THE MODERATE MARTYR: A radically peaceful vision of Islam.
The New Yorker has one hell of an article that was posted on the 5th anniversary of 9/11. It’s about a person I have great respect for and admire greatly. It’s about one of my main political role models. It’s about the one and only Sudanese martyr Mahmoud Mohammed Taha. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an unbiased piece of journalism before. I, as a Sudanese political junkie can tell you that the writer, George Packer does an excellent job bringing all the different Sudanese views about Ustaz Taha and the criminals who executed him. The article describes the decay of my country under the Islamists who seized power and brought nothing but cruelty and corruption. It also talks about Prof. Abdullahi Ahmed an-Naim, who was a student of Ustaz Taha. Prof. Ahmed an-Naim fled to the United States after Ustaz Taha was executed. He’s now the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law. The picture above is of Ustaz Taha and the one below is Ahmed an-Naim’s.
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My father knew him very briefly back in the University of Khartoum. I would love to meet Prof. Ahmed an-Naim one day. I’m very sure we’ll have a pleasant conversation. I can relate to his experiences on so many levels and I can understand very well the mental debate he’s been through. I think I’ll be able to learn a lot from him. His books are great and I recommend reading some of them especially his translation of Ustaz Taha’s “The Second Message of Islam” which contains solutions to the ills and dilemmas of the Muslim world. I’m currently waiting for the latest book Prof. Ahmed an-Naim is working on. It’s entitled “The Future of Sharia”. The following is an excerpt from the New Yorker article.
Naim’s newest project, which he calls a work of advocacy more than of scholarship, is a manuscript called “The Future of Sharia.†Even before its English publication, he has begun to post it on the Web, translated into Persian, Urdu, Bengali, Turkish, Arabic, and Bahasa Indonesia. Its theme is more radical than anything he has written before; although it is based on his long devotion to Taha’s ideas, it goes beyond them and, according to some of Taha’s followers, leaves them behind. “The Future of Sharia†amounts to a kind of secularism: it proposes not a rigid separation of politics and religion, as in Turkey, but, rather, a scheme in which Islam informs political life but cannot be introduced into law by an appeal to any religious authority. Otherwise, Muslims would not be free. “I need a secular state to be a Muslim,†Naim said. “If I don’t have the freedom to disbelieve, I cannot believe.â€
His work is interesting and like Ustaz Taha’s work can provide the structural framework for a reformed Islamic political system fit for today’s modern times. Given that the appeal of secularism is not very strong in the Muslim world, these types of scholarly works are important because they provide solid alternatives better than the harsh backward Sharia we see being practiced today in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran. Even though I’ve embraced secularism, I myself continue to have mixed feelings about it. Truth be told, I like millions of other Muslims heavily dislike the “Amsterdam” aspects of Western secularism. My reasons are both religious and cultural. I however, recognize the practicality of secularism given the sad fact that most Muslims can’t agree absolutely on anything except the destruction of Israel. It is at this point that my mental sores start and it is also at this point that the work of people like Mahmoud Mohammed Taha and Prof. Ahmed an-Naim becomes of paramount importance. I believe the West must pay much more attention to their work and examine it criticaly without what I like to call “ethnocentric bias“.
Ahmed an-Naim is certainly a shining star amongst the many bright individuals in the Sudanese Diaspora which fled Sudan and ended up being welcomed by the hospitable West and the oil-rich Arab Gulf States. Please spare 10 minutes of your time to read this excellent article. You won’t regret it.
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Drima, my friend
, whom I’ll never meet off-line. I was thinking about your posting as I was walking back from Moss Burger to our home.
about Rome Ga.
So a little story
There in that town of about 6,000 people, when I was a youth, in the phone book were listings for about 60-70 churches, all protestant except 1 Catholic church, no synogogue, and unfortunately no mosque (wow that would have been something if Rome Georgia had a mosque in the 1960′s
Why so many? Why not more? For example from my original church, there was another, same name, much closer to our home. That church was all black. In another case when our old minister retired, a certain group could not accept the new minister, so they left and set up another church in another area of our town. So this accounts for 3 churches from one small group of people.
I used to think that at least churches were better than gas stations. Gas stations are generally ugly when there is one everywhere you look, they pollute the environment because ALL except the really expensive ones, their storage tanks leak gas into the surrounding ground. Churches don’t do that. They are pretty quit most of the time. Low pollution. However they do reveal a fundamental problem with Christianity as it is now, and with the followers of that Holy Book. They are disunited; and they can never unite again. Why? Because there is no one with the appointed authority that all of them owe allegiance (darn my English spelling is getting worse and worse) to. “Too many chiefs and not enough indians” as my bigoted grandmother used to say
Back to Sudan
The same is true with Islam, sad to say. The bright side is that at least people have the freedom to go off and form their own mosque if they disagree with the one they belong to. This is better than being stuck with some situation that is close minded or worse.
And there will always be good pure-hearted people who are trying to “work from within the system”. I dearly wish there were enough of these kinds of people Like Taha-”sama” and an-Naim-”sama” ( “sama” is Japanese for showing a higher level of respect than the English “Mr.”) with power in Egypt, and Iran. But from my experience, there is never enough to reform from within. This unfortunately is the way it is, the tree gets old eventually.
“Drima, my friend
, whom I’ll never meet off-line.”
Ah don’t assume that. You never know bro. We might actually meet ey?
“This unfortunately is the way it is, the tree gets old eventually.”
Honestly, I hate to believe that. Maybe the reformation won’t happen on a massive scale but I do believe that within the context of Sudanese society it will actually end up happening. One country at a time…
Ohayo gozaimashta… So how does it feel like being a black man in Japan?? I loved Shinshoji temple by the way… so peacefull… People are friendly but in a quite way.
Drima, bro. I am as white as a sickly tube of your favorite toothpaste, but I am getting a taste of what its like… to be on the outside..
I chose to come here. I wasn’t forced to leave the good ole USA, but, I wanted to test my spiritual muscles….and I wouldn’t like to see my score
if I didn’t.
So, this is a good experience, will make me stronger, I keep telling myself, but it builds up alot of tension and I have a really really tough time releasing it. I am sincerely religous but all the prayers and recently meditations I say still don’t work…well probably I would BE MUCH WORSE
My one of my 2closest spiritual buddies in the US spent 3 years teaching intro chemistry, math, etc. in Bophuthatswana Agricultural college in the 1980′s. I thought he was really cool. Maybe there were only 3 white guys in the whole area, him his roommate and an administrator/professor. I am sure he felt 10x lonlier than I am. For example he was single. Kind of depressing that my spiritual muscles are so so flabby.
So, I am a foreigner, and I always will be. I am an American, so my rank is up there. Small comfort when the neighbors don’t speak first after 10 years. I can go into Tokyo and dissolve into the crowds of tourist places. It would be the same if Keiko my wife, moved to my hometown or any place in the area back then.
Whenever I meet a black man I make sure to say or smile, because ……
See, this all about me complaining. This is one reason Alot of Americans shun one another here. They don’t want to hear the complaints they can’t do anything about.
I will never go back to the US unless something terrible happens. Why? Do I like being miserable? No, but I always hope I can become better, and that going back is not the quickest way to purify my soul.
Peace bro. and let’s pray for Mother Africa regardless of the religion..
Oh by the way, at least 3 reasons why I like to read your entries.
. Just like Iraq, blaming the folks who were already there for setting off storms of additional misery and ignoring any responsibility.
1) They are interesting.
2) In my religion, Africa is compared to the iris of the eye of mankind. Gotta love those irises
3) Africa is the mother of us all Europeans at least, Maybe there was another Mother in China? not sure. So we got to eventually take care of our Mother. She seemed strong enough, but her ungrateful brats came back didn’t help the situation much
Awwwww, EdoRiver I thought you’re African American from the stories you told. Sorry I assumed wrong.
Alright so you’re a religious/spiritual Christian white dude married to a Japenese living in Japan and teaching English there. Yaaay! I hope I got it correct.
Loved America by the way. Lovely people. Lovely country. Lovely music. Not so lovely president. Lovely food. Biased news. Lovely weather (not all, only Chicago and Portland Maine). Lovely TV shows (except for Maury and Jerry Spirnger)…
Cheers!
“If I don’t have the freedom to disbelieve, I cannot believe.â€
This is the key. This is why the observant women that I have met in Iran are so much more opposed to mandatory hejab than the less observant women.
Forcing belief creates a population of hypocrites.
Drima, It took me longer than 10 minutes…
“Why did the Sudanese state, the religious establishment, and the Islamist hard-liners consider the leader of such a small movement worth killing? Perhaps because, as Khalid el-Haj, a retired school administrator in Rufaa, who first met Taha in the early sixties, told me, “They are afraid of the ideas, not the numbers. They know that the ideas are from inside Islam and they cannot face it.â€
Exactly. This is the reason that Islam is reacting in the 21st century in the same way that happened in Christianity 550 years ago. However Islam is the more recent revelation! Quite ironic.
And now look what the traditional priesthood is doing to Islam — the same thing that was done in Christianity, as the scene in Da Vinci Code, the crowded smoke filled room of Bishops meeting in Nicea (is this spelled correctly?) deciding what should be in the Bible and what shouldn’t be…..
I believe that every one of the revelations mentioned in the Qur’an were capable as the perfect word of God, to unite the planet under their beliefs, but it didn’t happen. And it wasn’t the short comings of the Word. It is our fault
This is another point to tell Christians, the Bible is a collection of books, some in spiritually pure form and others..we don’t know what was done and we don’t know which ones were left alone in the New Testament. The Qur’an, at least came from the same Source.
However the priesthood of Islam is doing the same thing on Islam by imposing their interpretations of spiritual code into a social code for the 21st century. It won’t work. It hasn’t worked in the past with the other revelations.
So the result is as Esther says, hypocrites out of fear or hypocrites because they see the rotten underside.
An-Naim is doing his part to wake people up, and really it is like his own personal prayer. I doubt the religous orthodoxy in Egypt and Iran is going to crumble away…… any time soon. I would add that Israel is also contributing to this situation, and the US. We are all linked together…
Speaking of our linkage, Drima, I am partially black, in my ancestors, more or less everyone is..But I saw the spiritual power of the truly black Afro-American community when I was student traveling in the Southern US long ago. Of course that spiritual power has no color–but because they were black they received without choice the “recognition of the white community” Similar to what Taha is talking about within Islam or at least within the historical context of the Sudan of Taha’s time. The persecution will never eliminate the ideas, the honest questions that God has commanded us to pursue….even if it takes 10,000 years.
So do I wish I were black? Good question. Being black in Japan or the US is like God offering a cup. Because it is from God, one who wishes, strongly wishes to take that cup and drink. But as one looks into the imagination of what drinking that cup would mean…………….
I am reminded of something a famous Persian mystic poem, I forgot the name,
“Love seizeth not upon a living soul
The falcon preyeth not upon a dead mouse.”
Meaning the way toward true spiritual life, is a kind of death to this world, the cup that God offers is not pretty, is not without sacrifice. God is the falcon here. and the falcon’s talons are razor sharp and rip the flesh…to the extent we are attached to the material world. I am pretty attached…this is one reason (among many) that I am suffering here in such a benign country as Japan. Heaven help me if I were in…? (Iran???
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