfrancisco, 2005). This became the third book I would read in this thematic review. Nomani is much more hopeful, but still details some extreme trials even in the U.S. involving the fight to save women’s rights from the onslaught of Wahhabi ideology, an ideological subset of Islamic culture which is the current driving force toward retrenchment and the old ways of doing things with a strict separation between men and women and with men free to discipline their women verbally and physically, etc.
But yet another book caught my eye, which I ended up reading before I read all of Nomani. It was Serge Trifkovic's "The Sword of the Prophet" and became the second review on this theme of Islam and the West. But before I get to either the second or third book I need to go back and finish extracting things of interest to me from Hirsi Ali.
Now, in 2007, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is no longer a Dutch Member of Parliament and no longer lives in the Netherlands. She is now in the US and working for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservatively oriented think-tank where she says that as an atheist she is given complete freedom to express her views. You can read about her current life on this page (second article down): http://ayaanhirsiali.web-log.nl/ayaanhirsiali/english/index.html
Other than recommending this book, I am not going to cite much from it, except for things that I found interesting because of statements I have made about Islam in the past, plus things that surprised me because they seemed somewhat familiar from my readings in Mormon history and my experience as a Mormon. It has fascinated me for some time how there are so many similarities between portions of communities that belong to the general family of the “Religions of the Book” that also teach the rightness of, and/or actively practice, polygamy (polygyny –marriages of a man to multiple women, to be more precise).
The recent news about the arrest and conviction of Warren Jeffs, a prophet and leader of a Mormon breakaway group called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for ordering a forced marriage of a 14-year old to a 19-year old cousin is fresh on my mind since he was arrested right here in Las Vegas. Since this 14-year old was below the age set by law below which there can be no legally recognized consent for sex, this marriage became a rape, and Jeffs went to jail for ordering this marriage against the girl's vehement protestations. Now he is in jail no doubt feeling low (newspapers have mentioned a suicide watch) and at the same time high. High? Well, he is now in the same situation his hero and predecessor (in his belief system) was: Joseph Smith also spent time in jail for religious reasons, and he also did not see a 14-year old as not being of marriageable age. In fact there were two 14-year olds (and several 16 and 17 year olds) in his collection of plural wives. So Jeffs is perhaps feeling rather proud to have been chosen by circumstances to undergo the same treatment meted out to his predecessor and idol in the nineteenth century, and this will likely do nothing negative to his community, it will likely now be even more sure it is on the right track. {This despite a news story that he has admitted he did something wrong and apologized for it to his community, saying he did not act as a prophet and was told by Jesus' voice coming to him in his cell to repent-- talk about a mixed message!!!} These fundamentalist have also been violent, witness John Krakauer’s book “Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith.” (Doubleday 2003). Of course Mormonism itself has also has its outbursts of violence, witness the “Mountain Meadows Massacre” by Juanita Brooks (University of Oklahoma Press 1970). But the more salient point is that these religions in their more fundamentalistic phases manipulated and controlled women’s sexuality, were fixated on that issue, and this is what they seem to have in common along with a tendency to violence (the comparison seems more to fit the community described by Hirsi Ali, who needs around the clock protection, then by Nomani, who had a death threat directed at her but one she considered more symbolic than serious).
Hirsi Ali, in her pages 50 through 58, cites a number of sources on the rise and fall of Islam as an empire and as a source of new ideas. Islam flourished for many centuries and then declined. One of the reasons for the decline (p. 53) was the triumph of religious wisdom over reason, and the curtailment of scientific research to not upset religious assertions. Another reason, Hirsi Ali cites a United Nations' study as saying, and she herself attests, was the subjugation of women. Finally, both the U.N. and Hirsi Ali point to the general failure to set up democratic institutions that assure personal freedom.
This is a warning, I believe, to Americans who want a more thorough mixing of politics and religion, if religion ever begins to trump science (as is the case with those states where the teaching of evolution has been attacked) free inquiry as a mainspring of human progress will be unwound.
A pro-Islam website in South Carolina observes that http://www.almasjid.com/page_30 :
In the early days of Islam, when people adhered to its beliefs and principles, there was a flowering of science, culture, trade, and technology. Scholars in the Islamic world researched and advanced the fields of mathematics, chemistry, physics, medicine, astronomy, architecture, art, literature, geography, history, and more. Muslim scientists invented the magnetic compass, the astrolabe, and the clock pendulum, to name a few. Many critical systems such as algebra, the Arabic numerals (which are the same numbers that we currently use), and the very concept of zero (vital to the advancement of mathematics) were introduced to medieval Europe through Muslim scholars. The teachings of Islam brought about this scientific awareness, which eventually ignited and propelled the European Renaissance. It was only after people began deviating from the simple original Islamic principles and beliefs that the advancements and scientific achievements of the Muslim world began to cease and fall into obscurity.
So is this a call for going back to the fundamentals of Islam? And if so, what are these fundamentals? According to Hirsi Ali the problems in modern Islam rest squarely with these very early fundamentals.
I get a very different picture from reading Nomani, however, and the above statement suggesting that Islam's fundamentals used to be based on respect for critical thought echo what Henry Grady Weaver wrote about Islam’s golden era in his 1947 book “The Mainstream of Human Progress” (Foundation for Economic Education 1953). Weaver says that individual and economic freedom were the driving forces behind this golden age of science and discovery and accomplishment. The obvious lesson being that the U.N. was right, the lack of individual freedom and democratic institutions to guarantee that freedom, are hampering progress in many Muslim countries today. And no doubt Hirsi Ali is also correct, individual freedom must include women, they are also individuals.
What a strange feeling to try to contemplate that perhaps that is not so, that woman are less than men by nature, which is a feeling that lies at the heart of patriarchy. Patriarchy is rather universal, meaning man is in charge almost everywhere by custom, which translates in some major religions as “God is a man, therefore no approach to God is possible except through a man, hence priesthood or the priestly function is a male only function, etc. [At least in Islam God is not a man, God is the all, but that is not making any difference to how women are treated.]
{An aside based on personal-experience: Mormons throw yet another log on this fire by also asserting that marriage is eternal, eternal marriages are largely polygynous. God is a male and sets the example. His wives, exalted women all, are ‘gods’ with a small ‘g,' while all exalted men shall become as God. That is Heaven, but to prepare to live there the church teaches that although all exalted women shall be ‘gods,’ priesthood can't be held by a woman here because capital-G Godhod is not to be her station there. What is here below reflects and prepares for what is there above! It is eternal polygyny that forces this to be so on earty, else what are we to do? If a man and all his wives, like God the Father and all his wives, were all God, God would be mostly female! We can't have that now, can we?
And so the flow of absurdities continues even in this very modern church that I love from a cultural perspective: I miss not being part of that culture, I love the people, I am just at total odds with the most fundamental aspect of its theology is all: the nature of the Mormon God and all the harmful nonsense that flows naturally from that nature.}
After all of these "asides" perhaps you forgot what the topic really is: Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s “The Caged Virgin”? Let’s return to it on its page 74, where Hirsi Ali writes about herself and her sister Haweya:
My sister and I were still very young when we began to notice that we were always told to respect our brother. He was only ten months older than I, but we realized that only boys count. A Muslim women’s status depends on the number of sons she has. When people asked my grandmother how many children she had, she would answer: “One.” She had nine daughters and a son. She was the same with regard to our family, said we had only one child. “What about us?” Haweya and I would ask. “You are going to bear sons for us,” she replied. It drove me to desperation. What was I to do with my life on earth? Bear sons! Become a production plant for sons. I was nine years old at the time.
The reason this struck me is {another large aside is coming, sorry} because of the same notion floating around in my former religion, Mormonism, which has Jesus say in a revelation to Joseph Smith concerning plural marriage, that women (note their objectification as a “that”) are to be used by men to bear the souls of men, forever!
And again, as pertaining to the law of the priesthood—if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else. And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified. But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified. (D&C 132:61-63).
It is interesting that in relatively recent statements by General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the last few lines of this quote have been used to admonish women to continue to multiply and replenish the earth with the promise they will bear the souls of men in the eternities. But now the quotes are completely stripped of their plural-marriage context, making it look like the order was given to them, the women, rather than to their husbands; this is a form of denial of the past that Mormons are very good at. An example of this selective cut and paste from LDS scripture is on this web page, for example, which has Howard W. Hunter state under the title: “Show Reverence for Motherhood” that:
A man who holds the priesthood has reverence for motherhood. Mothers are given a sacred privilege to "bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of [the] Father continued, that he may be glorified (D&C 132:63).
This was part of a 1994 address given to men only, and can be read at: http://www.lightplanet.com/family/fathers/husband_father.html]
So even in the next life the charge for women is to continue to bear souls, to continue to multiply, and in particular to bear the souls of men (I do not believe there was any intent to be generic in this instance). To me this shows a similar mindset at work in Joseph Smith as in the culture that Hirsi Ali was raised in, and both mindsets are very understandable given the crucible of the times and local cultures involved in both cases. Now back to Ms. Hirsi Ali’s book:
On pages 160 and 161 Hirsi Ali replies to those who say she is unfair when she focuses on Islam and the subjugation of its women. There are plenty of examples outside Islam, there are allowances for the subjugation of women in Christian and Jewish holy texts, and so the Koran and those who believe it are being unfairly singled out. Ali agrees there are “word nazis” (scriptural literalists) among the Christians and Jews that are as bad as Islamic oppressors of women. But the big difference is that they are in the minority among these groups, and in the majority in Islam. Ali suggests that Christians and Jews have by and large overcome this literalism and the misogynism it could induce, and that they have done so
. . . by criticizing their holy texts, by ridiculing things that are said in the Bible and Talmud, and pointing out that many of these things are wrong. The ancient texts have survived, but our ideas about how the sexes should relate to each other have moved on. When Jews and Christians discovered the power of words and images, they used them to shine a light onto their belief and culture, to find inconsistencies, to stop harmful practices, and to promote merciful, humane ones. Time after time, those who wanted to preserve the status quo complained that the texts, images, and behavior of their critics were “hurtful,” “sinful,” and “radical.” For centuries the church encouraged the faithful to ignore its critics. It held inquisitions. It ignored priests who had behaved immorally and illegally until the people would not allow it anymore. The same must happen in Islam. The people who truly love the beauty of their faith must act to stamp out the ugliness.
On pages 172 and 173 Ali suggest that modern Islamic terrorists and those who piously push for a Shari’a-based (Islamic law) society are only following the example of their Prophet, Muhammed, who had many military encounters and triumphed in almost all of them. She also suggests there may be something to be learned from different translations of the Koran, seventh and eighth century Korans have variant readings in several places, giving Islam a parallel with Christianity and Judaism in terms of there being evidence for variant readings allowing different scriptural exegesis in the past.
Scriptural inerrancy fanatics need to understand that their scripture is not the unchanging word of God. We will return to Muhammed’s life later because Nomani has a very different take on this particular issue and is more in agreement with the observation from the South Carolina website cited above: early Islam made giant strides in terms of progress in science and engineering and medicine because its early culture was based on individual freedom to investigate and obtain new knowledge and create.
However, another author agrees totally with Hirsi Ali’s pessimistic view, Serge Trifkovic, in his “The Sword of the Prophet; Islam, history, theology, impact on the world,” (Regina Orthodox Press Boston, 2002) is every bit as negative as she is about the prospects of the world ever seeing a transition to a more peaceful Islam. We will visit his book next.
Going back to pages 80-81 Hirsi Ali says that
It is a capital offense to insult God’s prophet, Muhammed. God himself let this be known to the Prophet, as He gave him other such opportune messages. You need only read the Koran: He stole Zayneb, his pupil’s wife, with the excuse that it was Allah’s will. And, even worse: he fell in love with Aisha, his best friend’s nine-year-old daughter. Her father said: “Please wait until she has reached adulthood.” But Mohammed did not want to wait. So what do you think happens? He receives a message from Allah that Aisha must prepare herself for Muhammed. In other words, Muhammed teaches us that it is fine to take away your best friend’s child. By our Western standards Muhammed is a perverse man. A tyrant. He is against freedom of expression. If you don’t do what he says, you will end up in hell.
This reminds me of Joseph Smith promising exaltation (life in the highest of three heavens) to the girls and women he talks into (coerces, actually, using salvation as an assured gift if they obey) marrying him in his new style of marriage. If you don’t do what he says you will not go to hell, but you also have no assurance of the highest of the three heavens and exaltation, rather than just salvation, therein. I was going to rest my case on this observation but also thought that perhaps there may be more to the story of Muhammed and his wives, and found a rather compelling defense of Muhammed’s behaviors toward the underage girl and the wife of his adopted son. You can read it yourself on the web, on two pages from which I will extract only those parts of interest to me.
The author of this site, http://www.guidedones.com/metapage/frq/Aisha.htm , Labina Ahmed, starts out with two citations from authors I have liked and whose works I have read and respected over the years:
'"But do you mean to tell me that the man who in the full flush of youthful vigour, a young man of four and twenty (24), married a woman much his senior, and remained faithful to her for six and twenty years (26), at fifty years of age when the passions are dying married for lust and sexual passion? Not thus are men's lives to be judged. And you look at the women whom he married, you will find that by every one of them an alliance was made for his people, or something was gained for his followers, or the woman was in sore need of protection." - - Dr Annie Besant (Dr Annie Besant in The Life and Teachings of Mohammad, Madras, 1932)'
'A noted British author has observed: "No great religious leader has been so maligned as Prophet Mohammed. Attacked in the past as a heretic, an impostor, or a sensualist, it is still possible to find him referred to as "the false prophet." A modern German writer accuses Prophet Mohammed of sensuality, surrounding himself with young women. This man was not married until he was twenty-five years of age, then he and his wife lived in happiness and fidelity for twenty-four years, until her death when he was fourty-nine. Only between the age of fifty and his death at sixty-two did Prophet Mohammed take other wives, only one of whom was a virgin, and most of them were taken for dynastic and political reasons. Certainly the Prophet's record was better than the head of the Church of England, Henry VIII." Geoffrey Parrinder, Mysticism in the World's Religions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976, pg. 121)'
The text written by Ahmed after these citations follow each mention of Allah, the Prophet, or one of his wives, with a parenthetical expression of respect, shorted to two or three letters. On the second page of this apologetic website it is shown that the hadith (sayings of the Prophet according to eyewitnesses) do not agree with each other and have Ayesha’s age at 9, 12, and 19, and these authors suggest here that the 12 age may be the correct one, leading me to think that perhaps the 2-year engagement period all hadith agree on led to the earlier date being assumed by some as a marriage date (there are some typos in this copied and pasted text, but I left them alone):
Every time the Muslims talk about Prophet Muhammad (saw) to the heretics, they use a point against the saintly character of Prophet(saw) by pointing fingers towards his marriage with a girl named Ayesha(ra), who was presumably, 12 years old at the time of her marriage to Prophet and another woman named Zainab, whom he married after she divorced a man named Zaid whom Prophet had adopted as his son. Muslims on the other hand are commanded to hold her in highest regards according to the will and decree of Allah(swt) as is evident from the verse above. Moreover, it's a historical fact that A'ishah (ra) was one who possessed exceptional qualities, and Holy Prophet saw in her a great woman of the future who was best suited to perform the duties of a wife and of a teacher whose words and deeds had to be preserved for the guidance of mankind. A'ishah(ra) turned out to be one of the greatest woman scholars for Islam, thus setting an example for future generations of Muslim women. Aishah(ra) was said to be the most knowledgeable in Islam, even by the male companions of the Prophet's times and was in fact one of the most learned amongst them. Companions had to come to her and seek the knowledge that only she knew that only she was privy to. Her significant example of being highly regarded especially among the men plays an important role in removing beyond a shadow of a doubt any uncertainties regarding women to be inferior to men in aspects of faith or false notions condemning women to be hindered from earning a high status in society, especially in terms of spiritual growth and morality. Compare this to the history of other major religions in which women were regarded to remain subordinate to men especially in terms of spiritual development. All his wives, especially A'ishah(ra), transmitted many scholarly works (sayings, deeds, and actions) from Prophet Muhammad pbuh. Aishah's father, Abu Bakr, was a key figure in the history of Islam as well as a close friend and trusted advisor of Muhammad. The joining in marriage of Muhammad and Abu Bakr's daughter solidified the relationship between him and the Prophet. When Muhammad(saw) died, there was a need for a new Muslim leader. Abu Bakr was chosen khalifah due to his close knit relationship with Muhammad and the marriage between Muhammad and his daughter, A'ishah.
In a subsequent paragraph, Ahmed says that:
Ayesha(ra) was engaged to someone else before she got engaged to Muhammad(saw): Lady Ayesha(ra) was already engaged to a non-Muslim man named Jober Ibn Al-Moteam Ibn Oday. Back then, the people of Mecca did not object to Ayesha(ra)'s engagement to Jober because she was physically mature enough to be considered for marriage. Her parents saw that and they engaged her to Jober.
The only reason why Ayesha (ra)'s father, Abu Baker Al Siddeek, broke her engagement with Jober is because he was a non-Muslim. Later, a woman named Kholeah Bint Hakeem suggested for Muhammad (saw) to marry Ayesha(ra), because Muhammad (saw) and Abu Baker became best friends. Muhammad (saw) engaged Ayesha(ra) for 2 years before he married her.
Abû Bakr (ra) is also recorded to have spoken these words: "There are three things I cherish most: a look at your face, to spend my wealth on you and that my daughter is thy wife."
All Muslim scholars agree 100% that Muhammad(saw) and Aisha(ra) were engaged for 2 years before marriage.
Prophet Muhammad(saw) was a Noble Messenger of God. Muhammad(saw) lived in a society and culture that existed 1400 years ago, and we must not judge what he or others did based on the standards we have set today. It is wrong and foolish to do so!
Ahmed also makes the point that in India child marriages were customary, and documents this fact by citing from scholarly books. We are dealing with a different time and societal order than we experience today, so I would have to agree that these two examples of Muhammed’s marriages do not prove much. The young girl was a typical dynastic move to cement in a relationship with her father that would eventually lead to his assuming the role of caliph after the Prophet’s death, and the marriage to the ex-wife of his adopted son took place after her divorce from that son, plus she and her family had begged to Muhammed to allow her to become his wife prior to Muhammed arranging this marriage for the benefit of his manumitted slave instead. You can read more about this on the second page of the web site linked above.
This is apparently very different from the Joseph Smith story [another aside]. Joseph married his 34 wives while he was married to his first wife, and browbeat her into submitting to his excesses via a convenient revelation (Doctrine & Covenants 132) that says if she does not accept all that God has given her husband, He, God, will destroy her! That was a direct threat to Emma Smith, from the alleged mouth of God:
And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure before me; and those who are not pure, and have said they were pure, shall be destroyed, saith the Lord God. For I am the Lord thy God, and ye shall obey my voice; and I give unto my servant Joseph that he shall be made ruler over many things; for he hath been faithful over a few things, and from henceforth I will strengthen him. And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord; for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law. But if she will not abide this commandment, then shall my servant Joseph do all things for her, even as he hath said; and I will bless him and multiply him and give unto him an hundredfold in this world, of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, houses and lands, wives and children, and crowns of eternal lives in the eternal worlds. And again, verily I say, let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses; and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses, wherein she has trespassed against me; and I, the Lord thy God, will bless her, and multiply her, and make her heart to rejoice. (D&C 132:52-56)
Whoever said power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts was right on the money. However, there is a whole list of very compelling and positive accomplishments to be laid at the feet of Joseph Smith, and I admire the man for many things he did and the many interesting and intriguing teachings he gave out. I also admire him for the occasional admission that he was not always acting and speaking as a prophet, and that sometimes he actually mis-spoke, when for example in one instance a prophecy failed he freely admitted he had gotten his desires confused with inspiration. (That is my way of explaining D&C132's terrible content to myself.) I really like this guy except where his treatment of his wife and his use of women was concerned, but even here he is defended by his successors as carrying out the will of God as he understood it.
In my Mormon true-believer years I came face to face with the realization I no longer believed this part of the Doctrine & Covenants regarding polygamy to be inspired. I write about this on my “Standing on the Principle” page on this site. In the course of dealing with this unbelief I met with one man who was a ‘special’ envoy from the Mormon Apostle Mark Peterson to talk fundamentalist polygamists out of their belief in the necessity of polygamy for their salvation/exaltation. He told me, in trying to convince me that the revelation on polygamy was from God (the very opposite of the problem he usually faced in talking polygamists out of the practice), that Joseph Smith was given special privileges by God that do not apply to any other man and since he was working under God’s direct orders it was not up to us to question him, or, by extension, God. God is above our rules and notions. As the Bible says, our notions of righteousness are but filthy rags to him. God is God, you are not. OK, no contest, but I can choose to reject that God and I did. Ayaan Hirsi Ali did the same thing, she also rejected the God she was told to obey.
But enough about me, but this does explain my fascination with this whole topic of polygamy in religion? Although I have left the Mormon religion behind to some degree, it still lingers inside me and is an endless source of fascination as I see parallels in other places and times (such as in this case involving Islam, but also see my comparisons between Mormon and Radical Anabaptist polygamies, and my comparison of the revelatory styles of two prophets, Joseph Smith and Joan of Arc on this website).
Why am I not buying all that Hirsi Ai says and simply writing off Islam? Because her story, true as it may be, is not the whole story. I my decades as a believing Mormon I read and wrote responses (for my own benefit) to anti-Mormon propaganda. Even with the best of scholarly techniques evident in anti-Mormon literature (a few were actually very well researched and written, not most) I could never get over the fact that my day to day experience of the religion and in the religion was such a loving and supportive one. In other words, what one experiences in one’s heart and in one’s head may be true spiritual enlightenment and yet the historical details of the religion bringing this enlightenment, the words and actions of some of its leaders, may really be downers!
I cannot help but see this same thing in my Catholic friends who feel God’s presence in the mass, an intuitive knowing is at work in them then, and yet many are also intellectually aware of the horrible episodes in that religious tradition’s history. My studies in Medieval mystical experience have also brought me the realization that some indisputably inspired persons were at the same time supporting the church’s contemporary, extremely cruel inquisitorial practices against heretics, heretics with whom they actually had much in common. This is hard to explain, in my mind, but it is just the way it was and is.
The same is no doubt true in Islam. And the reason I reached for Nomani's book was because it appeared she would give me that insight into what good experiences the religion and its community can give a person who is part of that community.
Rumi keeps coming to mind. Hirsi Ali (on her website) says that the Wahhabi Muslims have no use for the sort of religious toleration and sensibility he taught. This dashes some of my hope for using the spirituality of Rumi as a bridge between religious traditions. He certainly was such a bridge, with a Christian wife, and observing that being a Muslim, Hindu, Jew or Christian was not important, what was important was one’s living and being in such an honest way as to allow one to know God. In doing some of the readings for this page I ran across a name I was not familiar with, an early Sufi who may have begun the long line of love poets that Rumi and Al’Arabi came to represent so well in later centuries. Her name was Rabi’a and I found her very well described on this really impressive website by Kathleen Jenks: http://www.mythinglinks.org/NearEast~3monotheisms~Islam~Rabia.html
I was very pleased with Dr. Jenks’ opening statement because she was trying to invoke Rabi’a in the same way I was trying to invoke Rumi, as a bridge between two cultures at great difficulty with each other. She wrote (referring to her belief system in the second sentence):
As the situation continues to worsen between the United States and Iraq, many people feel increasingly helpless. Lately, I have found myself wondering about those Holy Ones in the Other Realms who might be willing to help avert a looming tragedy. My thoughts keep turning to a very early Islamic saint -- an 8th century woman who had a profound influence upon Islam in general but also upon generations of Sufis. Could she be invoked today? Would she help?
On the one hand, she was totally focused upon God, her Beloved, and she walked such an austere path that she even denied herself the pleasure of sweet Iraqi dates. Would such a detached saint have any feelings of tenderness for today's world? Perhaps not. Yet, she lived in southern Iraq twelve centuries ago so she certainly knows the region. She shunned the traditional trappings of religion, devoid of genuine depth and spirit, which means she would be a thoughtful, powerful ally against the rampant fundamentalism in Washington and the Islamic world. . . .
. . . according to legend, her family was very poor and she spent much of her youth as a slave, which suggests that she would have deep empathy for today's lower class unfortunates who have been steadfastly ignored by the powerful. When a situation is grave enough to make many long for a miracle, who better to address than such an Islamic saint, a sensible woman who was no stranger to miracles? . . .
. . . She knew how to make a humane commitment to love and service, and she knew how to keep her priorities straight -- that combination is exceedingly rare today -- and tragically non-existent among the world's leaders. Thus, she is worth being added to our lists of Saints, Holy Ones, Invisibles, and Sacred Archetypes, whose aid might be of current relevance for our troubled 21st century world.
Jenks cites the works of others to give the visitor to her site some flavor of her words on Love (meaning the experience of being immersed in God’s love, which I capitalize for convenience). Here are just two of those statements (see the Jenks website linked above for references):
"I have made Thee the Companion of my heart,
But my body is available for those who seek its company,
And my body is friendly towards its guests,
But the Beloved of my heart is the Guest of my soul."
And I like this one for its very modern sensibility:
"O my Lord," she prayed, "if I worship Thee from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship Thee in hope of Paradise, exclude me thence, but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake, then withhold not from me Thine Eternal Beauty."
This woman’s description of the experience of the Love of God is much as described by Rumi, but Rumi came centuries later, and his Sufism had already been informed by her example and teachings. I strongly recommend you visit the Jenks website and follow some of the links she provides for those who want to know more about her teachings as well as her life. To read more about Rumi, there are many books, including one by Ahmed Shavari (which acvtually cites me!) called “The World Outlook of Rumi” (Adabsara 2004) I believe Mr. Shavari is trying to do he same thing Dr. Jenks and I are trying to do, find a bridge between these two world views now seemingly heading for ever greater conflagrations and disasters aimed at each other, when at this very time we need to pull together as a species to deal with looming crises that are natural and very real.
Why this excursion into Islamic/Sufi mysticism? Because it underscores the point I was trying to make above. A religion’s history, or even its scriptures, are not the basis for the day to day life experience of its believers. That day to day experience involves one’s own heart and desires and how one reaches out to one's God and then feels the flow of love for that God and the Love coming into one from that God.
Although some claim that Islamic belief teaches that fear is the only legitimate emotion to feel towards God, Allah, these persons belie that notion in a grand way. They are Muslims who are apostles of Love and live in a state of love, they are believers, not infidels.
ON TO THE SECOND OR THIRD BOOK REVIEW IN THIS THEMATIC REVIEW
But If you read them in the order given, it may make more sense since the first and second books are mentioned in the third review.
Serge Trifkovic's "The Sword of the Prophet"
Asra Nomadi's "Standing Alone in Mecca"
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