Technology as Nature asks an important question:
to insist that the Islamic-inspired terror attack in Paris has nothing at all to do with Islam?
I have an answer to this because this is something we definitely need to discuss.
The Koran is a book. A work of literature. What makes my entire profession as a literary critic possible is this interesting quality works of literature possess: they allow for as many (and more) readings as there are people on this planet. And all these readings have a right to exist. They don’t all have the right to get a passing grade in my courses but that’s a different matter.
The Koran only says what I want it to say. If I want to read the Koran (the Bible, Don Quixote, the menu I’ve been given at the local diner, etc) as saying that I need to stand on my head, say coocooricoo ten times and wave an orange flag in the process, who’s to stop me?
Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, the scholarly interpretation of War and Peace, etc. exist in a bizillion and one variations. Give me 10 minutes, and I will scare up 5 Christians right on the spot who assign a completely different meaning to any chosen verse from the Bible. Of course, they will all be totally wrong because the correct reading is mine but their readings will still exist.
When Spaniards went to slaughter the indigenous peoples of the Americas, they were waving Bibles throughout the entire process. But the Bibles didn’t make them slaughter children and rip out fetuses from women’s bellies and throw them to the dogs. The Bible was just an excuse. I read the Bible and it didn’t make me want to slaughter anybody. I also read the Koran and it didn’t make me a terrorist.
The problem doesn’t reside in books. It resides in the incapacity of many people to accept that their holy books are only holy to them and that it is fine. But if books – not just these books, any books at all – didn’t exist, there would still be crowds of people who would find it hard to accept the truly radical idea that what is super important to me might seem stupid, insignificant, and ridiculous to somebody else.
The greatest step forward we can all take in our development as human beings is to understand that nobody else is me. And that’s OK. The most horrible things human beings inflict on each other stem from their incapacity to see where they end and other people begin. Abusive parents lash out at their children when the children fail to perform as the perfect mirrors of the parents’ fantasies. Rapists invade the bodies of other human beings because they can’t accept those beings’ agency. Immigrants are marginalized when they can’t blend in completely and become the mirror image of the locals. Cartoonists are gunned down when their sense of humor differs from that of somebody else.
The reason why it is so damn hard to accept that other people are not a part of me is because this idea leads directly towards a great existential loneliness and confers an enormous responsibility to become worthy of the word “individual.” And that’s such an incredible drag. Who wants to do all that when there is an easy alternative to grab some ancient tome and go bash some folks in the head with it to convince them that they are an extension of me?
Clarissa's Blog 
Bravo Clarissa! I couldn’t possibly have said it half so well.
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I’m sure you could have but thank you. 🙂
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To some degree are you saying religion (and their various texts) are almost like a rorschach ink blot test? I feel that is the sentiment that you are getting at and I read another article maybe 2-3 months ago with a similar point and it really resonated. The jist of that article was how say liberals and conservatives used the bible to say “see jesus would support our positions”. I really liked that analogy, and feels basically what the religion / text allows people to do is seek validation or reason for their already existing beliefs and mannerisms. Would you agree with that sentiment?
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Exactly. If people need a justification to engage in their vile shit, they will very easily find it.
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Over here you’re defining Islam as the Quran. But you could also define Islam as set of cultural beliefs and practices (with considerable diversity, I know). Can you then say whether this set of beliefs and practices promote terrorism?
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Cultures and traditions are also invented and reinvented to suit the needs of the moment. I think it’s a lot more productive to look at these needs of the moment to see why they result in the spike in terrorism that identifies as Muslim.
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Also, its almost so obvious perhaps it doesn’t bear stating, but islam in powerful in northern Africa and the middle east, and these are the least advanced societies in the world (defining advancement by literacy rates, health spans, modern technology, some degree of freedom of dissent etc). I mean, if due to historical norms the same economic, political, and physical realities existed in northern Africa and the middle east and Christianity was the dominant religion it is pretty obvious that we would today be condemning Christianity as being barbaric right? (and isn’t that basically what happened from say 500 ad to 1700 ad? there just wasn’t 24/7 news cycles to display the barbarity). Might be missing your point, but I am not so much sure that it is the beliefs of islam / quran, but more the way history played out from intellectual and economic and militaristic norms.
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I agree completely. There are regions in the world that find it hard to adapt to modernity. So they lash out. That’s the real problem and not the book they have chosen to use to justify their actions.
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This is insightful. Since modernity is hard to identify, people tend to use religion, class, nationality, race etc. as proxies.
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Yes! These are easy, familiar, comfortable categories. And one feels less alone inside them.
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Oh, wow, I always thought it was modernity itself that schematized identities. I really do still think so, although what we may have is a lot of moderns who are not so well-developed in their intellects, who schematize as a short cut. I have always considered that my difference from these types was my inability or reluctance to presume to know people on the basis of categorization. I was unable to meet people and start with an abstraction about who they were and then work to flesh out an existing notion.
Maybe most moderns really haven’t caught up with the full potential of modernity. It is likely that this full potential is threatening to many people brought up within modernity itself, since an embrace of over-certainty often occurs in the face of a fearful unknown.
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An excellent explanation about the interpretation of literature and individuality.
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I fully support the idea of non-literal interpretations of any holy text. The more literally a holy text is taken the more inhumane the practice that follows.
But as far as I know, no mainstream school of Islamic thought goes for anything but the most literal interpretation possible (to applied in as context free a way as possible) so there’s no muslim equivalent of those christians who talk about parts of the bible as being allegory (god talking to people in a way they could understand at the time).
It would be wonderful if there such interpretations in mainstream modern Islam but I’ve never found them.
It’s one thing for Clarissa to interpret things in her own way it’s quite another for Imams to do so.
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I think that all organized religions are evil, of course. All of the imams, priests, rabbis, etc can go stuff themselves for all I care. They are all piss poor readers. 🙂
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I agree that an interesting, worthy reading of the Koran might not exist. But it can arise. There is nothing in the book to preclude that. The book is so not the problem. The shitty readers are.
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I found ibn Warraq’s criticism of the Koran more interesting, but then again, I found Bertrand Russell’s original inspiration for it more interesting yet.
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“Warraq stated, ‘I had fear to become the second Salman Rushdie.'” (via Wikipedia)
So nice to know that I’m not the only one …
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Why are so many messages believed to be from a god capable of such varied misinterpretation? It would seem strange that any god would want their followers confused. Stranger still that an omnipotent, omnipresent being wouldn’t be able to avoid at least the most damaging misenterpretations taking place.
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Hmm… anyone with more islam knowledge care to comment? There are 600 million muslims in india, Bangladesh, and Indonesia.. and those societies are relatively moderate as far as I am aware? So I am thinking there are some moderate mainstreams. Now in india 150-200 million muslims are outnumbered by 1 billion Buddhists and hindu’s who likely have a bigger impact on modern govt and policy there.. but the issue then more becomes in the middle east and north Africa it is the GOVT.s who all push the harshest interpretation of the Koran? I could be off, but I at least think is an interesting hypothesis and curiuos if we have a resident muslim / Islamic expert to clarify?
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The Muslims in the FSU are very moderate and secular with the exception of Chechnya and Dagestan. But the Tatars, for instance, are a very peaceful and civilized Muslim community.
I hear that Indonesia is pretty bad, though.
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Erm hi. “Muslim” from Pakistan here. Let me assure that the more educated and aware people interpret the Quran on logic. If you ever have the time, look at the interpretation of Islam apparent in poems by Allama Iqbal. That’s the Islam WE follow.
BUT in the history of every Muslim country there have been certain radical elements which were intent on “Islamizing” the country. Our’s was General Zia-ul-Haq. Before his regime, Pakistan was not any different from any other secular country. We had nightclubs, we had bars, we were a fun, peace-loving SECULAR nation! Zia came and decided that Pakistan had to be named the ISLAMIC Republic of Pakistan and proclaimed the “state religion” to be Islam in the 1973 constitution, drafted by ZA Bhutto. Zia made the national dress of Pakistan to be shalwar kameez, he prohibited alcohol and closed down the bars and clubs. People became frustrated as they were FORCED to follow Islam, something, let me tell you, Prophet Muhammad NEVER did as being a Muslim is a choice, not law.
As for your word about Africa and the Middle-East, THAT’S where the problem is at. Especially Saudi Arabia. Who was Zia’s most influential supporter? Why, it was Saudi Arabia! They are sick-minded people who not only want 72 virgins after they die, but while they are LIVING too!
So yeah that’s how it is. Being an upper-middle class Pakistani, I don’t cover my head, I wear jeans and hoodies, I study journalism in a prestigious college, my sisters have great jobs. And if I wanted to drink, I could have procured alcohol pretty easily. Also, the neighbor’s son sells coke…
I have never faced any problem from the authorities for being “liberal”. Yeah, some people talk, but who cares about people?
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This is so true:
“The greatest step forward we can all take in our development as human beings is to understand that nobody else is me. And that’s OK. The most horrible things human beings inflict on each other stem from their incapacity to see where they end and other people begin.”
This includes people who come along to observe what one is doing and say to themselves, “I’d like a little bit of that, but it is not yet wholly to my liking. Let me cut someone else down to size to tailor them a bit, because I am really rather small and the fabric of their being does not fit what I have in mind for it.’
Of course those who do this always adopt the pose of an exaggerted innocence, as if they were just passing through and decided to help out.
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“Terribly sorry, but we have to drive a hyperspace bypass through your part of this star system …”
[waves around a copy of Douglas Adams’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” in an attempt to justify this position] 🙂
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Are there any monotheistic religions that have not now or ever been used to promote the use of violence?
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Is there any human institution that hasn’t?
Let’s not pretend like religion is somehow special here. Human beings do violence. They do it in many different contexts, including song, dance, sex, festivities, etc.
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So if your happy to believe that all those other contexts promote violence then why do you even bother to ask if Islam does? Why would it be any different?
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I was obviously responding to a flurry of posts on Islam that are being published right now. But I’ve also been known to ridicule the “all sex is rape” brand of feminism. 🙂
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