Richard Dawkins -- Islamophobia?

[Darat]

I agree it may be the only practical way to do it in a lot of cases, but what about when you run into something that is justified by the religion, like a man beating his wife or considering a woman's court testimony inferior. The only way to remove the reason is to remove the religion - trying to reform it from within is like saying "don't throw out the baby with the bathwater" when there is no baby.

The history of religion (in general) doesn't support that - religion can be seen to have often followed changes in societies and cultures and changed or entirely reversed or dropped their religious beliefs as a result of that societal pressure.

 

[Polaris]

No, because that was only one part of the campaign.



That's pretty much what Imam Demba told them, actually:

Here's the trouble with that:

This built upon the education he had received as part of Tostan's nonformal education programme. It certainly helped that he was a respected religious leader and could speak to the fact that "the tradition" was not mandated by Islam; however this did not guarantee his success, and in the years since Demba first shared his theory with us, we have found that many others can play this role. Passionate grandmothers and mothers, former cutters, and enthusiastic youth groups have used Demba's approach with great success.

Pointing out that FGM isn't mandated by Islam (correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a call for it exist in some disputed hadith?) shouldn't matter at all. I would wager that if the tradition was mandated by Islam it would have guaranteed Tostan's failure.

I'm not trying to diminish his accomplishment - it's a great one. But Islam seems to be tangential to it.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

I'm not trying to diminish his accomplishment - it's a great one. But Islam seems to be tangential to it.

Is that not the case for all such reasons claimed to be about "religion"?

 

[Polaris]

Who's trying to handwave it away?

Haven't you ever seen a thread here where someone will point out some current horror in the name of Islam and someone else will chime in with, "yeah that's bad, but there were the Crusades!! and the Inquisition!!"?

This, for starters.

Again, that's within their interpretation of the Koran. Someone else's interpretation could (and probably is) just as easily that there's all the justification they need to keep on beating in those pages, and it's back to square one.

The history of religion (in general) doesn't support that - religion can be seen to have often followed changes in societies and cultures and changed or entirely reversed or dropped their religious beliefs as a result of that societal pressure.

That's a little more difficult when the religion is based on what its adherents see as the true, final and immutable word of God. In fact, hasn't the Islamic world been trending toward religious conservatism in recent years, away from sanity and decency?

 

[Polaris]

Is that not the case for all such reasons claimed to be about "religion"?

No. It's just fortunate for the girls of Senegal and elsewhere that there isn't a strong case for FGM in Islam.

 

[A'isha]

Pointing out that FGM isn't mandated by Islam (correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a call for it exist in some disputed hadith?)

It's not exactly a "call for it", but it is mentioned in Sunan Abu Dawud 5271 (Book 41, Number 5251 in the CMJE's translation), of which Abu Dawud himself noted "It is not a strong tradition. It has been transmitted in mursal form (missing the link of the Companions). Muhammad b. Hasan is obscure, and this tradition is weak."

shouldn't matter at all. I would wager that if the tradition was mandated by Islam it would have guaranteed Tostan's failure.

Given the complicated, even murky, nature of FGM/C in Islamic context, I disagree with you.

I'm not trying to diminish his accomplishment - it's a great one. But Islam seems to be tangential to it.

It's part of the whole approach used, "fram[ing it] within the traditional values that hold these families and communities together rather than in language that attacks or shames from an outside point of view."

 

[Darat]

Haven't you ever seen a thread here where someone will point out some current horror in the name of Islam and someone else will chime in with, "yeah that's bad, but there were the Crusades!! and the Inquisition!!"?

No I haven't - I've seen people giving examples of similar level of barbarisms carried out by other religious groups as examples of how things can change.

Again, that's within their interpretation of the Koran. Someone else's interpretation could (and probably is) just as easily that there's all the justification they need to keep on beating in those pages, and it's back to square one.

You seem to be assuming that religion stands above and separate from the culture and society it emerges from. It isn't and it doesn't - it changes with society.

That's a little more difficult when the religion is based on what its adherents see as the true, final and immutable word of God. In fact, hasn't the Islamic world been trending toward religious conservatism in recent years, away from sanity and decency?

I think it is much. much too complex to isolate a particular but very non-homogenised religion as the cause of this. In fact I see it as a symptom and a result of other pressures and changes in society. If it wasn't then there couldn't be a move back to more "conservative" teachings.

 

[Darat]

No. It's just fortunate for the girls of Senegal and elsewhere that there isn't a strong case for FGM in Islam.

Who says there isn't? I've never noticed any reluctance for anyone to come up with a religious reason to support whatever position they have on a topic.

 

[Polaris]

It's not exactly a "call for it", but it is mentioned in Sunan Abu Dawud 5271 (Book 41, Number 5251 in the CMJE's translation), of which the Abu Dawud himself noted "It is not a strong tradition. It has been transmitted in mursal form (missing the link of the Companions). Muhammad b. Hasan is obscure, and this tradition is weak."



Given the complicated, even murky, nature of FGM/C in Islamic context, I disagree with you.



It's part of the whole approach used, "fram[ing it] within the traditional values that hold these families and communities together rather than in language that attacks or shames from an outside point of view."

I don't think we're disagreeing on that final point. My issue with all of this is that the verdict of whether something is right or wrong hinges on whether something is mandated by Islam, not whether it's simply a horrible thing to do. Such as if Abu Dawud had determined it to be a strong tradition by a non-obscure Companion.

The fact that a horror need only be determined to be not only permissible but mandated based on what the Koran says makes Islam irredeemable in my eyes.

 

[A'isha]

Haven't you ever seen a thread here where someone will point out some current horror in the name of Islam and someone else will chime in with, "yeah that's bad, but there were the Crusades!! and the Inquisition!!"?

Which doesn't dismiss or defend what happened in Islam so much as highlight that religions living in glass houses shouldn't exactly be throwing stones.

Again, that's within their interpretation of the Koran. Someone else's interpretation could (and probably is) just as easily that there's all the justification they need to keep on beating in those pages, and it's back to square one.

A risk that has not gone unrecognized.

I'm not arguing that it's a perfect approach, merely that it's a vastly superior approach than the one currently favored by people like Dawkins.

That's a little more difficult when the religion is based on what its adherents see as the true, final and immutable word of God. In fact, hasn't the Islamic world been trending toward religious conservatism in recent years, away from sanity and decency?

Something for which I place the lion's share of the blame on the Saudis.

 

[A'isha]

The fact that a horror need only be determined to be not only permissible but mandated based on what the Koran says makes Islam irredeemable in my eyes.

If imams are going to argue that things are permissible and/or mandated based on what the Qur'an says (and they are, whether you or Dawkins or anyone else likes it or not), I'd kind of prefer that those things be of the non-horrible variety rather than the alternative.

 

[Mister Agenda]

A phobia is an irrational fear. If you're an atheist in Iran and you're afraid that Muslims may have you executed if you flaunt your atheism too much, that's a rational fear. If you think they may have you assassinated if you live in Hoboken, that's an irrational fear. If you think Muslims are going to take over the USA and impose Sharia law, that's an irrational fear. If you think Muslims are uniquely incapable of cherry-picking their scriptures to conform to modernity the way that Jews and Christians do, making Islam immune to reform, that's an irrational fear.

Islamophobia is not being critical of Islam. It's being ridiculous about it.

 

[Craig B]

... RD: I think my love of truth and honesty forces me to notice that the liberal intelligentsia of Western countries is betraying itself where Islam is concerned. It's stymied by the conflict between being against misogyny and discrimination against women on the one hand, and on the other by the terror of being thought racist—driven by misunderstanding Islam as though it were a race. So people who would normally speak out against the maltreatment of women don't do it. I do fret about what I see as a betrayal by my own people, the nice liberals."

I very much take Dawkins' point as a valid one. But there is one consideration he's missed. Thank Heaven, nowadays racism is unacceptable in polite society. People who wish to continue being racists therefore often find excuses or proxies for racism. Because, at least here in the UK, most Muslims are recent immigrants or close descendants of immigrants of darker pigmentation, opposition to Islam is often used as such a proxy, precisely because being opposed to a particular, or any, religious belief is perfectly in order. The liberal intelligentsia, being liberal and intelligent, is aware of this, and suspects that it may frequently be a motive in criticism of Islam - read Muslims - which it encounters. And it is not rarely right, though in particular cases it may be wrong.

 

[moogspaceport]

I very much take Dawkins' point as a valid one. But there is one consideration he's missed. Thank Heaven, nowadays racism is unacceptable in polite society. People who wish to continue being racists therefore often find excuses or proxies for racism. Because, at least here in the UK, most Muslims are recent immigrants or close descendants of immigrants of darker pigmentation, opposition to Islam is often used as such a proxy, precisely because being opposed to a particular, or any, religious belief is perfectly in order. The liberal intelligentsia, being liberal and intelligent, is aware of this, and suspects that it may frequently be a motive in criticism of Islam - read Muslims - which it encounters. And it is not rarely right, though in particular cases it may be wrong.

I think you hit the nail on the head here, and just as some accuse criticism of Israel as being "anti-semitic", much the same can be done with criticisms of Islam being deemed "racist." It's a tactic used to try and silence opponents.

 

[Craig B]

I think you hit the nail on the head here, and just as some accuse criticism of Israel as being "anti-semitic", much the same can be done with criticisms of Islam being deemed "racist." It's a tactic used to try and silence opponents.

Yes it works in both directions. And that's because it is in fact true that some racists use the archaic character of much of Islam in the same way that many anti Semites exploit absurdities in Talmudic Judaism, or the unattractiveness of many aspects of Zionism - as a cloak to conceal racism and anti semitism. Which doesn't mean that it's impermissible to criticise the Quran, or the Talmud, or the Zionist settlements in occupied Palestine and Syria.

 

[Polaris]

Darat and A'isha - I want to respond when I have some time to consider these things, and I've got some fires here at work that I've been called to help put out.

Please don't let me forget.

 

[3point14]

No, because that was only one part of the campaign.



That's pretty much what Imam Demba told them, actually:

It's worry that he had to go through all of that to stop people cutting off their daughter's genitalia because some imaginary skydaddy told them through his imaginary, and possibly delusional 'prophet'.

Rational, non-delusional people do need to be convinced not to cut open their own children.

 

[angrysoba]

It's worry that he had to go through all of that to stop people cutting off their daughter's genitalia because some imaginary skydaddy told them through his imaginary, and possibly delusional 'prophet'.

Rational, non-delusional people do need to be convinced not to cut open their own children.

But I think you will find that a lot of people in the region and of various religions also commit female genital mutilation, for example, Copts in Egypt and the Jewish sect in Ethiopia.

 

[Craig B]

It's worry that he had to go through all of that to stop people cutting off their daughter's genitalia because some imaginary skydaddy told them through his imaginary, and possibly delusional 'prophet'.

Rational, non-delusional people do need to be convinced not to cut open their own children.

It seems to have originated as a custom in ancient pagan societies in East Africa, and like many such practices, found its way into the Judaism, Christianity and Islam which later penetrated the area. Its occurrence in Islam is as well known as it is deplorable, but we read that

... FGM has been practised by the Christian Copts in Egypt and Sudan, and by the Beta Israel of Ethiopia, the only Jewish group known to have practised it. Judaism requires male circumcision, but does not allow FGM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation#Origins_in_Africa
I don't think it comes from Muhammad, although many odd things did. The Hadith are utterly undependable as a source of information about the prophet's sayings, and there is nothing about FGM in the Quran, as far as I know. I think the practice has declined or even more or less disappeared from East African Judaism and Christianity, probably through propaganda within their communities of the kind discussed here as regards Islam, but I have no certain information on this.

 

[Ian Osborne]

I very much take Dawkins' point as a valid one. But there is one consideration he's missed. Thank Heaven, nowadays racism is unacceptable in polite society. People who wish to continue being racists therefore often find excuses or proxies for racism. Because, at least here in the UK, most Muslims are recent immigrants or close descendants of immigrants of darker pigmentation, opposition to Islam is often used as such a proxy, precisely because being opposed to a particular, or any, religious belief is perfectly in order. The liberal intelligentsia, being liberal and intelligent, is aware of this, and suspects that it may frequently be a motive in criticism of Islam - read Muslims - which it encounters. And it is not rarely right, though in particular cases it may be wrong.

This is the point I was going to make - genuine racists often cover their anti-muslim or anti-immigrant agenda with a thin veneer of criticism of Islam. When Nick Griffin appeared on BBC Question Time, he made several arguments against Islam that any critical thinking liberals could endorse, though they might be reluctant to do so for fear of associating with the far right. And as moogspaceport says, legitimate criticisms of Islam are sometimes deflected with the accusation of racism too.