The world has been living side by side with terror for hundreds of years. Even though actions may differ from country to country, all terrorist organizations aim at defenseless civilians and send their messages by way of these people.In the terrorist attack in Oklahoma in the USA 167 people were savagely slaughtered, 19 of them children. A fanatical Jew who opened a hail of fire on Muslims praying in a mosque in Palestine caused the deaths of 29 people. Thousands of people have lost their lives in attacks against Muslims in India over the years.
Terrorist attacks both great and small have for years been perpetrated in France, Spain, the Philippines, Japan and Ireland.
One could go on. However, the entire world came face to face with terror in 2001. In the wake of the attacks against two major cities in the USA which led to the deaths and injuries of thousands of people, the concept of “terrorism” began to be debated once again. That was because that attack had been carried out at an unexpected time, against a country regarded as the world’s only superpower, and in a totally unforeseen manner. The attack created an air of fear and panic all over the world, especially in America.
Following the attacks, the USA embarked on a major fight against terror. Many countries have lined up alongside America in this struggle, and lent their support to it. The series of bombings in Istanbul, just when it was thought that the forces of terror had been brought under control, again reminded people of terrorism’s dark face: first synagogues, then the British Consulate, then the HSBC General Directorate building …
The Saturday prayer, which had been performed for centuries, was interrupted by the bombs exploded on November 15th. Twenty-four people were killed in the explosions at the Neva Shalom synagogue at Beyoglu Kuledibi and the Beth Israel synagogue at Sisli, and 300 were injured. Dozens of more people lost their lives in the explosions at the British Consulate and the HSBC building, and hundreds were injured. Images similar to those which followed the September 11 attacks began appearing on our television screens. Ruined buildings, people fleeing in panic, burned out busses, corpses lying in the streets …
The point we wish to emphasize in this article is the Islamic perspective on terror attacks and the killing of the innocent. All forms of terrorist attack are roundly condemned in Islam. According to the Qur'an, it is a great sin to kill an innocent person, and anyone who does so will suffer great torment in the Hereafter:
… If someone kills another person—unless it is in retaliation for someone else or for causing corruption in the earth—it is as if he had murdered all mankind. And if anyone gives life to another person, it is as if he had given life to all mankind. Our Messengers came to them with Clear Signs, but even after that, many of them committed outrages in the earth. (Qur’an, 5:32)
This verse equals the killing of one innocent to slaughtering all of humanity! Another verse expresses the importance that the faithful attach to life:
Those who do not appeal to any other deity besides God [alone]; nor kill any soul whom God has forbidden [them to] except with the right to do so; nor fornicate. Anyone who does so will incur a penalty. (Qur’an, 25:68)
In yet another verse, God issues the following commandment:
Say: "Come, and I will recite to you what your Lord has forbidden for you": that you do not associate anything with Him; that you are good to your parents; that you do not kill your children because of poverty—We will provide for you and them; that you do not approach indecency—outward or inward; that you do not kill any person God has made inviolate—except with the right to do so. That is what He instructs you to do, so that hopefully, you will use your intellect. (Qur’an, 6:151)
Any Muslim who believes in God with a sincere heart, who scrupulously abides by His verses and fears suffering in the Hereafter, will avoid harming even one other person. He knows that the Lord of Infinite Justice will suitably reward him for all his deeds. In one of the hadiths, our Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) listed the kinds of people who are not pleasing to God:
"Those who act cruelly and unjustly in the sacred lands, those who yearn for the ways of the ignorant, and those who wrongly shed human blood." (Sahih Bukhari Hadith)
Another element we wish to concentrate on is the attack on devout Turkish Jews worshipping in their synagogues. Churches, synagogues and mosques are houses for the worship of God. It is a terrible crime in the sight of God to slaughter innocent people as they worship in their churches, synagogues or mosques. These are houses where the name of God is remembered, praised and recited. In the Qur’an, , God reveals that:
… God guides to His Light whoever He wills and God makes metaphors for mankind and God has knowledge of all things. In houses which God has permitted to be built and in which His name is remembered, there are men who proclaim His glory morning and evening. (Qur’an, 24:35-36)
The people who go to those places are devout, prayerful people. All houses where the name of God is remembered are sacred in the eyes of Islam. Visitors to these houses may be Jews, Christians or Muslims. The important thing is that each one is a devout believer in God. A Muslim must respect and protect the holy places where the People of the Book worship God, and protect them. For Muslims, these places are precious because in these places, people, whether Jews or Christians, remember God. In the Qur'an, the places of worship of the People of the Book, ie. monasteries, churches and synagogues, are mentioned as places of worship protected by God.
…[I]f God had not driven some people back by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques, where God's name is mentioned much, would have been pulled down and destroyed. God will certainly help those who help Him—God is All-Strong, Almighty. (Qur'an, 22:40)
As a manifestation of his loyalty to God's commands, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was most careful not to destroy the holy places of the People of the Book. Such destruction means, in the first place, opposing God's commands. This aside, it means preventing people who have faith in God worshipping Him. Indeed, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) promised the Christians, who were the other party to a peace agreement he made, that their churches would not be destroyed and that they would never be harmed. The tax (Jizya) agreements he made with Christians also guaranteed the safety of churches.
The first agreement made after the death of the Prophet (pbuh) that guaranteed the protection of the temples was a tax agreement Khalid bin al-Waleed signed with the leader of the city of Anat. Ibn Ishaq stated that those agreements made by Khalid bin al-Waleed were also approved by Abu Bakr and the three caliphs following him. (1) This aside, Abu Bakr offered the same guarantees that had been offered to the people of Najran by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
The Islamic societies that abided by Islamic morality after the death of the Prophet (pbuh) also paid special attention to this issue. Muslim leaders who adhered to the Qur'an and the Sunnah (the sayings and doings of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)) respected the places of worship of non-Muslims in conquered countries and showed great tolerance to the clergy.
Terror Will Disappear When People Come to Live by the Moral Values of Islam
In the Qur'an (32:9), God reveals that He has breathed His Spirit into man, His creation, and that man is His representative on Earth (Qur'an, 6:165). One of the most important differences between man and the animals is that man was created with both earthly desires and with a conscience. Every person possesses desires that incite him to evil, along with a conscience that inspires him to avoid it. Alongside such pleasing attributes inspired by that conscience—love, sacrifice, compassion, humility, affection, honesty, loyalty and kindness—he also possesses destructive and undesirable tendencies, stemming from his earthly desires. Thanks to his conscience, however, the believer can distinguish between right and wrong and opt for what is morally right. Strong belief in and fear of God, faith in the Hereafter, powerful fear of the endless torments of Hell and a yearning for Paradise all keep the temptations of his earthly desires at bay. Therefore, he always behaves well towards people, is forgiving, responds to wickedness with good, assists those in need, and shows compassion, love, affection and tolerance.
Terrorists, on the other hand, listen to their earthly desire for violence instead of their consciences, and can easily turn to all forms of wickedness. They become loveless, aggressive people who easily hurt others without the slightest pang of conscience. Having no fear of God, they do not know the morality of religion, nor do they practice it. Nothing can stop them from committing crimes.
In restraining its citizens, society's prevailing rules can go only so far. Thanks to its law enforcement units, the state may be able to partially protect streets and public spaces, and thanks to a powerful system of justice may be able to take necessary means to ensure public order and ensure that the crime rate drops. But since it's impossible to keep watch on every individual, 24 hours a day, it's essential that peoples' consciences enter the equation at some stage. Someone who doesn't heed the voice of his conscience can easily turn to crime when on his own, or surrounded by people of like mind. That being the case, a model of society emerges which is composed of individuals who lie when necessary, have no hesitation about making unjust profits, and feel no unease about oppressing the weak. It is clear that physical precautions and measures will bear no fruit in a society which has no fear of God and which has lost its spiritual values. Religious moral values, on the other hand, command a person to refrain from evil, even if he is all alone, even if nobody will punish him for his evil deeds. It is evident that a person who knows that he will be called to account in the presence of God for his every deed, his every decision and his every word, and that he will be suitably rewarded for these in the eternal life of the Hereafter, will scrupulously avoid committing evil.
Terrorist organizations can't possibly have any place in a society whose people avoid evil of their own free will. Where religion's morality prevails, problems that give rise to organizations supporting the use of violence will disappear naturally. If the whole society possesses superior virtues like honesty, sacrifice, love and justice, there can be no place for such things as poverty, unequal distribution of income, injustice, the oppression of the weak, or limitations on freedoms. On the contrary, a social order will emerge that meets the wants of the needy; where the wealthy protect the poor and the strong, the weak; where everyone can enjoy the very best health care, education, and transport systems. There, tolerance and understanding will dominate the relationships between different ethnic groups, religions and cultures.
For these reasons, proper morality is the key to solving so many social problems. The source of that key, in turn, is the Qur'an, which God has revealed as a guide for mankind.
It must not be forgotten that unless necessary measures are taken, unless deep-rooted solutions are brought in, the 21st century will continue to be a time of terror and violence, just as the 20th was before it. The homes of innocent people will be bombed, and women and children will be slaughtered. The ideological fight against terrorism, therefore, must be started with great urgency, to include very great numbers of people. This fight will be fought on the level of ideas—between people who believe in God, who are loving, forgiving, compassionate and in full possession of their conscience; and those who draw their strength from ignorance and violence. In one verse, our Lord reveals, " Why were there not people with good sense among the generations of those who came before you, who forbade corruption in the earth…" (Qur’an, 11:116). Believers should possess the virtue that God describes in that verse. While terrorists hope to achieve their aims by violence, believers know that true success can be achieved only by clinging tightly to the religion of God, and acting accordingly. Jews, Christians, and Muslims will join together in that struggle, in a spirit of respect for all beliefs and ideas and, by the will of God, enjoy definitive success. This is God’s promise to all His believing servants, which will definitely come true.
At this point, a great responsibility falls on all true believers, no matter what their religion. Jews must not ignore Old Testament statements calling mankind to peace and tolerance, and they must call on all other Jews to oppose terrorism . So should Christians call on all other Christians, taking as their guide the morality most pleasing to God. One should not forget that terrorism stems from wrong ideas and the basic struggle against terrorism should be on the level of ideas. Believers must explain that these ideas are wrong, and that no idea can prevail by means of violence, oppression and cruelty; and despotism can never bring about beauty.
Terrorist ideology is built on sand. Its foundations can easily be swept away by mobilizing a proper education campaign. Sincere believers in all parts of the world can help end the ignorance that breeds terrorism by searching for solutions, writing books and articles, promoting educational activities and disseminating their own cultural heritage. The prevalence of tolerance, peace and security on the Earth, as commanded by God, will make terrorism disappear into the pages of history forever. Adopting a defeatist, pessimistic attitude in the face of terror is unacceptable. Our hope is that this suffering will not be repeated, and that all measures will be adopted to that end.
May God have mercy on those who died in those hateful attacks, and may He heal the injured. Our sincere condolences to all mankind. (For detailed information, please see Islam Denounces Terrorism and Only Love Can Defeat Terrorism by Harun Yahya)
NOTES:
(1) Levent Ozturk, Asr-i Saadetten Hacli Seferlerine Kadar Islam Toplumunda Hıristiyanlar (Christians in the Islamic Society From the Blessed Period to the Crusades), Iz Yayincilik, Istanbul, 1998, p. 111.
ARticle taken from www.islamdenouncesterrorism.com
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Monday, September 25, 2006
Learning from a girl named Nazira
Learning from a girl named Nazira
By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - Leaders and masses of the Muslim and Christian world should take a deep breath. It is unacceptable that so much controversy, bad feelings, insult and violence should erupt after the speech of Pope Benedict XVI given at the University of Regensburg on September 12 in Germany.
The pope infuriated the Muslim world by quoting the Byzantine
Emperor Manuel II telling a Persian intellectual in 1391: "Show me just what Mohammed [the Prophet of Islam] brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he has preached." The pope did not say that he agreed with these words.
Nevertheless the damage was done and, regardless of intentions, violence and anti-Christian feeling immediately soared throughout the Muslim world. One phrase from Benedict's lecture that was completely ignored by the mass media was: "The emperor must have known that Sura 2:256 [of the Koran] reads: 'There is no compulsion in religion.'" True, that is what Muslims believe, and Benedict XVI did not fail to point to it.
To give him the benefit of the doubt, one can say that he wanted to show how just Islam was during its birth, as opposed to the Islamic fanatics who have distorted Islam and waged senseless war in its name. By quoting the emperor, he might have wanted to show how ignorant the leaders of Byzantium were of the flourishing Muslim faith in Arabia. But that's certainly not how Muslims explained his remarks.
The pope has since apologized twice. On Sunday, he said: "At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. There in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought."
But regardless of intentions and in light of his apology, let us stop for a moment to think objectively of all that is happening and being said in the Muslim and Christian worlds. The pope was quoting a Byzantine emperor speaking to an unnamed Persian intellectual, taken from an obscure document, 615 years ago, in 1391. It is unbelievable that we still have the energy to dig up these ancient arguments, use them to arouse emotions, riot like madmen, and foster hatred in both communities. It is equally repugnant that the pope would make such a miscalculated remark, knowing perfectly well how much disgust it would cause in Muslim communities around the world.
Equally guilty, however, are the Muslim leaders who responded to his remarks with church attacks and violent rallies around the world. God created the human mind to debate, study, analyze and explain. Isn't it the duty of Muslims, after all, to educate non-Muslims on the true nature of the religion of Mohammed? If the pope was misinformed, then Muslims are responsible for not explaining the true nature of their faith to the world, or marketing its true values. They are to blame for letting terrorists like Osama bin Laden hijack Islam and ruin its name.
This same pope, struggling to fit into the oversized shoes of his predecessor John Paul II, had condemned the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed earlier in the year, saying: "In the international context we are living at present, the Catholic Church continues convinced that, to foster peace and understanding between people and men, it is necessary and urgent that religions and their symbols be respected." He added, "Believers should be the object of provocations that wound their lives and religious sentiments." He also said, "For believers, as for all people of goodwill, the only path that can lead to peace and fraternity is respect for the convictions and religious practices of others."
He has also called on Christians "to open their arms and hearts" to Muslim immigrants and to dialogue on religious issues. He added that the Church's "inter-religious dialogue is a part of its commitment to the service of humanity in the modern world". He described this dialogue as "important and delicate". The pope has called for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and on July 14, the Vatican condemned Israel's attack on Lebanon.
Oriana Fallaci: No apology
For all of the reasons mentioned above, I would like to believe that the pope's insult was an unintentional mistake that will not be repeated. And for this reason, I want to forgive him. More dangerous than what the pope is saying, however, is the eulogy being made in the Western press to Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who died last week in Florence.
A rude woman by all accounts, Fallaci once interviewed ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini shortly after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in February 1979. She was annoyed by him forcing her to cover her head with a chador, as is common in Islamic tradition when meeting with a Muslim cleric. Provoking him with sensitive questions about politics and religion, she then famously asked: "How do you swim in a chador?" An infuriated Khomeini snapped back: "Our customs are none of your business. If you do not like Islamic dress you are not obliged to wear it." She said: "That's very kind of you, Imam. And since you said so, I am going to take off this stupid, medieval rag right now."
The pope apologized for his mistake. He said he had not intended to offend the Muslims. Fallaci did not apologize. She died happy that she had been offending Muslims and insulting them for 30 years. And in bidding her farewell, the Western world is hailing her as a symbol of freedom of speech.
Fallaci wrote several books about Islam after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Among other things, she wrote that when occupying the Abbey of Montecassino in Italy in AD 883, "the Muslims amused themselves by sacrificing each night the virginity of a nun. Do you know where? On the altar of a cathedral." Her quotes are not footnoted, casting doubt on her seriousness in documentation. When the Muslims took Constantinople in 1453, she added, they "decapitated even newborns and extinguished candles in their little heads". She also wrote of "the dream that the sons of Allah have been nurturing for years, the dream of blowing up Giotto's Tower or the Tower of Pisa or the cupola of St Peter's or the Eiffel Tower or Westminster Abbey".
When terrorists using the name of Islam strike the heart of New York, or detonate bombs in the London Underground, this makes it more difficult to defend the Muslims against Fallaci, since she attributes these acts to all Muslims, and not the few who are fanatics. All her remarks, which have resurfaced in the past week on websites and editorials, show a grand hatred for Muslims.
One of the famous ones was: "Islamic racism that is the hatred of the infidel dogs reigns supreme and is never put on trial, never punished." She added that Muslims think "that biology is a shameless science because it is occupied with the human body and sex". Fallaci also said: "Muslims have killed 6,000 people to the glory of the Koran, in obedience to its verses." She said Muslims placed Jesus of Nazareth, whom she calls "our Jesus", in an Islamic paradise "where he drinks like a drunkard, screws like a sexual maniac". She said Muslims have "urinated on their monuments [in Italy] or soil the sacristies of their churches or toss their crucifixes out the window of a hospital".
Fallaci famously concluded: "Despite the massacres through which the sons of Allah have bloodied us and bloodied themselves for over 30 years, the war that Islam has declared against the West is a cultural war. They kill us in order to bend us, to intimidate us. Their goal is not to fill cemeteries, not to destroy skyscrapers. It is to destroy our soul, our ideas, our feelings and our dreams."
The remarks of Fallaci and the statements of the pope raise a million questions on who started this war with the Muslims. Was it the Muslims who declared war on the West, or the other way around? And it raises other questions on where the lines of free speech fall in the Western world. If we tolerate Benedict XVI, do we accept the rude and insulting remarks of Fallaci as balanced journalism? As far as the Muslim and Arab worlds are concerned, the answer to Fallaci is a certain "no". The status of the pope is debatable and up to each Muslim to decide, taking into account that he has apologized. And if we were to accept the Danish cartoons against the Prophet Mohammed, topped with Fallaci and Benedict XVI - or should we say Manuel II - then why does freedom of speech change from one subject to another?
The unthinkable thoughts of David Irving
I cite the example of David Irving, the famous British historian who is currently in jail for his views on the Holocaust. His 1977 book Hitler's War was the first of his two-part biography of Adolf Hitler. In it he described World War II from Hitler's point of view - a taboo throughout most of the Western world. Irving showed that Hitler was a rational, intelligent leader and human being whose main motivation was to increase the prosperity of Germany. It was British prime minister Winston Churchill who escalated the war after coming to power, stated Irving, not Hitler.
Irving did not deny the Holocaust but said Hitler did not order it or know of it, enraging the Jewish community around the world. Irving attributed the Holocaust to Hitler's right-hand man Heinrich Himmler.
Irving controversially remarked: "There were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. It makes no sense to transport people from Amsterdam, Vienna, and Brussels 500 kilometers to Auschwitz simply to liquidate them [when] it can be done 8 kilometers from the city where they live." The historian challenged any person to come up with an authentic written order by Hitler for the Holocaust.
Irving then wrote The War Path in 1978, with similar views on World War II. In 1987 he wrote a very ugly biography of Churchill, showing him as an alcoholic who sold out the British Empire and blamed him for "turning Britain against its natural ally, Germany".
By the 1980s, Irving was banned from entering Austria. In the 1990s he was banned from entering Germany as well. The same applied to South Africa, Australia, and Canada in 1992. In September 2004, New Zealand declared that he would not be allowed to enter the country to give lectures at the National Press Club. He defied the ban and tried to go but was arrested in Austria. In court he tried to change discourse, but Austrian authorities did not believe him and at the time of writing he still languishes in jail. He had tried to revoke ideas he had promoted for years by saying: "The Nazis did murder millions of Jews. I made a mistake by saying there were no gas chambers, I am absolutely without doubt that the Holocaust took place. I apologize for those few I might have offended."
Learning from Syrian history
It is a funny world with funny double standards indeed. To make things easier for everybody - especially the oversensitive millions in all faiths - it is safe to say that critical issues such as the Holocaust become red lines that should not be crossed. In saying that, we can assume that Fallaci, Benedict and Irving all committed mistakes.
Offending others for the sake of free speech should not be tolerated. Yes, the Holocaust did happen, and it would be a crime to say that it did not. But my own word of advice to the Muslim community is to think big and avoid the trappings of critical articles, comments here and there, or cartoons. Islam is much greater than these small, really small, issues.
Seventy years ago, in April 1928, a 20-year-old girl named Nazira Zayn al-Din wrote a book called Unveiling and Veiling, saying she had read, understood and interpreted the Holy Koran. Therefore, she said, she had the authority and analytical skills to challenge the teachings of Islam's clerics, men who were far older and wiser than she. Her interpretation of Islam, she boldly said, was that the veil was un-Islamic. If a woman was forced to wear the veil by her father, husband or brother, Zayn al-Din argued, then she should take him to court. Other ideas presented by her were that men and woman should mix socially because this develops moral progress, and that both sexes should be educated in the same classrooms. Men and women, she said, should equally be able to hold public office and vote in government elections.
They must be free to study the Koran themselves, and it should not be dictated on them by an oppressive older generation of clerics, she said. Finally, Zayn al-Din compared the "veiled" Muslim world to the "unveiled" one, saying the unveiled one was better because reason reigned, rather than religion.
Her book caused a thunderstorm in Syria and Lebanon. It was the most outrageous assault on traditional Islam, coming from Zayn al-Din, who was a Druze. The book went into a second edition within two months, and was translated into several languages. Great men from Islam, including the muftis of Beirut and Damascus, wrote against her, arguing that she did not have the authority to speak on Islam and dismiss the veil as un-Islamic. Nobody, however, accused her of treason or blasphemy. They accused her of bad vision resulting from bad Islamic education.
Some clerics banned her book. Some, however, such as the Syrian scholar Mohammad Kurd Ali, actually embraced it, buying 20 copies for the Arab Language Assembly and writing a favorable review.
But despite the uproar, which lasted for two years, the Syrians and the Muslim establishments did not let the issue get out of hand. They did not lead street demonstrations for weeks, as if the Muslim world had no other concern than Nazira Zayn al-Din. Zayn al-Din was still free to roam the streets of Syria and Lebanon, without being harassed or killed by those who hated her views. The leaders of Islam in 1927-30 were by far too busy to occupy themselves, and the Muslim community at large, with the ideas of a 20-year-old girl. They had to attend to their mosques, run their charity organizations, answer theological questions, cater to Muslim education, lead political issues, and fight the French.
Why, then, have the leaders of today's world abandoned every problem in the Muslim world to concentrate on the silly cartoons published in a Danish newspaper? Or to inject life into the statements of Manuel II? Yes, the cartoons were very wrong and very insulting, and yes, the pope committed a grand error by repeating what the Byzantine emperor had said. But as well, Muslims should have shown solidarity on other more important issues, such as Israel's digging beneath the al-Aqsa Mosque, invading Beirut in 1982, bombing Ramallah, massacring innocents in Jenin and Rafah, and building the Separation Barrier. More recently they should have united on the destruction of Lebanon.
The death of Palestinians is certainly more important to Muslims (or should be) than what an obscure Danish newspaper publishes, or the views of an until-now-unknown script by a forgotten Byzantine emperor. I am not saying that one should ignore the cartoons and the pope, but rather that one should only give them the attention they deserve, with no exaggerations, and concentrate on more concrete issues relating to the Arab and Muslim worlds.
The Prophet is one of the greatest names in history. He is too great to be affected by these ugly cartoons or the remarks of the pope. To quote Lawrence of Arabia, it is time for us to stop acting like a small people, a silly people, and start living up to our duties before history and mankind. After all, we have not contributed anything to human progress in the past 500 years. We should write and promote our history, then concentrate on science, arts, literature, and freedom of the mind. We should learn to talk to, rather than demonstrate against, those who think and act differently, and those who wrong us.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - Leaders and masses of the Muslim and Christian world should take a deep breath. It is unacceptable that so much controversy, bad feelings, insult and violence should erupt after the speech of Pope Benedict XVI given at the University of Regensburg on September 12 in Germany.
The pope infuriated the Muslim world by quoting the Byzantine
Emperor Manuel II telling a Persian intellectual in 1391: "Show me just what Mohammed [the Prophet of Islam] brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he has preached." The pope did not say that he agreed with these words.
Nevertheless the damage was done and, regardless of intentions, violence and anti-Christian feeling immediately soared throughout the Muslim world. One phrase from Benedict's lecture that was completely ignored by the mass media was: "The emperor must have known that Sura 2:256 [of the Koran] reads: 'There is no compulsion in religion.'" True, that is what Muslims believe, and Benedict XVI did not fail to point to it.
To give him the benefit of the doubt, one can say that he wanted to show how just Islam was during its birth, as opposed to the Islamic fanatics who have distorted Islam and waged senseless war in its name. By quoting the emperor, he might have wanted to show how ignorant the leaders of Byzantium were of the flourishing Muslim faith in Arabia. But that's certainly not how Muslims explained his remarks.
The pope has since apologized twice. On Sunday, he said: "At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. There in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought."
But regardless of intentions and in light of his apology, let us stop for a moment to think objectively of all that is happening and being said in the Muslim and Christian worlds. The pope was quoting a Byzantine emperor speaking to an unnamed Persian intellectual, taken from an obscure document, 615 years ago, in 1391. It is unbelievable that we still have the energy to dig up these ancient arguments, use them to arouse emotions, riot like madmen, and foster hatred in both communities. It is equally repugnant that the pope would make such a miscalculated remark, knowing perfectly well how much disgust it would cause in Muslim communities around the world.
Equally guilty, however, are the Muslim leaders who responded to his remarks with church attacks and violent rallies around the world. God created the human mind to debate, study, analyze and explain. Isn't it the duty of Muslims, after all, to educate non-Muslims on the true nature of the religion of Mohammed? If the pope was misinformed, then Muslims are responsible for not explaining the true nature of their faith to the world, or marketing its true values. They are to blame for letting terrorists like Osama bin Laden hijack Islam and ruin its name.
This same pope, struggling to fit into the oversized shoes of his predecessor John Paul II, had condemned the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed earlier in the year, saying: "In the international context we are living at present, the Catholic Church continues convinced that, to foster peace and understanding between people and men, it is necessary and urgent that religions and their symbols be respected." He added, "Believers should be the object of provocations that wound their lives and religious sentiments." He also said, "For believers, as for all people of goodwill, the only path that can lead to peace and fraternity is respect for the convictions and religious practices of others."
He has also called on Christians "to open their arms and hearts" to Muslim immigrants and to dialogue on religious issues. He added that the Church's "inter-religious dialogue is a part of its commitment to the service of humanity in the modern world". He described this dialogue as "important and delicate". The pope has called for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and on July 14, the Vatican condemned Israel's attack on Lebanon.
Oriana Fallaci: No apology
For all of the reasons mentioned above, I would like to believe that the pope's insult was an unintentional mistake that will not be repeated. And for this reason, I want to forgive him. More dangerous than what the pope is saying, however, is the eulogy being made in the Western press to Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who died last week in Florence.
A rude woman by all accounts, Fallaci once interviewed ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini shortly after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in February 1979. She was annoyed by him forcing her to cover her head with a chador, as is common in Islamic tradition when meeting with a Muslim cleric. Provoking him with sensitive questions about politics and religion, she then famously asked: "How do you swim in a chador?" An infuriated Khomeini snapped back: "Our customs are none of your business. If you do not like Islamic dress you are not obliged to wear it." She said: "That's very kind of you, Imam. And since you said so, I am going to take off this stupid, medieval rag right now."
The pope apologized for his mistake. He said he had not intended to offend the Muslims. Fallaci did not apologize. She died happy that she had been offending Muslims and insulting them for 30 years. And in bidding her farewell, the Western world is hailing her as a symbol of freedom of speech.
Fallaci wrote several books about Islam after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Among other things, she wrote that when occupying the Abbey of Montecassino in Italy in AD 883, "the Muslims amused themselves by sacrificing each night the virginity of a nun. Do you know where? On the altar of a cathedral." Her quotes are not footnoted, casting doubt on her seriousness in documentation. When the Muslims took Constantinople in 1453, she added, they "decapitated even newborns and extinguished candles in their little heads". She also wrote of "the dream that the sons of Allah have been nurturing for years, the dream of blowing up Giotto's Tower or the Tower of Pisa or the cupola of St Peter's or the Eiffel Tower or Westminster Abbey".
When terrorists using the name of Islam strike the heart of New York, or detonate bombs in the London Underground, this makes it more difficult to defend the Muslims against Fallaci, since she attributes these acts to all Muslims, and not the few who are fanatics. All her remarks, which have resurfaced in the past week on websites and editorials, show a grand hatred for Muslims.
One of the famous ones was: "Islamic racism that is the hatred of the infidel dogs reigns supreme and is never put on trial, never punished." She added that Muslims think "that biology is a shameless science because it is occupied with the human body and sex". Fallaci also said: "Muslims have killed 6,000 people to the glory of the Koran, in obedience to its verses." She said Muslims placed Jesus of Nazareth, whom she calls "our Jesus", in an Islamic paradise "where he drinks like a drunkard, screws like a sexual maniac". She said Muslims have "urinated on their monuments [in Italy] or soil the sacristies of their churches or toss their crucifixes out the window of a hospital".
Fallaci famously concluded: "Despite the massacres through which the sons of Allah have bloodied us and bloodied themselves for over 30 years, the war that Islam has declared against the West is a cultural war. They kill us in order to bend us, to intimidate us. Their goal is not to fill cemeteries, not to destroy skyscrapers. It is to destroy our soul, our ideas, our feelings and our dreams."
The remarks of Fallaci and the statements of the pope raise a million questions on who started this war with the Muslims. Was it the Muslims who declared war on the West, or the other way around? And it raises other questions on where the lines of free speech fall in the Western world. If we tolerate Benedict XVI, do we accept the rude and insulting remarks of Fallaci as balanced journalism? As far as the Muslim and Arab worlds are concerned, the answer to Fallaci is a certain "no". The status of the pope is debatable and up to each Muslim to decide, taking into account that he has apologized. And if we were to accept the Danish cartoons against the Prophet Mohammed, topped with Fallaci and Benedict XVI - or should we say Manuel II - then why does freedom of speech change from one subject to another?
The unthinkable thoughts of David Irving
I cite the example of David Irving, the famous British historian who is currently in jail for his views on the Holocaust. His 1977 book Hitler's War was the first of his two-part biography of Adolf Hitler. In it he described World War II from Hitler's point of view - a taboo throughout most of the Western world. Irving showed that Hitler was a rational, intelligent leader and human being whose main motivation was to increase the prosperity of Germany. It was British prime minister Winston Churchill who escalated the war after coming to power, stated Irving, not Hitler.
Irving did not deny the Holocaust but said Hitler did not order it or know of it, enraging the Jewish community around the world. Irving attributed the Holocaust to Hitler's right-hand man Heinrich Himmler.
Irving controversially remarked: "There were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. It makes no sense to transport people from Amsterdam, Vienna, and Brussels 500 kilometers to Auschwitz simply to liquidate them [when] it can be done 8 kilometers from the city where they live." The historian challenged any person to come up with an authentic written order by Hitler for the Holocaust.
Irving then wrote The War Path in 1978, with similar views on World War II. In 1987 he wrote a very ugly biography of Churchill, showing him as an alcoholic who sold out the British Empire and blamed him for "turning Britain against its natural ally, Germany".
By the 1980s, Irving was banned from entering Austria. In the 1990s he was banned from entering Germany as well. The same applied to South Africa, Australia, and Canada in 1992. In September 2004, New Zealand declared that he would not be allowed to enter the country to give lectures at the National Press Club. He defied the ban and tried to go but was arrested in Austria. In court he tried to change discourse, but Austrian authorities did not believe him and at the time of writing he still languishes in jail. He had tried to revoke ideas he had promoted for years by saying: "The Nazis did murder millions of Jews. I made a mistake by saying there were no gas chambers, I am absolutely without doubt that the Holocaust took place. I apologize for those few I might have offended."
Learning from Syrian history
It is a funny world with funny double standards indeed. To make things easier for everybody - especially the oversensitive millions in all faiths - it is safe to say that critical issues such as the Holocaust become red lines that should not be crossed. In saying that, we can assume that Fallaci, Benedict and Irving all committed mistakes.
Offending others for the sake of free speech should not be tolerated. Yes, the Holocaust did happen, and it would be a crime to say that it did not. But my own word of advice to the Muslim community is to think big and avoid the trappings of critical articles, comments here and there, or cartoons. Islam is much greater than these small, really small, issues.
Seventy years ago, in April 1928, a 20-year-old girl named Nazira Zayn al-Din wrote a book called Unveiling and Veiling, saying she had read, understood and interpreted the Holy Koran. Therefore, she said, she had the authority and analytical skills to challenge the teachings of Islam's clerics, men who were far older and wiser than she. Her interpretation of Islam, she boldly said, was that the veil was un-Islamic. If a woman was forced to wear the veil by her father, husband or brother, Zayn al-Din argued, then she should take him to court. Other ideas presented by her were that men and woman should mix socially because this develops moral progress, and that both sexes should be educated in the same classrooms. Men and women, she said, should equally be able to hold public office and vote in government elections.
They must be free to study the Koran themselves, and it should not be dictated on them by an oppressive older generation of clerics, she said. Finally, Zayn al-Din compared the "veiled" Muslim world to the "unveiled" one, saying the unveiled one was better because reason reigned, rather than religion.
Her book caused a thunderstorm in Syria and Lebanon. It was the most outrageous assault on traditional Islam, coming from Zayn al-Din, who was a Druze. The book went into a second edition within two months, and was translated into several languages. Great men from Islam, including the muftis of Beirut and Damascus, wrote against her, arguing that she did not have the authority to speak on Islam and dismiss the veil as un-Islamic. Nobody, however, accused her of treason or blasphemy. They accused her of bad vision resulting from bad Islamic education.
Some clerics banned her book. Some, however, such as the Syrian scholar Mohammad Kurd Ali, actually embraced it, buying 20 copies for the Arab Language Assembly and writing a favorable review.
But despite the uproar, which lasted for two years, the Syrians and the Muslim establishments did not let the issue get out of hand. They did not lead street demonstrations for weeks, as if the Muslim world had no other concern than Nazira Zayn al-Din. Zayn al-Din was still free to roam the streets of Syria and Lebanon, without being harassed or killed by those who hated her views. The leaders of Islam in 1927-30 were by far too busy to occupy themselves, and the Muslim community at large, with the ideas of a 20-year-old girl. They had to attend to their mosques, run their charity organizations, answer theological questions, cater to Muslim education, lead political issues, and fight the French.
Why, then, have the leaders of today's world abandoned every problem in the Muslim world to concentrate on the silly cartoons published in a Danish newspaper? Or to inject life into the statements of Manuel II? Yes, the cartoons were very wrong and very insulting, and yes, the pope committed a grand error by repeating what the Byzantine emperor had said. But as well, Muslims should have shown solidarity on other more important issues, such as Israel's digging beneath the al-Aqsa Mosque, invading Beirut in 1982, bombing Ramallah, massacring innocents in Jenin and Rafah, and building the Separation Barrier. More recently they should have united on the destruction of Lebanon.
The death of Palestinians is certainly more important to Muslims (or should be) than what an obscure Danish newspaper publishes, or the views of an until-now-unknown script by a forgotten Byzantine emperor. I am not saying that one should ignore the cartoons and the pope, but rather that one should only give them the attention they deserve, with no exaggerations, and concentrate on more concrete issues relating to the Arab and Muslim worlds.
The Prophet is one of the greatest names in history. He is too great to be affected by these ugly cartoons or the remarks of the pope. To quote Lawrence of Arabia, it is time for us to stop acting like a small people, a silly people, and start living up to our duties before history and mankind. After all, we have not contributed anything to human progress in the past 500 years. We should write and promote our history, then concentrate on science, arts, literature, and freedom of the mind. We should learn to talk to, rather than demonstrate against, those who think and act differently, and those who wrong us.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
Monday, September 18, 2006
What Can We learn From India
Forwarded by Hermawan Susanto <hermawans@...> Date: Sep 18, 2005 7:39 AM
To: ucckita@yahoogroups.com
Does the name Lakhsmi Mittal ring a bell? Well, maybe not (and never mind if it doesn't). First it is a he, not a she. Second, he is not a Bollywood movie star, though he is certainly a kind of star in his own league.
Forbes magazine has just crowned him as one of the richest persons in the world with an estimated wealth of US$25 billion, trailing behind the other two more familiar and already famous names, Warren Buffet in second place and Bill Gates in first. Mittal's story (he is the owner of the largest steel firm on the planet) marks one of the milestones of the rise of Indian entrepreneurs following the success of many Indian professionals in business around the world.
Consider Ajay Banja. He started his career in Nestle in India, where one of his jobs was getting up at 4 a.m. to collect milk from nearby dairy farms. Then he moved to PepsiCo's restaurant group and later on joined Citigroup in 1996. He was transferred to the United States in 2000 and became president of North America retail banking two years afterwards. Just recently, he was appointed as a co-director of the global retail banking group, together with Steven Freiberg; a position second only to the number one in Citigroup.
We have become used to seeing Indian faces occupying top jobs abroad. The sub-continent's executives, bankers, scientists, writers, journalists, thinkers, venture capitalists and even movie stars and cinematographers have been steadily gaining recognition around the world. Not to mention the massive numbers working in the Indian IT industry, which has become something of a trademark of the new India. The graduates of Indian institutes of technology (IIT) and their counterparts in the management field (IIM) never have to worry about getting jobs, but rather are more preoccupied with deciding on which job they will pick after they leave school.
The list of successes goes on, but what we need to immediately ask ourselves is what factors have made them successful and why Indonesia cannot do the same thing. Why? Are Indonesians not smart enough?
A tempting question, indeed. But unfortunately, it is at best irrelevant and at worst misleading. The main reason behind the success of Indian professionals and entrepreneurs is that they are more assertive, or talkative, than most other Asians.
This might be attributed to the language they speak (English), which leads, directly or indirectly, to greater self-confidence. People can easily ignore the importance of self-confidence and assertiveness, but these traits play significant roles outside of Indonesia.
Just like many Javanese still call every white foreigner a Londo (literally, a Dutchman), ignoring the fact that he may not even know where Holland is, it is also difficult for people from outside East Asia to tell the difference between, for instance, a Japanese and a Chinese. And being unassertive doesn't help. "Low profile, low profit, high profile, high profit"; that seems to be the rule in international competition. There is a fine line between keeping a low profile and humility, and failure to make a distinction between the two only leads to greater failure.
Thus, English language capabilities is certainly an important contributing factor. In retrospect, the economic and political development of some former British colonies has been dramatic, and they have managed to take their places among the middle- and upper-income bracket nations, like Singapore and Malaysia. Other former colonies and English-speaking countries like Australia, New Zealand and Ireland (the latter has consistently recorded the fastest growth in the European Union for almost the last two decades), have also performed very well.
The domination of English as the international language, thanks to the former British empire and current U.S. "empire", in the education, political, economic and cultural fields, has given an advantage to the workforces of these countries. Indonesia, which hastily and imprudently scrapped the Dutch language right after independence, and failed to replace it with English or even Arabic, has had to pay a hefty price. Being bilingual or multilingual has become a basic necessity if one wants to compete and there is no way around this.
Building image is the next big thing. When the top three images of Indonesia among people abroad are the tsunami, terrorism and corruption, it takes twice as much work to overhaul these impressions. Another example, Indonesia was in 4th place in terms of Erasmus Mundus scholarship recipients (nine scholars) in 2004, with India coming 6th (five scholars). While the number of recipients from Indonesia this year increased to 14 scholars, India jumped to the top of the table with 137 scholars, leaving Indonesia well behind in 14th place.
But one might ask how India can produce the third richest man on the planet while hundreds of millions out of its population of one billion still live in poverty? Or how in Bangalore, the center of the IT industry, poor parents have to bribe health workers with between $7 and $12 (equivalent to average weekly pay) before health workers will let them see their newborn children? How can these glaring contrasts be reconciled?
Well, first things first. We have millions of poor people ourselves, and, besides, they are working to solve the problem. Second, would it be better: a) to have millions of poor people and not have world class executives and entrepreneurs or b) to have millions of poor people but also have world class executives and entrepreneurs?
How long will we continue to allow the world to laugh at us, the fourth most populous country in the world? How come that when the world talks about "the new superpowers" from Asia, it always refers to China and India, the first and second most populous countries in the world, but never mentions Indonesia, the world's third most populous nation? It would appear that our two hundred and twenty million people are nothing more than empty numbers and statistics.
China , India and Indonesia all have the advantage of young populations. Japan and South Korea can now sniff trouble in the air as their populations age and are beginning to ask whether the next generation will be able to support the elderly when that time comes.
While aging populations are a big problem in developed countries, what is likely to happen in Indonesia? If the present younger generation is not equipped to get the economy moving, the future will be bleak: There will be simply no resources to sustain our current standard of living (which is already low) and to repay our debts. In short, we are talking about a failed nation.
We can avoid this tragedy by starting to learn from others. We often hear people saying we cannot learn from Singapore because it is just a small country. Others say we cannot learn from China or India because they are too big. Or that America is way too advanced to be copied. Hundreds of excuses can be made to allow us to put off learning from others, but what's the point? Criticising others does not make us a better nation. Unless we work as hard as they do, we will end up on the road to nowhere.
With regard to bilingual education in Indonesia, some experts have been debating the initiatives taken by some schools, or lack thereof, as summarised by Pieter Van Der Vienhart (The myth of national plus schools in RI, The Jakarta Post, Sept. 3, 2005). To which we might want to recall the old adage, "If you wait for everything to be perfect, you will never get anything done."
The writer is a postgraduate student in sustainable resource management, Technical University of Munich. He can be reached at aziz9672@....
Does the name Lakhsmi Mittal ring a bell? Well, maybe not (and never mind if it doesn't). First it is a he, not a she. Second, he is not a Bollywood movie star, though he is certainly a kind of star in his own league.
Forbes magazine has just crowned him as one of the richest persons in the world with an estimated wealth of US$25 billion, trailing behind the other two more familiar and already famous names, Warren Buffet in second place and Bill Gates in first. Mittal's story (he is the owner of the largest steel firm on the planet) marks one of the milestones of the rise of Indian entrepreneurs following the success of many Indian professionals in business around the world.
Consider Ajay Banja. He started his career in Nestle in India, where one of his jobs was getting up at 4 a.m. to collect milk from nearby dairy farms. Then he moved to PepsiCo's restaurant group and later on joined Citigroup in 1996. He was transferred to the United States in 2000 and became president of North America retail banking two years afterwards. Just recently, he was appointed as a co-director of the global retail banking group, together with Steven Freiberg; a position second only to the number one in Citigroup.
We have become used to seeing Indian faces occupying top jobs abroad. The sub-continent's executives, bankers, scientists, writers, journalists, thinkers, venture capitalists and even movie stars and cinematographers have been steadily gaining recognition around the world. Not to mention the massive numbers working in the Indian IT industry, which has become something of a trademark of the new India. The graduates of Indian institutes of technology (IIT) and their counterparts in the management field (IIM) never have to worry about getting jobs, but rather are more preoccupied with deciding on which job they will pick after they leave school.
The list of successes goes on, but what we need to immediately ask ourselves is what factors have made them successful and why Indonesia cannot do the same thing. Why? Are Indonesians not smart enough?
A tempting question, indeed. But unfortunately, it is at best irrelevant and at worst misleading. The main reason behind the success of Indian professionals and entrepreneurs is that they are more assertive, or talkative, than most other Asians.
This might be attributed to the language they speak (English), which leads, directly or indirectly, to greater self-confidence. People can easily ignore the importance of self-confidence and assertiveness, but these traits play significant roles outside of Indonesia.
Just like many Javanese still call every white foreigner a Londo (literally, a Dutchman), ignoring the fact that he may not even know where Holland is, it is also difficult for people from outside East Asia to tell the difference between, for instance, a Japanese and a Chinese. And being unassertive doesn't help. "Low profile, low profit, high profile, high profit"; that seems to be the rule in international competition. There is a fine line between keeping a low profile and humility, and failure to make a distinction between the two only leads to greater failure.
Thus, English language capabilities is certainly an important contributing factor. In retrospect, the economic and political development of some former British colonies has been dramatic, and they have managed to take their places among the middle- and upper-income bracket nations, like Singapore and Malaysia. Other former colonies and English-speaking countries like Australia, New Zealand and Ireland (the latter has consistently recorded the fastest growth in the European Union for almost the last two decades), have also performed very well.
The domination of English as the international language, thanks to the former British empire and current U.S. "empire", in the education, political, economic and cultural fields, has given an advantage to the workforces of these countries. Indonesia, which hastily and imprudently scrapped the Dutch language right after independence, and failed to replace it with English or even Arabic, has had to pay a hefty price. Being bilingual or multilingual has become a basic necessity if one wants to compete and there is no way around this.
Building image is the next big thing. When the top three images of Indonesia among people abroad are the tsunami, terrorism and corruption, it takes twice as much work to overhaul these impressions. Another example, Indonesia was in 4th place in terms of Erasmus Mundus scholarship recipients (nine scholars) in 2004, with India coming 6th (five scholars). While the number of recipients from Indonesia this year increased to 14 scholars, India jumped to the top of the table with 137 scholars, leaving Indonesia well behind in 14th place.
But one might ask how India can produce the third richest man on the planet while hundreds of millions out of its population of one billion still live in poverty? Or how in Bangalore, the center of the IT industry, poor parents have to bribe health workers with between $7 and $12 (equivalent to average weekly pay) before health workers will let them see their newborn children? How can these glaring contrasts be reconciled?
Well, first things first. We have millions of poor people ourselves, and, besides, they are working to solve the problem. Second, would it be better: a) to have millions of poor people and not have world class executives and entrepreneurs or b) to have millions of poor people but also have world class executives and entrepreneurs?
How long will we continue to allow the world to laugh at us, the fourth most populous country in the world? How come that when the world talks about "the new superpowers" from Asia, it always refers to China and India, the first and second most populous countries in the world, but never mentions Indonesia, the world's third most populous nation? It would appear that our two hundred and twenty million people are nothing more than empty numbers and statistics.
China , India and Indonesia all have the advantage of young populations. Japan and South Korea can now sniff trouble in the air as their populations age and are beginning to ask whether the next generation will be able to support the elderly when that time comes.
While aging populations are a big problem in developed countries, what is likely to happen in Indonesia? If the present younger generation is not equipped to get the economy moving, the future will be bleak: There will be simply no resources to sustain our current standard of living (which is already low) and to repay our debts. In short, we are talking about a failed nation.
We can avoid this tragedy by starting to learn from others. We often hear people saying we cannot learn from Singapore because it is just a small country. Others say we cannot learn from China or India because they are too big. Or that America is way too advanced to be copied. Hundreds of excuses can be made to allow us to put off learning from others, but what's the point? Criticising others does not make us a better nation. Unless we work as hard as they do, we will end up on the road to nowhere.
With regard to bilingual education in Indonesia, some experts have been debating the initiatives taken by some schools, or lack thereof, as summarised by Pieter Van Der Vienhart (The myth of national plus schools in RI, The Jakarta Post, Sept. 3, 2005). To which we might want to recall the old adage, "If you wait for everything to be perfect, you will never get anything done."
The writer is a postgraduate student in sustainable resource management, Technical University of Munich. He can be reached at aziz9672@....
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