What Is Islam And Who Speaks For It? Empathetic Understanding

1. What Is Islam And Who Speaks For It? Empathetic Understanding 1.2 Approaching the subject, Chapter 1, first section (see model syllabus)

2. Islām = Religion of those who follow Muhammad Three levels: • 1. Submission or commitment – the meaning of islām muslim= one who submits muslima = feminine form in Arabic • 2. The religion = a system of beliefs and practices ordained by God • 3. Culture(s) and/or civilization(s) created by Muslims, but also shared by many non-Muslims, including and integrating elements of other cultures.

3. islām is also linguistically related to salām and is sometimes defined as entering into peace with God • One who is at peace with God may then be: • - at peace with him/herself • - at peace with other people • - at peace with nature

4. The religion (2) began with the career of Muhammad (610-632) • in some sense complete with his career (cf. Qur’an 5:3) • in another sense develops or at least unfolds over time •Western non-Muslim scholars emphasize the element of development and change more than Muslims do. • The culture/civilization developed more slowly and changes more • reached its first flowering about two centuries after Muhammad • is quite diverse in different times and places • but has a significant common core

5. PEOPLE are the bearers of both religion and culture • must never be lost sight of • in some sense, Islam is Muslims. • Are there as many Islams are there are Muslims?

6. “True Islam” • Muslims often contrast “true Islam”, Islam as it ought to be, with its imperfect realization in actual practice, which may be considered quite corrupt. • But different Muslims have different views as to the content of “true” Islam and what constitutes “corruption”. • e.g. Is celebrating the birthday of Muhammad an essential part of true Islam, an optional practice, or a violation of Islam? • e.g., Is jihad in the sense of fighting a necessary part of “true” Islam? • Those (including some non-Muslims) who speak of “true Islam” generally mean certain beliefs and practices, which they consider central, as opposed to others. • e.g. some critics of Islam see violence as an essential part of Islam. • In this course we will not judge what is “true Islam” • In principle, we will give equal value to all forms of Islam though, in practice, we will give more attention to some than to others.

7. Empathetic understanding: • An understanding that results from imaginatively entering into the experience of another person and seeing the world as they see it. • This is our primary goal. • Sympathetic understanding: •adds to this a favourable attitude toward the other person and their experience. • is usually possible but not always • is the goal when possible • Might sympathetic understanding go to the point of being converted, or at least being tempted to convert? • Do you think one can understand Islam without at least being tempted to convert?

8. Both empathetic understanding and sympathetic understanding require: 1. Getting an accurate understanding of the facts, what Muslims think and do. • e.g., in the case of Muslim female garb commonly called hijab, what do these women actually wear, how does it vary, how does it compare with what Muslim women have worn in the past? 2. Seeing these and other facts and realities from the perspective of the Muslims (or some groups of Muslims), i.e. seeing what they mean to Muslims. • e.g., what positive values or benefits do women who wear hijab find in it? • What sort of a point are they making? • Do they do so of their own free choice. • How do they view women who don’t wear hijab? • How do they vary in all these things?

9. Cont… 3. Making careful and critical use parallels from our own experience and culture. • Might we find parallels in clothing worn by some Westerners that others find strange or abhorrent? How far can we take such parallels? 4. “Bracketing”, i.e. setting aside our views and attitudes, especially where they are highly value-laden or emotional. • Westerners tend to have a “gut reaction” that finds hijab strange, oppressive, and “medieval”. We have to set these feelings aside, at least for a time. 5. Eventually taking away the brackets and making informed judgements in terms of our own values (which may have changed in the process). • At the end of the day, we may still dislike hijab, but have a more human and humane attitude toward those who wear it.

10. Another example • If there is serious accident during the Hajj (the Pilgrimage to Mecca): - Non-Muslims may criticize the Hajj for bringing large crowds of people together in one place. - Some may criticize the Saudi government, which is responsible for the arrangements for the Hajj, for inadequate preparation or an inadequate response to the accidents. - Many Muslims, however, will rejoice for those who are killed because, according to traditional thinking, anyone who dies on Hajj is guaranteed to go to Paradise.

11. Empathy and Critical History • For many Muslims the caliph Yazid (r. 680-3), whose army defeated and killed the Prophet’s grandson, Husayn, is the greatest of villains and a by-word for evil and corruption. • A historian studying Yazid would have to find out as many facts about what he did and the circumstances surrounding his activities as possible and would have to try to see these facts from Yazid’s viewpoint, bracketing out the common negative view. Only then could he or she make an appropriate judgment. • A historian of modern Islam, however, might ignore much of this and study the negative “myth” of Yazid, focusing on the people who hold it, their understanding of it and the influence it has on them. One can understand the role of Yazid in the Islamic revolution in Iran without knowing much about the historical Yazid, if the historical Yazid differs from the Yazid of myth. • (NB. In this usage, a myth is not necessarily false, though most are, but is a story that has power over people.)

12. Pitfalls of Language Traduttoretraditore (The translator is a betrayer) Translating the word “Islam”: some considerations • Submission: probably the most accurate lexically; but “submission” generally has negative associations among English-speaking people today. It is never negative for Muslims. • Commitment: has the appropriate positive associations, but perhaps suggests something a bit more optional that Muslims take Islam to be. • “Islam” in English is a noun, a “thing” in some sense. In Arabic it is a verb (strictly speaking, a verbal noun) and in the first instance an action. • “dynamic” • “My islam” in Arabic is likely to mean “When I became a Muslim”, or “When I submitted to God.”

13. To some extent Islam and the other forms of the same verb convey a general ideal of commitment to God as well as a strictly “Muslim” one (most Muslims would not distinguish these). • Can a Christian say, “I am not a Muslim” in Arabic? He or she might be taken as saying, “I don’t submit to God” • In English we can deal with this by distinguishing between Muslim (adherent of the religion) and muslim (one who submits), but Arabic does not have capital letters.