Anti-Asian vs anti-Muslim hatred: The Rafiq case
I’d like to point out that this article desperately simplifies a multifaceted issue with intricacies that require unpicking. I envisage many ‘buts’ with rebuttals and counter-arguments. Here I’m simply attempting to start the conversation on anti-Asian vs anti-Muslim hatred. Before I do so, a few important points:
A thought on intelligence and the faithful
It’s hard to keep track of time these days but we know we’re getting older. So are the kids. Despite being young our generation will soon be gone and the future will be theirs. But what future are we passing on? What kind of existence are believers living today? What have we fallen into? It’s not a matter of ‘catching up’ but being ahead, exuding confidence in what is actually superior (rather than misplaced confidence in the absurd), and with agility staying ahead of the curb. The Quranic sabiqun (see 56:10) engender this: those at the forefront driven by their imaan (affirmation and sense of trust in God) and high achievers in whatever they do, as God wills. “They are the closest (to God.)” (56:11)
But this is not what people are commonly taught is from God.
We’re frequently told that God put us on earth, only for the akhirah (afterlife). This idea is then commonly presented in a way that suggests people need not concern themselves about life on earth. Or their happiness. Or their worldly productivity. Material acquisition is pointless because life is just momentary, wealth is distracting, “You’ll be rich in Jannah”. Every lawful aspect of life, especially by those who cannot perceive of achieving them, is deferred to “Jannah” as an excuse to mitigate the duty to excel in the now. Believers need not put in effort and excel, plus resources count for nothing. (Even in the realm of shar’i learning some YouTube videos suffice.) The power and influence required to safeguard a shar’i environment will simply descend from the heavens - or by protesting with placards. Apparently there are no social and physical causal processes, it is not actions that fundamentally breed results. Everything will simply be the result of ‘blessings’ that come about from the ‘correct’ creed, observing restrictions, and ritual worship.
The creed? Well it’s all based on resistance. We must resist ideas, resist politics, resist everything. Often we don’t even know why we’re being resistant! We know what we don’t stand for, but we’re not quite sure what we do stand for. Besides the fact this is unproductive, it’s all unnecessarily tiring. With all the focus on the negative, the positive hasn’t offered much meaningful direction. Adam popped into existence spontaneously but was also gradually fashioned from earth and kicked out of heaven (not sure how he got to Earth). God is neither here nor there, nor nowhere nor everywhere. God has eyes, two eyes, no eyes - everything or nothing “in a way that befits His majesty.” Say your “Quls” or the spirits will snatch your body. Or a witch/wizard will control you. Or someone’s eyes will get you. Science is evil. Vaccines don’t work.
The restrictions? Don’t show this nor cut your hair like that. Don’t wear perfume, shape your eyebrows or beards. Don’t enjoy yourself except with food, but most things you can’t eat (so overeat what you can!). Go to the mosque but don’t let the women in or you’ll be tempted to fornicate, maybe even in the mosque! Don’t take out that loan even if you need the capital, it’s like having sex with your mother. Don’t mingle with the disbelievers, but live in “their” country, obey “their” laws and pay taxes. Be frightened of God. Don’t say God, say Allah. Don’t be western. Don’t be happy, death is nigh. But smile, it’s sunnah…and “Islam is easy.”
And what is ritual worship? Holding prayer beads. Lots of units (rak’at) of prayer (salah). Reciting Arabic phonemes from a holy book. Hunger for a month. A two-week walking holiday in Saudi Arabia. Wearing ‘Islamic’ eastern clothing with western trainers, jeans and jackets. It’s all for God so don’t be critical.
“You know what your problem is? You’re just logical.”
Is this somehow meant to be a negative?! How has the level of conversation amongst those who have the Qur'an and ways of the final Prophet plummeted to this?
The reason I’m writing this (as when I write most things) is because a good and intelligent sister with righteous intentions put it, “This appeals to my intellect and sits with revelation, but how do I know I’m just following what I want to hear?” Subservience to God is not suffering and silliness. And the same can be argued by an unbeliever - is it not the intellect that they ought to rely on to see the truth of Abrahamic monotheism? And a disfigured patchwork presented as deen that sounds absolutely nonsensical is just that. The intuitions of many sincere believers will tell them that this is so, “but then again, if everyone is saying it who am I to argue?” But everyone isn’t advocating such absurdity and most of us know living like the above is no way to achieve anything. Such ‘religious' takes will never produce anything of value, neither in this life or with God in the hereafter - and it’s certainly not good practice to (mis)represent God’s will with such ugliness and expect favourable outcomes. Personally I’ve never come across anything so dissonance-inducing.
But what about the textual ‘evidence’ for all of this? Well anyone can offer evidence for the greatest absurdity. The Christians for Trinitarianism. The Hindus for paganism. The religious extremists for murder and mayhem. The way of godliness and the intellect is the way of Abraham and his progeny: Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, David and Solomon, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. Our rational and godly philosophy remains, as expressed by the shar’i philosopher Ibn al-Qayyim, that “the foundations and edifice of the shari'ah are built on wisdoms and benefits to a person, in their living and (life) journey. All of the shari'ah is justice, mercy, benefit and wisdom. Every issue that goes from justice to oppression, from mercy to its opposite, from benefits to loss, from wisdom to imprudence, then it is not the shari'ah even if it is made to appear so through interpretation (of revelation)." (I’laam al-Muwaqiin) These judgements we make, as Ibn al-Qayyim infers, through the intellect. It doesn’t matter if it’s an eastern or western/northern or southern intellect - human intellect is human intellect with the universal capacity to reason. The believers in God and His messengers are meant to be people of intellect and reason. They are meant to be the civilised and elite. They have been gifted with guidance and wisdom (hidaya and hikmah).
Ibn al-Qayyim likewise wrote, "…the principles of the followers of prophetic guidance (Ahl’sunnah) in which is manifested the evidences of the Qur'an, sunnah, narrations, critical deliberation and intellect." (Kitab al-Ruh)
How have we come to a time in which we actually have to advocate the use of reason in order to determine what’s intelligent and what’s inane?
Islamophobia and a working definition: A faith-based perspective
I commend the well-intentioned support of the APPG, and the Muslims who have sincerely wanted to address the issue of anti-Muslim hatred and prejudice. But here I comment on the APPG definition from a faith-based perspective and consider wider ramifications which should not be overlooked by those who believe and are committed to the bigger picture that God wants.
To talk about being a Muslim is to claim subservience to God in the way understood by Abraham and his prophetic descendants all the way to Muhammad, to be informed by God's revealed word and seek to live an honourable life within one's context. What God expects of us is to show appreciation and heartfelt reverence towards Him, to deal righteously with others, and to educate and inform people of the entirety of what God has said.
Islamophobia: Anti-Muslim racism and Muslimness
There is a fundamental question to begin with: what and who does a definition that centres around 'Anti-Muslim racism' and disparaging 'Muslimness' seek to protect and why?
I assert that the paper makes it clear that it wants to protect people of South Asian origin (the who) and their ethnic practices/identity (the what) when they are negatively targeted (the why).
Permissive Monotheism
The purpose of the shari’ah is to fully realise human potential, to guide to that which is wholesome and uplifting. It is also to safeguard people from the excesses that lead to less-than-optimal outcomes, and in the least, bad ones. The problem we have in sectarian debates is where the line is (mis)placed, and unfortunately, it is often the case that restrictiveness is seen as the marker of God’s will and guidance. God is rather explicit about this matter, where He stands on permissiveness vs restrictiveness, and the attitude believers should take. Yet, preachers driven by ethnic and sectarian commitments and interests muddy waters that are in fact very clear.
So what is our philosophy towards life as God intended it?
In what has become known as ‘conservatism’, religious personalities mischaracterise God’s law as restrictive when nothing could be further from the truth. Literally trolling the masses, preachers tell them that "Islam is easy" whilst arbitrary rules or poorly thought-out assertions cause misery, hardship and a narrative that perpetually inhibits growth and human development, whilst denying them resources and unendingly bringing about worst outcomes – all shamefully in the name of God. I'm pointing out the obvious here – one only need study life outcomes of Muslim demographics to see this is the case.
The problem with the term Islamophobia
In this post I begin with the term ‘Islamophobia’ which poses significant problems, both political and religious. As a reminder, the APPG proposed definition goes: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”
The problem with the term ‘Islamophobia’ is:
a) it weakens our ability to robustly deal with anti-Muslim hatred as there is broad societal aversion towards it,
b) it inserts Islam into issues that aren't necessarily faith related. And if the APPG intends this to be about racial hatred then inferring religion by the term "Islamophobia" supports the widespread conflation that Islam is about ethnicity. (I'll deal with point (b) in later posts)
Music: Some facts of the matter
Over a decade, I've been asked about music so frequently that I've finally written this. I hadn't done so until now because I didn't want to engage the cacophony of polemics. However, I hold it that believers deserve better than the one-sided narrative they’ve been presented with, especially when we're speaking on behalf of God as to what He holds to be offensive, and as millennials (and younger) become the dominant generations, we need to be far better informed. I am not advocating what people should or shouldn’t do - things affect them differently so each moral agent ought to decide what's best for them. Also note that this brief post is not a juristic presentation but just a brief clarification for those who've asked.
From the get-go it's important that we distinguish between two things people tend to conflate:
- A range of cultures/behaviours associated (rightly or not) with types/genres of music,
- Music as melodious sounds, and instruments.
Here I am solely dealing with music as melodious sounds (including instruments) and not speaking to certain types of music that might inspire negative behaviour in some. Since I'm dealing with melodious sounds (including instruments), I don't distinguish between sounds from singing (ghina’) and sounds from instruments (aalaat) in this shar'i discussion - and most early jurists didn't.
Laymen and the scholarly tradition
A major problem the Muslim laity have been subjected to is the way in which the 'scholarly tradition' is abused.
How so?
Well past scholars have written a lot. They've often explicitly changed their opinion, or you can see an evolution in their thinking/arguments. Popular religious personalities pay little attention to this, usually because they haven't read wide enough nor intend to. Now of course, any scholar can't possibly read everything out there on a topic, but if s/he has a sound basis in the Qur'an and hadith, and recognises everything else as either an explanation of the two (fiqh), or a justification of the methods used to derive an explanation of the two (usul), then there's a critical engagement with past scholars that is far more meaningful. It also means that the scholar places where authority is - with God. Past scholars are a heuristic tool - we remain in conversation with thousands of scholars across the centuries to bounce ideas off them and evaluate what they bring to the table.
But this doesn't happen because people are more interested in what Ghazali or Ibn Taymiyyah said than what God and His messenger said. Yes, the laity require someone authoritative to interpret revelation, but placing ultimate authority in medieval scholars raises the same problems: they too need interpreting and contextualising for the laity! So in reality, the laity vest authority in popular religious personalities and who they choose to promote. Accordingly, the scholars that are cited today aren't necessarily those who buttressed mainstream scholarship over a millenium. They have been chosen in the modern period. In our context, the names of Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Qayyim, Ibn Kathir and Ibn Hazm only became as widespread a few decades ago. But what about Ibn Daqiq, al-Mizzi, al-Sakhawi, Ibn Asakir, etc? Yes some know of them, but in no way are they mainstream. Why? Simply because they weren't chosen by contemporary preachers and sects. Your understanding of your religion is not objective - it is shaped by a plethora of forces. And in every age/context there are different forces shaping it. If you get that simple truth it makes you less polemic, far more chilled, and I'd argue much more closer to the Quran - the only holistic source that is infallible ('isma).
Now because we're at an embryonic stage of scholarly formation in the west, there is no benchmark or basic standard of scholarly inquiry, nor are the intelligent laity informed enough to recognise it, so much falls on superficial markers of shar'i learning. Where a higher level emerges or is propagated, it is seldom recognised and either maligned or ignored. it was in this vein that Ibn Hazm put it that scholars who wanted to engage the laity would have sacrifice some of their dignity. As the Mother of Believers Lady A'ishah put it, "How quick people are to find fault with that which they don't know/understand!" (Sahih Muslim) To some extent, in the past there was an understanding: Scholars informed preachers, and preachers simplified for the laity. Today, preachers are deemed scholars but they're little informed, and the laity are worse off as a result.
Most preachers/religious personalities are in a rush to say the next great thing. Social media has only amplified this ingenious proclivity. I can always tell when a preacher/religious personality has come across a quote for the first time using it to draw an entire narrative. But as a result of such myopia, usually, the narrative is either wrong or off-piste. This occurs with the most famous of preachers/religious personalities who are still very clearly in their formation stage (even after decades of 'learning'). Had they sat on the quote for a while and explored the subject further, over time they'd come across something else that would contextualise the initial quote or moderate their take on the matter. But the pursuit of a holistic narrative and understanding is VERY rarely the objective.
A solid grounding in knowledge that a person then wants to 'share' with the universe must start with first principles. Everything is built on something else. They should be able to justify each level/stage of their argument, and show how their argument relates to other subjects in order to bring the shari'ah together as a coherent whole. They should be aware of the biases/influences, and own them. Every shar'i conclusion ought to be an explication of the Quran. If it doesn't go back to the Quran, whether the divine address (khitab) is explicit or implicit, it is baseless and merely fanciful whims uttered in the name of God. The sunnah gives us insight as to what God wants in practice, whilst we mitigate for the variances in culture between 7th Century Arabia and 21st Century Western English speaking world.
Building back up
For decades (if not a couple of centuries) many Muslim writers, scholars and thinkers have sought to analyse the decline of believers and how to rectify it. Suggestions range from knowledge and ‘religiosity’, to lack of agility or colonialism. I feel that a lot of these are either symptoms or describe the process by which believers got to this situation. But they don’t address the underlying cause. For example, a lack of knowledge might be why people do or think silly things, but knowledge is widely available, in fact, far more available than it has ever been at any time in human history. From one perspective, being a mujhtahid (if we’re talking about Islamic Law), a doctor or an economist today should be a walk in the park in comparison to the past. So saying it’s a lack of knowledge is pointing out the obvious symptom - a constructive analysis would tell us why people would rather remain uninformed, and of course, the ‘why’ is subject to context, place, and culture under scrutiny.
The Taliban and this time around
Given that I advocate a) that believers ought to concentrate on rectifying their own regional affairs rather than assuming that they can somehow save the world to the detriment of their own situation, and b) that we need to re-evaluate the notion of all Muslims everywhere being of equal priority, why am I now commenting on Afghanistan and the Taliban?
Simply put, the last time the Taliban were in power many young people here were left without shar’i-educated and informed voices to offer them substance and clear guidance in how to view things and what to do. What became deeply unfortunate was that this lack of cultivation allowed for the “war on terror” to cause a generation of radicalisation or misplaced priorities in the name of religion. Most became reactionary and were easily provoked along the way to do things that were counter-productive. Of course, the nefarious actions of the US and its allies required staunch opposition, but underlying confusion towards the Taliban’s claims of implementing God's law and our relation to it, misrepresentations by lay imams, and juvenile characterisations of the Taliban built on their visual representations (beards and turbans) had people misconstrue them as prophetic companions!
Well this time around things are very different. Newer generations have much more nuanced thinking. Personally, I now have the moral obligation to do something about it, and having observed the last two decades, I have no desire to go down that path again, nor allow for a future in which my kids have to deal with the same (understandable) shortcomings. Hindsight is great wisdom and we should’ve learned a lot by now: what to do and what not to do. Many Muslims often assume doing the same thing repeatedly will somehow bring about different results - the essence of stupidity - but intelligent people know better.
- The shari'ah
- The Caliphate
- The Ummah
- Opposition to foreign policy
These issues have persistently caused confusion for western Muslims, who, driven by riled up emotions come out with all sorts of things, unworkable or absurd. Nearly everything you hear on these issues are uninformed by the actual Law and scripture, and vastly informed by populism, post-colonialism and grievance politics. In the west, political and social strategies lead to behaviour that’s either pointless or ineffective, and frustrations from the resulting failures further entrenches Muslims in their unproductive methods. I think it’d be interesting to see what happens this time around if we press the restart button.
We’re certainly in a different place now, and today’s generations are different (not so sure about the Taliban though!). Times have completely changed and much of this is down to social media. Whilst millennials are far more cosmopolitan, better politically informed, more socially attuned and carry less immigrant anxieties, many ideas are still inherited because thinking on these issues hasn’t been reformed - and with negative consequences.