Shi'a Pundit

Devoted to the viewpoint of Islam of Muhammad SAW and Amir ul-Mumineen, Ali ibn Abi Talib SA, in the Shi'a Fatimi Ismaili Dawoodi Bohra tradition.

the good of the ummah?.

my earlier "muslim for Howard Dean" piece was published on alt.muslim as a standalone essay. It also sparked a response piece from a muslim who supports Kucinich:

America is a democracy. Bush can be voted out and another president elected in his place. That other president may be someone who will bring benefit to Muslims. Or he may just be somebody who will do less harm to Muslims. In either case, by voting for this other president we will have done something to help the umma, even if it is a small thing. That is exactly what Shakyh Munajjid is talking about. Bringing benefit to the umma and reducing harm.

This is profoundly wrong. When I cast my vote I am doing it as an American, not a muslim. From my perspective, trying to effect change "for the good of the ummah" by political action makes no sense, unless you are willing to admit that what's best for the ummah is not necessarily best for Islam.

Islam is eternal. The impact of the 2004 election upon Islam, the religion, the revealed Truth of Allah, will be absolutely zero. Ariel Sharon could be elected President with Daniel Pipes as his Veep and it would make no difference to Islam.

The ummah, on the other hand, is a loose political identity of muslims worldwide. This presumably includes the Sunni fanatics who tried to kill me in Yemen because of my Shi'a beliefs. It also presumably includes Udai and Qusay Hussein, who were not averse to reciting Qur'an verses in between bouts of debauchery. The ummah includes entire countries, such as Syria and Pakistan, whose pursuit of regional self-interest sometimes does much greater collective harm to muslims as a whole than Bush could do in twenty thousand lifetimes.

As such I reject the idea that we need to be on the lookout for the "ummah" when casting our vote. It's the height of arrogance to even presume what threads of fate will, in the end, tie together and benefit muslims as a whole. Only Allah can judge these things - and ascribing cosmic significance on behalf of the entire believer-politic to your vote is to take what is no more than your opinion and try to wrap it in the Qur'an for legitimacy.

Using religion - or even religious unity - as a validator of your political beliefs is a fundamental abuse of religion. And it offends me profoundly.

So let's dispense with the grandstanding and get down to the basic principle: your vote for President of the United States is solely a function of your political beliefs. Al-Muhajabah has done an excellent job in making a principled case for Kucinich, not just on his position re: the Middle East and Iraq, but for his generally Progressive position at the far left of the American political spectrum. I greatly admire AM for her principles and her dedication to them - she is admittedly far more progressive than I am and I disagree with her on the issues to some extent, but she is honest about her beliefs and does not try to wrap them in the Qur'an for legitimacy.

(I'll tackle the substance of why I won't vote Kucinich in a separate post..)

permalink | posted by Shi'a Pundit

universal problem, unique solution.

This is one of those irony-laden situations that frankly drain my optimism.

In Yemen, there are two kinds of internet cafes - ones that let you sit with your back to the wall, and ones that don't. The former are commonly understood to be safe havens for (obviously, male) patrons more interested in porn than in fatwas. Some of the more accomodating cafes even have partitions between terminals for absolute privacy onscreen.

(Point 1 - porn is as popular in oppresively conservative religious countries as it is in secular, sex-drenched America.)

Naturally some "Islamic" "authorities" (the terms deserve separate sneer quotes in this context) take issue with this. Their response? outlaw partitions in the internet cafes.

(Point 2 - as usual, religious authorities find ways to legislate morality, seemingly oblivious to the fact that doing so renders honest piety utterly indistinguishable from simple fear, and therefore equally worthless.)

The response of the internet cafes? Invoke Islamic law and (successfully) argue that removing the partitions would violate women's modesty:

The cafe owners, meanwhile, have formed an organisation to defend their business and have come up with a cunning argument against the removal of partitions: it discriminates against women. Partitions allow women internet users to be segregated from men in accordance with Islamic custom, they say, and removing them in effect deprives women of their right to use the internet.

The segregation argument is the one that they are relying on. While it is tempting to admire the cunning of the internet cafe owners, and applaud the fact that the internet users have now avoided a needless imposition on their liberty (said imposition which, of course, completely contradicted the Islamic principle of choice and reason as the foundation of belief), it is equally true that this "liberty" was won by legitimizing the oppression of women (ie, the mandate of partitions for womens' modesty), in order to enable the objectification of women (granted, a more universal problem).

I can't complain - with partitions, maybe some enterprising young firebrand might stumble across the texts of Locke, Jefferson, and Syedna Qazi Noman. Heck, they might even stumble across Shi'a Pundit (my ego blooms with a thousand facets).

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the economics of polygamy.

Al Muhajabah has an interesting link to a study on the economics of polygamy. More interestingly, she has been examining polygamy on her Niqabi Paralegal blog, and makes this interesting observation:

As it turns out, various American courts have been dealing with the question of whether to recognize polygamous marriages and for what purposes since the late 1880s. More than two-thirds of these cases deal with Native American marriages. Other cultures include Hindu, Sikh, Chinese, and Nigerian animist. None of the cases actually deal with Muslims. Odd, isn't it, for a practice so closely associated in the Western mind with Islam.

And she also includes this link to her discussion of Christian polygamy. She really does her homework!

permalink | posted by Shi'a Pundit

Dean decries civil rights abuses for Arabs and Muslims.

in the wake of this kind of atmosphere, it is encouraging to see at least one candidate have the courage to address the scapegoating of Muslims in general and Arabs in particular: Howard Dean comes out with a moving statement:

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean issued the following statement on the forthcoming Inspector General’s report documenting abuse of Arabs and Muslims detained under the Patriot Act:

“For the second time in recent weeks, the Justice Department Inspector General will be reporting serious abuses of the civil rights of Arabs and Muslims in the war on terror. These abuses are wrong and must stop immediately.

“I am appalled by allegations – which the Inspector General has deemed credible – that Department of Justice employees have, among other things, beaten Muslim and Arab detainees.

“This should not happen in America.

“The Inspector General’s report confirms my fear that we have unnecessarily compromised constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism. The ongoing abuses alienate the community whose cooperation we need most and diminish our moral credibility in the eyes of the world. The rule of law and due process must continue to be the hallmarks of our judicial system.

“I urge Congress to reconsider aspects of the Patriot Act and other anti-terror tactics that lead to such abuses.

“The government must protect Americans against terrorism while protecting basic civil liberties every step of the way.”

permalink | posted by Shi'a Pundit

losing the peace.

This comprehensive LAT article on how the post-Saddam occupation of Iraq has gone wrong for want of planning is worthy of being a reference document unto itself. It goes into amazing detail about the contrast between the immense planning spent on preparing for war, and the utter lack of any attention paid to the peace.

But the real kicker is the ending:

"It's not true there wasn't adequate planning. There was a volume of planning. More than the Clinton administration did for any of its interventions," said Rand's Dobbins.

"They planned on an unrealistic set of assumptions," he said. "Clearly, in retrospect, they should have anticipated that when the old regime collapsed, there would be a period of disorder, a vacuum of power They should have anticipated extremist elements would seek to fill this vacuum of power. All of these in one form or another have been replicated in previous such experiences, and it was reasonable to plan for them."

Looking back from the third floor of the Pentagon, Feith dismissed such criticism as "simplistic." Despite initial problems, he said, progress is being made, with order returning to most of the country and a new Iraqi governing council in place.

Still, he and other Pentagon officials said, they are studying the lessons of Iraq closely — to ensure that the next U.S. takeover of a foreign country goes more smoothly.

"We're going to get better over time," promised Lawrence Di Rita, a special assistant to Rumsfeld. "We've always thought of post-hostilities as a phase" distinct from combat, he said. "The future of war is that these things are going to be much more of a continuum

"This is the future for the world we're in at the moment," he said. "We'll get better as we do it more often."

permalink | posted by Shi'a Pundit

the perfection of the Qur'an.

Triggered by this post by Bill, itself a reply to this post by Zack, an interesting discussion in the comments of Bill's new MT-based IdeoFact.

I personally don't fear any research that shows differences in Qur'anic text in the same way that a Sunni believing in the Qur'an as an uncreated text would, or a Catholic faced with proof of Christ's bloodline via Mary Magdalene. The fact that these early Qur'anic texts were found in Yemen, favored by Ali AS in those times, speaks volumes to me.

Regardless of whether the Qur'an was created or uncreated, the perfection and completeness of the Qur'an is absolute. I think that the whole created vs increated debate is really about whether the Qur'an even NEEDS to be interpreted or not (and if so, by whose authority? We Ismailis certainly have our own perspective on that!).

UPDATE: David Ross has some insightful analysis. I'd like to note that I am a Fatimi Ismaili Bohra, not a Nizari Ismaili or an Ithna Ashari. That means that I don't believe in the Mahdi, and I believe in 21 Imams, not 12. I don't believe that the Aga Khan is the Imam, either. My sect is described in detail in the book Mullahs on the Mainframe by Jonah Blank.

permalink | posted by Shi'a Pundit

burka and bikini: response to Yourish.

I have to object to Yourish's characterization of my burka and bikini post as "american women are just as oppressed as Saudi women."

The essay I wrote took great pains (which Meryl ignored, apparently) to focus its analysis on the articles of clothing, not the women underneath. The burka is often used as a tool of misogynistic oppression. This is enforced with violence and social stigma.

But the burka is also a symbol - when willingly adopted - of modesty and control over how the woman interacts with society. Many women who wear the veil or similar modest dress do so because they perceive a great benefit to it (including my wife).

Likewise, the bikini can for some be a symbol of female liberation or simple vanity or any other perfectly reasonable expression of a woman's free will and pride and independence.

However, there are some cases where women wear a bikini solely in order to comply with a male-driven social expectation by society. That is the subject of my post, because the simple fact that such social coercion exists means that the bikini can no longer be considered a truly neutral article of clothing.

Many Muslim writers try to make a case for the burka as a symbol of freedom alone, ie ascribe a purely positive value to it. They ignore the negative side of the coin (whether it is pos or neg. depends entirely on the rationale behind why the woman chooses to wear it).

In the same vein, most people like Steven Den Beste who ascribe to the bikini a symbolism of absolute American liberty are also assigning a purely positive value without acknowledgeing that there is also a negative coercive aspect.

The burka and the bikini - when embraced of free will - are equal symbols of freedom, and that is why I have referred to America as the greatest Islamic country in the world many times on my blog. The concept of persona liberty and choice is essential to both American society and Islamic theology regarding the value of religious action.

The impetus to write the burka and the bikini post was solely to counter the simplistic claim that bikinis are American and Free and burkas are totalitarian and slaved. In actual fact, they are both just pieces of cloth. What truly matters is the freedom of the woman wearing it.

I also refer you to Jeanna D'Arc's insightful piece about patriarchal oppression. Also, Jane Galt had some related perspectives about cultural imperialism that are must-reads.

permalink | posted by Shi'a Pundit

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About Shi'a Pundit

Shi'a Pundit was launched in 2002 during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The blog focuses on issues pertaining to Shi'a Islam in the west and in the Islamic world. The author is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community. Bohras adhere to the Shi'a Fatimi tradition of Islam, headed by the 52nd Dai al-Mutlaq, Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin (TUS).

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