by frog
It’s been a bad news week for Islam in New Zealand. First, New Zealand’s first and only Muslim MP got caught up in a row about the acceptability of stoning homosexuals. Now, more than half a dozen mosques and Muslim community centres in Auckland have been vandalised, apparently in retribution for the London bombings.
As Zain Ali, a doctoral student in philosophy at Auckland University, writes in the Herald this morning, all publicity is good publicity, except when it comes to Islam. Ali’s piece provides a great deal of useful background information about the role the Koran played in seventh century Arabia. It should be required reading for all those who have taken the opportunity to pontificate during the past week about how evil the Koran is and Muslims who defend it are.
Ali’s op-ed makes both Choudhary and the journalist who asked him the “is the Koran wrong to advocate stoning of homosexuals?” question look rather foolish.
The journalist’s question was based on a lie – the Koran does not advocate the stoning of homosexuals. He was either being dishonest or ignorant.
However, Choudhary’s response exposed him as lacking the wiliness to be an effective politician. The first rule for any politician being interviewed in the media is this: if you don’t know the answer to a question, then don’t try and wing it, because you will get caught out. When he heard the question, his danger antenna should have shot up. As a Muslim, he couldn’t agree that the Koran was wrong about anything (Muslims, by definition, believe the Koran to be the literal word of God), but he could and should have said: “I don’t have a detailed knowledge of what, if anything, the Koran says about the stoning of homosexuals. However, in general terms, I believe the Koran to be a beautiful, poetic, sacred text. I should add that I personally abhor all forms of violence, including stoning.” Instead, Choudhary fell into TV3’s “when did you stop hitting your wife?”-type trap.
Why should we be concerned about all this? Well, because all that most New Zealanders ever get to hear about Islam is that some Muslims have views and do things that we find abhorrent. Presumably, that’s why some Kiwis decided at the weekend that it was time to get some revenge. So, when the media becomes engulfed with a story about Muslims stoning homosexuals because a journalist decided to be dishonest and because a Labour MP managed to make a complete hash of answering a trick question, you can understand the shudder going through New Zealand’s Muslim communities.
However, as Ali argues, these sorts of discussions do at least offer an opportunity for more New Zealanders to be engaged with the fact that there are Muslims living among us. He concludes:
Who are the true representatives of Islam? They are the everyday people, the ones who probably live next door, who are working hard to earn a living, making sure that their kids get an education and stay out of trouble. These everyday Muslims are the silent, law-abiding majority. These are the people who came to this country, as did my parents, in the hope of a better future.
The media and the Government’s responses to the mosque attacks have been heartening. The Prime Minister’s message – “The evil acts of some should not lead to scapegoating of minorities in our communities” – and the headline on the front page of the Dominion Post this morning – “RIP Tolerance” – struck all the right notes. They remind us that New Zealanders are, by and large, a tolerant people who eschew violence in all its forms.
Published in Society & Culture by frog on Mon, July 11th, 2005
Tags: environment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
You wrote: “As a Muslim, he couldn’t agree that the Koran was wrong about anything (Muslims, by definition, believe the Koran to be the literal word of God)”. Um, I think you should take your own advice and try and get a little more informed about Islam before making statements like that.
Muslims, like Christians or Jews, CAN – and DO – strongly dissent when a holy text is (mis-)used and abused as justification for the prejudices of the beholder. Much as Zain Ali tries to fudge the point, there are too many Muslims who do cite scriptual authority (truthfully or not) for the vilest acts of homophobia, misogyny, harassment, intimidation and, yes, terrorism. As a Christian, I have to say The Bible is similarly abused. It’s just a cop out to use The Koran – or The Bible or The Talmud – as cover. I don’t accept that from Christians, and don’t see why I should accept any such rhetoric double dutch from Muslims.
BTW, I find it interesting that Ali cites lesbian advocate of “a liberal reformation of Islam” Ishard Manji as a “gay activist”. As she has written very little about gays issues – and most of that in the context of the homophobia and misogyny of Islamic fundamentalism – I rather miss the point of that label, especially when he’s complaining about the stereotyping of Muslims. Surely her views on Islam stand or fall on their merits, not her sexuality?
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Hey Craig: I think we’re talking past each other.
It is a fact that Muslims, unlike Christians, by definition believe that the Koran is literally true. That’s because they, by definition, believe it to be the word of God. That is, the words in the Koran are God speaking. That is why calling someone a fundamentalist Muslim is misleading – the term “fundamentalist” being used originally in the Protestant context to denote those who believed the Bible to be literally (rather than merely allegorically) true. In this “the Koran is literally true” sense, all Muslims are fundamentalists.
Now, this fact doesn’t preclude Muslims from, as you put it, “dissent[ing] when a holy text is (mis-)used and abused as justification for the prejudices of the beholder”. Of course Muslims can dissent in this way, but this isn’t because they believe the Koran to be any less literally true, but because they believe those who seek to interpret it are doing so in fallacious ways. The fallability here is in the individual’s interpretation not the Koran’s veracity, if you get my drift.
So, a Muslim would struggle to say, “yes, I disagree with the Koran when it says…”; however, Muslims do, as you point out, say all the time “I disagree with how that Muslim is interpreting Allah’s words in the Koran”.
The problem isn’t with God (or Allah), or His messages, but with the fallibility of the human condition.
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