Subject: Re: salon interview & rushdie & chomsky
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 07:46:48 +0000


Berry,

Fair question -- I did take a look at the Salon interview, and I agree, it 
is a fairer representation of Islam than the kind of caricatures we're 
seeing these days, no doubt helped by the periodic attacks on civilians by 
some Islamic extremists around the world. In that climate, this piece is 
important.

There are three issues Ms Brookes does not go into, at least partly because 
of the questioner not raising them. While she provides rational explanations 
for the seclusion of women and Mohammed's multiple wives in the context of 
the time, one of the questions often raised about Mohammed was that at the 
age of 55 he married a nine-year-old girl (this is one of the common 
allegations Hindu nationalists raise, by saying how could anyone respect a 
man like that). I'd have liked to have seen that addressed. If someone on 
this list has an answer (a) that it is a lie, or (b) that it has a 
particular logical explanation, I'd like to know. Two, she does not go into 
the problem with hadiths. My understanding is that hadiths were often retold 
by Mohammed's followers years and years after his death. A hadith could 
begin "and the prophet said...." and it could trace its origins to a couple 
hundred years after Mohammed's death. In that case, clearly, its reliability 
is highly suspect. Now I recall reading somewhere that many of the more 
restrictive, and what would appear today as anachronistic and unequal/cruel 
rituals of Islam, when they are traced to hadiths, owe their origin to such 
suspect hadiths. Again, if that's true, then Ms Brookes could have 
emphasised that, for that would be in keeping with her argument.

What I found missing, however, was any discussion of South Asian Islam. It 
is referred to only peripherally. However, the amount of violence that 
accompanied the Partition (on both sides, Hindu and Muslim) is unparalleled. 
There is a lot of fanaticism in S Asian Islam, and it becomes revisionist in 
trying to identify cause and effect -- Hindu nationalists say we are the way 
we are because of invasions from Central Asia over the centuries; Muslim 
extremists say they are responding to majoritarian Hindus who are imposing 
their identity on them and they feel insecure. Is that fanaticism the 
product of Islam's martial origins in S Asia -- the fact that it came with 
invasions? Is Southeast Asian Islam (at least until recently) pacific 
because it went to Java and Malaya with traders, and not with invading 
armies? Clearly, Wahhabi Islam has no role to play in this, except only 
later in the last century, when in SE Asia the senteri Islam began to get 
prominent with the formation of madrasahs and so on. Otherwise, the abangan 
version was prevalent. In SE Asia women are, indeed, prominent in public 
life. In S Asia, few Muslim women are in public life (aberrations like 
relatives-of-male-politicians apart). In S Asia the purdah, too, is more 
prevalent than in SE Asia. Now could that be because of the wars? I don't 
know, and would like some discussion on this....

Thanks for pointing out the interview.

Salil

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