Sh. Hamza [...]]]> Hamza Yusuf has written a long post wherein he retracts certain statements he made in the past regarding the Lahori branch of the Ahmadiyyah. It is nuanced, complex, and edifying, so I will not attempt to summarize it, but I would like to discuss some more salient points and explore some ambiguities.

Sh. Hamza is subjected to a rather bizarre argument that, if you fail to say that a certain person is a disbeliever when that person is in fact a disbeliever, that makes you a disbeliever:

[S]ome brothers have declared me a kafir [disbeliever] based upon the argument “one who does not make takfir [declaring another a disbeliever] of a kafir is also a kafir.” Their reasoning is this: Lahori Ahmadiyyas are kafirs; Hamza Yusuf did not call them kafirs; therefore, Hamza Yusuf is a kafir.

There is in fact no absolute precept in Islam that states that failure to commit takfir in the right way makes one a kafir. Sh. Hamza points out that the origin of this bad argument is the misunderstood saying:

The scholars are harsh on a mufti who says that one is not a kafir who is a kafir. Indeed, disbelief is feared for one doing so.

He discusses the pitfalls involved in interpreting such a statement (there are many). In my view it is perhaps most dangerous because of the implied symmetry with the statement of the Prophet that if you accuse a person of disblief (kufr), one of you is a kāfir, a principle that sets a very high standard for resorting to takfīr. Sh. Hamza does a good job of explaining the nuances of what it means to consider another Muslim to have left the fold of Islam, and it is worth reading.

As a general matter, it is not hard to imagine the potential for abuse and mudslinging when a religious community adopts the posture that failure to condemn is equivalent to acceptance or even advocacy, even in the case of a religious scholar like Hamza Yusuf. I have not lately condemned dwarf tossing, but that doesn’t mean I consider it acceptable. Does Hamza Yusuf need to mention Shakespeare’s status on the spectrum of faith every time he mentions him, lest some accuser come out of the weeds to point out that, since Sh. Hamza quoted Shakespeare without condemning his failure to embrace Islam, Sh. Hamza must be a kafir?

But there are other clarifications on the subject of takfir and what it means to deem or label another person a Muslim or not. Sh. Hamza writes:

I request that my statements about the Lahoris be removed from the Internet, as I am not qualified to have an opinion about the matter and cannot make takfir of a group or individual on my own, as that is a judicial responsibility in Islam.

There are two kinds of authority being mentioned here. One is the question of whether Hamza Yusuf has the expertise, knowledge, and experience to make judgments about the Lahoris. He says he does not and makes an honest disavowal of previous statements. The second kind of authority is something he calls “judicial responsibility”. What does this mean? Exactly what judicial body am I, as a Muslim, supposed to entrust such judgments of takfir to? I know that Sh. Hamza knows what he means here, but as worded it is not entirely clear. Does he mean that he defers to others in the way that I defer to my pharmacist in choosing my vitamins, or the way I defer to law enforcement in prosecuting a criminal? I believe he means the former, as he says regarding al-Azhar:

I have great respect for the balance and moderate tradition that Al-Azhar represents and know that they do not take takfirlightly. Hence, I defer such judgment to them, and retract my previous statement. As the saying goes, “The people of Mecca are more familiar with their mountain trails.”

Speaking as an American, I must recognize that there is no Muslim religious “authority” that has any coercive authority over me. Can any Muslim “judicial authority” issue a warrant for my arrest, or hold me in contempt of court, or put a restraining order on me? Without the possibility of enforcement or coercion, “authority” in the second sense mentioned above has no meaning. There can only be “authority” in the sense of moral or scholarly authority, namely, the claim to superior judgment based upon one’s knowledge, wisdom, and experience.

It is always necessary to remember that the laws and theological discussions in Islamic history dealing with apostasy and the status of belief and unbelief were typically entangled with political questions, the exercise of power, and with the delineation of political communities’ identities. They were not, as a rule, only abstract questions of theology. That is why there is something a little bizarre when a British Muslim mines the Islamic legal or theological tradition to hurl accusations of kufr at an American Muslim based on parameters developed in the context a political environment of centuries ago in when Islamic judges could bring the coercive power of the state to bear on people.

Whether one is orthodox in one’s belief is a weighty question already. Pretending that the stakes are different from what they are is pointless. Hamza Yusuf and his British accusers do not live in the same political system in any way whatsoever. If every last British Muslim decided that Hamza Yusuf were no longer a Muslim, they would have no avenue to do anything about it beyond attempting to persuade others not to follow his teachings and his judgments. No one is any position to bring a “judicial” judgment against Hamza Yusuf or his would-be interlocutors. No American Muslim, through a change in his theological status, can have any effect on his economic, political, or military status, not in the real world anyway.

That is, the stakes are spiritual and personal, not legal in the usual sense. If, in discussions of religious status and its consequences, we do not explicitly disentangle the political ramifications commonly assumed in theologians’ and jurists’ discussion of matter of “apostasy” or kufr throughout the centuries, we are supercharging an already charged question.

Sh. Hamza’s greater worry is not the classical legal connection between one’s religious identity and one’s political affiliation or communal identity (which are important), but the irrational and violent outcomes of divisiveness and sectarianism of the kind so often condemned in the Quran. My own point, however, is to warn against an undigested invocation of classical Islamic ideas and precepts, which were developed with nuance and wisdom in specific contexts that involved both moral authority and coercive authority. That is, it often happens that the banal and venal accusations of heresy or apostasy are channeled through misunderstood legalisms and constructs that do not always map on precisely to our current realities. Although Hamza Yusuf does not quote these accusations or name his accusers, I suspect that is, at least in part, what they did.

A couple of other points:

Part of what attracted criticism to Hamza Yusuf were his positive comments about Muhammad Ali’s translation fo the Quran. Now, Muhammad Ali not only translated but wrote a lengthy commentary on the Quran. If the translation is a good translation, meaning if it is accurate, consistent, and faithful to the original Arabic, the personal theology of the translator should be irrelevant. Many non-Muslims such as A. J. Arberry, Michael Sells, and Thomas Cleary, to name a few, have made good-faith translations of the Quran and so long as they are transparent about their methods I see no problem with consulting them for the purposes of translation.

However, Muhammad Ali’s commentary is a different question entirely, and it is worthwhile for Hamza Yusuf to clarify the difference between a translation and its annotations. I simply cannot agree with him that acknowledging the accuracy of a translation of a non-Muslim or even a heretic is “to praise deviants and innovators” which will “aid in the destruction of Islam.” If, however, the theological predilections of the translator cause him or her to skew or distort the translation in some fashion, or to omit or add text to the translation, this should always be criticized and critiqued. Indeed, such distortion can easily creep into a translation even unconsciously for a host of reasons. But one can separate the merits of the annotations from the translation, even if they appear on the same page.

As a professor of Islamic studies I have a professional responsibility to stay abreast of incidents like those prompted by a recent 13-minute video containing footage by a certain “Sam Bacile” insulting to the Prophet Muhammad, but as a moral question why should I, as an individual, care what Egyptians and Libyans [...]]]> (Updated below)

As a professor of Islamic studies I have a professional responsibility to stay abreast of incidents like those prompted by a recent 13-minute video containing footage by a certain “Sam Bacile” insulting to the Prophet Muhammad, but as a moral question why should I, as an individual, care what Egyptians and Libyans think about a film about which I was not consulted and which I could not have prevented by any legal means even if I had prior knowledge of it? American Muslims don’t owe anyone an explanation for what happened in Libya or Egypt, any more than they owe Libyans or Egyptians an explanation for how the film got made. We had nothing to do with it. (For background, see articles from WSJ, NPR, and helpful posts from Sarah Posner and Max Blumenthal, and commentary from Glenn Greenwald.)

As I write, many Muslims are making clear that the actions of the killers of Ambassador Christopher Stevens are not representative of Islam and that what they are doing is much more damaging to Muslims than the film which served as a catalyst to their actions. That is true, but so what? The subtext of such statements is: Americans are too stupid to understand that people are only responsible for those things which they have some power to change, and that being Muslim does not suddenly make you answerable for something someone else did in another country. It makes about as much sense to ask your local Lutheran pastor to condemn acts of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland as it does to ask an American Muslim to condemn violence committed by Egyptians and Libyans in their own countries. Did the attackers in Libya consult with me about it? Did they draw inspiration from something I wrote? Are they known associates of mine with whom I cooperate on other issues?

But my impatience is not directed only at those who assign collective guilt to Muslims. I also grow increasingly frustrated with other Muslims who seem to have not the slightest compunction about including me in their particular version of “we” and “us” without asking me, who think that if Muslims are doing it or if it is happening to Muslims anywhere it is by definition an “Islamic” cause which I am obligated to address on those terms. In actuality, I have no special duty to someone living on the other side of the world whose parents happened to be Muslim. But I do have a duty to anyone who is tortured, murdered, robbed of their dignity, and made to live in fear if there is something I can do about it and I understand enough to act or speak responsibly. (As it happens, such victims are frequently Muslims, and frequently it is my own country that is victimizing them.)

Part of what makes collective Muslim guilt/responsibility so problematic is that it is often impossible for any ordinary citizen to acquire enough information to make good judgments about what is happening in another country beyond articulating general moral principles, especially for recent events. The attack in Libya is a good example. The initial reports were that a group of protesters angered by the Bacile film overreacted and killed several American diplomats, but now reports come out that this was a pre-planned attack carried out under the cover of the protests, a significant difference that must be accounted for by those who are eager to comment on how Muslims are supposed to react to mockery of the Prophet Muhammad. Praying five times a day and fasting in Ramadan does not give American Muslims special insight into what is happening in Benghazi. Even the identity of the filmmaker, Sam Bacile, who was described as an Israeli in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press, may be a fake.

Still, while I reject collective guilt or responsibility, I do feel that Muslims have a certain moral obligation to represent themselves accurately, and they ought to have a certain sympathy for people who do not always know that much about Muslims and have to make judgments based on whatever information they have. When someone asks a question about Islam in good faith, those people who know the most about it (usually Muslims themselves) should provide a good faith answer. That is quite different from responding to cynical accusations in the form of a question such as, “Will you condemn…?” or “Why aren’t Muslims doing more to stop this?” Muslims should be contemptuous towards such prompts, which aren’t really questions at all.

Personally I find the Bacile footage repugnant, but at the same time so inept and jejune that it is difficult to sustain any serious level of indignation. This film was apparently made in the United States, and in this country freedom of expression is taken quite seriously, and Muslims here and around the world need to understand that the possibility of such hurtful garbage is part of a trade-off that works very well for observant Muslims in the United States. In the American context one cannot disentangle one’s freedom to wear a turban, pray in a public park, and hand out free Qurans on campus from the freedom of a vulgar propagandist to shoot a film making fun of everything Muslims hold dear. If Muslims think the coercive power of the state should be brought to bear against people making movies that ridicule Muslims, why would they feel secure against that power being used against Muslims who want to print translations of the Quran? If you support free speech, that means you don’t demand that the state intervene to stop speech that is awful and hurtful. That’s the whole point.

In a country of 300 million people with access to technology that allows anyone with a video camera and a laptop to put a movie on YouTube, it was inevitable that a film such Bacile’s would be made and publicized. The next film will be worse: perhaps it will have high production values and present the Prophet Muhammad more plausibly as something other than what Muslims believe him to be. Can anyone doubt this will happen? The most horrible imagery imaginable is already freely available on the Internet, and an un-sympathetic portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad by non-Muslims is far from the worst thing out there. Also, not to make too small a point, but non-Muslims are no more obligated to refrain from pictorial representations of the Prophet Muhammad than they are to refrain from alcohol or gambling. One may not like this, but it is reality. We can keep such ugliness as Bacile’s film to a minimum by persuasion and education, not appeals to violence and intimidation.

Update:

If the story of “Sam Bacile” were written as a Hollywood script, it would have been dismissed as implausible even for a work of fiction. Those who followed the story were first led to believe that the grotesquely juvenile film was the work of Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who became famous for wanting to burn the Quran in the midst of the Park51 brouhaha two years ago. Then we were introduced to one Morris Sadek, a Coptic Christian whose stature and gravitas roughly equals that of Jones, who was thought to have had a role, and whose participation has caused some middle-aged Coptic women to apparently beat him up on the street. Next, the name Sam Bacile appeared in the mainstream press, which reported that he was an Israeli Jew with the financial backing of “100 Jewish donors” whose motivation for making the film was to help Israel by exposing the truth about its enemies. Steve Klein, a Christian evangelical Vietnam veteran who spends his spare time rooting out Muslim Brotherhood sleeper cells in California, was also said to have had a role in the film, and said he knew “Bacile” but denied that he was a Jew or Israeli. Finally the AP tracked down “Bacile” who is actually one Nakoula Bassely Nakoula, a convicted fraudster and, as it happens, a Coptic Christian. Even stranger, the cast and crew of the film claim that they did not know that the film’s subject matter was Muhammad at all. Indeed, the casting call listed the main character as “George” and “young George,” and nothing else about the description of the film indicated its subject matter. They were overdubbed.

Nakoula, it would seem, lies to everyone about everything. He lied to the actors about the film. Then he lied to the press about being an Israeli and a Jew with millions in Jewish money behind him, an act of anti-Semitism and recklessness at which I still marvel. Then, when the AP came knocking at his door, as if to encapsulate his stupidity and utter mendacity, he showed the reporter his driver’s license but placed his finger over his middle name Bassely (clearly the origin of “Bacile”).

For much more on this story, read about Nakoula, the cast and crew, the battle in Benghazi, the production company responsible, and great run-downs by Juan Cole, Omid Safi, and Sheila Musaji, Max Blumenthal, Dan Murphy. Also, a NYT story about how American Muslims organization responded to the situation, relevant to my remarks above.

Today in NRO Andrew McCarthy writes:

“Islamophobia” was coined by the Muslim Brotherhood and seamlessly adopted by its Western confederates.

One of the common means by which the anti-Muslim agitators like to undercut attempts to expose them is to pretend that the term “Islamophobia” was invented by nefarious Muslims. In so doing [...]]]> (Updated below)

Today in NRO Andrew McCarthy writes:

The term was used by the Runnymede Trust in the U.K. back in 1992, in a report entitled A Very Light Sleeper, which then led to a report, also by Runnymede, entitled, Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All, in 1997. Christopher Allen points out that it was used in the U.S. in Insight in 1991, but somewhat differently from the way the term is employed today.

The single piece of evidence that Islamophobes cite that “the Muslim Brotherhood” coined this term comes from the personal recollection of one Abdur Rahman Muhammad:

Muhammad said he was present when his then- allies, meeting at the offices of the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT) in Northern Virginia years ago, coined the term “Islamophobia.”

Muhammad said the Islamists decided to emulate the homosexual activists who used the term “homophobia” to silence critics. He said the group meeting at IIIT saw “Islamophobia” as a way to “beat up their critics.”

That quote comes from CT huckster Stephen Emerson‘s website. Let us assume that this account is completely true. Even on this man’s account, IIIT decided to make use of the term “Islamophobia”, like many have in the last decade. Note the absence of a date, or any kind of corroboration. Also note that IIIT is not the Muslim Brotherhood. And note that the term pre-dates 9/11 by almost ten years.

Claire Berlinski gave this myth some life in 2010, and bears some responsibility for it.

Of course, it is only one small detail in the overall paranoia-inducing fantasy that all (that is, every last one) of the mainstream American Muslim organizations are “fronts” for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Update (May 21):

Some have sent me notes indicating even earlier usage in English and also in other languages such as French (though I don’t see these as being exactly continuous with the use of the term these days). My point was not to determine the first usage of the term, but simply to point out how phony it is to pretend it was invented by “the Muslim Brotherhood”. I put the latter in scare quotes because as used by Islamophobes it’s not meant to be precise or to refer to some actually existing organization with a discernible structure. It is meant to sound ominous and scary.

In a new review of Robert Spencer’s new book, Daniel Pipes tells us that the revisionist history which posited a relatively late date for the composition of the Quran [...]]]> Matt Duss and Eli Clifton and others have rightly called out National Review’s Rich Lowry for continuing to publish anti-Muslim bigots and provocateurs. On that note:

In a new review of Robert Spencer’s new book, Daniel Pipes tells us that the revisionist history which posited a relatively late date for the composition of the Quran and which casts doubt on the existence of the Prophet Muhammad was a “secret” whose existence Spencer (and author Tom Holland, reviewed here) has “ended”.

This revisionist history has remained a virtual secret among specialists. For example, Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, authors of the synoptic Hagarism (Cambridge University Press, 1977), deliberately wrote obliquely, thereby hiding their message.

Now, however, two scholars have separately ended this secrecy: Tom Holland with In the Shadow of the Sword, and Robert Spencer with Did Muhammad Exist?

Two points: First, the idea that Cook and Crone (or any other scholar) meant for their work to be somehow hidden from general scrutiny is so fantastical I hardly know how to even address it. Second, Cook himself  has moved on from that book, which was from earlier in his career. He is a major historian of the Islamic intellectual tradition, so perhaps Pipes should drop him an email and ask him if Muhammad existed. He won’t like the answer.

Robert Spencer writes an extended book report on the work of Wansbrough, Cook, Crone, and others, and Pipes sells it as a brave unveiling of some shrouded history which previous scholars were too timid to proclaim openly. This is what passes muster at a flagship conservative publication?

And just to add a dose of creepiness Pipes ends his review with:

It is a career-killer (and perhaps a killer of more than a career) to challenge the authenticity of the Quran and the received story of the Muslim conquests, [...]]]> While reading a fawning review in Tablet of Bernard Lewis’ autobiography by David Goldman, I was struck by a sudden turn regarding the origins of Islam:

It is a career-killer (and perhaps a killer of more than a career) to challenge the authenticity of the Quran and the received story of the Muslim conquests, yet a vast body of research over the last several decades makes it impossible for a rational observer to accept the Muslim account at face value.

Not one example is given of a person whose career has been killed for being non-Muslim (and hence by definition challenging the Quran’s divine origin). Take a look at the tenured faculty of any major Islamic Studies program in this country and then talk to me about killed careers. So, Harvard and Yale and Princeton Islam scholars are all Quran authenticating Muslims?

Then, Goldman suggests that the scholars working on the Corpus Coranicum, an effort to create a critical edition of the Quran, are in engaging in “an enterprise … fraught with personal risk to the researchers.” Has a single researcher on this project expressed that view? Does Goldman know the history of Muslim study of the Quran, including cataloguing of textual variants and alternate readings going back over a thousand years? Clearly he does not. It is for some reason more useful to him to repeat things like, “The fragility of Islam … lies in a sudden realization of the ambiguity of the text of the Koran.”

This is followed by:

If the critics are correct, then Islam cannot coexist with rational inquiry and has no future in modernity.

Hear that Muslims? Please believe us when we say that we have no objection to Islam as such, except that you have no future if you continue to be Muslim.

And I am genuinely perplexed by the following:

Muslim girls who complete high school breed like Europeans. Modernity’s great precondition, namely education, leads to a demographic tailspin in the Muslim world, which appears to jump from infancy to senescence without passing through adulthood.

Let’s just imagine a theoretical reviewer who wrote something like, “Jewish Haredi girls breed like Mexicans.” I’d be offended by that. How about you?

I bet Goldman will love Robert Spencer’s new book.

Update:

I just noticed that Martin Kramer decorates the comment section with praise: “Fine review.” Good to know. Hey, how is Kramer’s career? Is it killed?