Thursday, May 17, 2007
Remarkable. Well worth watching and/or reading:
Modern Religious Discourse is Different from the Religious Discourse of the Prophet
Interviewer: "Do you think that modern religious discourse differs from the religious discourse of the Prophet?"
Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari: "Of course. The proof is in the pudding. Today, there is a lot of extremism, a wave of extremism. This religious discourse has not managed to improve the youth, and this crisis proves it."
[...]
"This discourse does not address human beings as human beings. We lack what I call the 'culture of humanity.' We want to make our youth love human beings as human beings, before they love them for being Muslim or non-Muslim, Shi'ite or Sunni."
[...]
"The purpose of jihad is to respond to aggression and to eliminate injustice. The greater Jihad is the Jihad of the soul, of development, of education - so we can live - not just die - for the sake of Allah. Can what is happening in Algeria, Morocco, and Iraq be called jihad? A youth in the prime of life puts on an explosive belt, and blows himself up among innocent people, and you call this jihad and martyrdom?"
[...]
"The religious discourse generates a crisis. You go to a mosque, listen to the Friday prayer, and you return a bundle of nerves, feeling hostile toward civilization and society, because the sermons focus on the negative aspects of society, and inflate them."
Interviewer: "So what needs to be done?"
Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari: "We need to focus on the beautiful aspects of life and society. Not everything in life is tragic. You should make people love life. I would like the religious scholars, through their religious discourse, to make our youth love life, and not death."
On Qaradhawi:
Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari: "At least I’d feel free. I said that this does not diminish the respect I feel for Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi, even though I disagree with him on certain political and ideological issues. Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi supports the view that the West is our enemy, that America is an enemy, and that we should place a ban on... I don’t agree. This does not serve our interests. I have said so in all my articles. For example, he said that dialogue with the Jews should only take place by means of human bombs. I object to this. I support dialogue even with the Jews, even with the enemy. The Prophet conducted a dialogue with his most bitter enemies. How can one say that dialogue should be conducted by means of human bombs?"
Interviewer: "But Yusra has a negative attitude towards the Jews too."
Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari: "Holding a negative view is one thing, and encouraging my children to turn into bombs is another. I criticize Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi for his support of the conspiracy theory whereby the entire world is conspiring against us. I criticize him for his claim that the West and America are enemies, and that we should ban them. When he organized a campaign to ban American products, I disagreed with him."
The "culture of humanity," reading this, as with the recent post highlighting commentary by Nidhal Naisa, it's as if one can suddenly breathe a full gulp of fresh, unpolluted air after a prolonged deprivation.
Too, and with all respect for those who disagree, without the application of force, in Afghanistan, and yes, in Iraq as well, these rays of light would not be given the airings and hearings they are and will be given with the application of force. The question is not whether we are in the midst of a prolonged war or set of conflicts or not, the question is one of degree.
There is no utopia at the end of the tunnel, but there are real prospects for more vs. less comity and balances of powers that serve to effect greater prospects for more comity, stability, cross-cultural dialogs and economies, etc., etc.
Good. So much for the accusation of MEMRI as "picking only the bad things in the Muslim world".
Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari may soon be in need of protection, though. The moderates and introspective thinkers of Islam usually do.
There have been other examples, such as another instance recently cited here at Solomonia. One is left to wonder, how much of this is "tip of the iceberg" only vs. something that is more rare.
Regardless, it serves to indicating two fundamental attributes of the general set of conflicts:
+ It's a set of conflicts that, at foundational levels, is demarcated by ideological investments and lineaments. Hence dialog and dialectic, and opening up spaces for that dialog/dialectic, is all important, is important at primary and strategically conceived levels. Military and other "hard" options and aspects of the set of conflicts are subsidiary to the ideological foundations.
+ Nonetheless, only prudent applications of force will begin to open up some of those spaces, especially so those spaces within the M.E. Occasionally those will be high-risk initiatives, as it has been with Iraq, as it may need to be with Iran in the not too distant future.
(Another aspect of the ideological/historical lineage, one that should be better known than it is - thank truncated and anemic Western reportage for these elisions and occlusions - was recently noted by Daniel Pipes, Where the Nazi "Big Lie" Endures.)
Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari looks like Fred Armisen from Saturday Night Live.
http://www.gothamist.com/images/2004_02_fredarmisen.jpg