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 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!

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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.”

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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."

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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.

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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.

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thoughts on Iraq's future.

I haven't been blogging much about Bush's imperialist adventurism foreign policy, because the news from Iraq is just too disturbing. The rise of Iran-backed Shi'a fundamentalists. Cancelled local Iraqi elections. Sunni guerilla warfare. Deaths of American soldiers on a daily basis. Rumsfeld's cheery assessments. The growing frustration of the soldiers in the field (and their families at home).

And of course the omnipresent worry about whether there were any WMD to begin with (probably not), where they went if they did (too scary to contemplate), and whether or not the President can be held accountable (probability: negligible).

I have deep pessimism about Iraq. It's clear that Bush does not and never had the ability, let alone the will, to commit to nation-building - we've known that since his debates with Gore in 2000. It's also disturbingly clear that the military Clinton built is overtaxed far worse under Bush than it ever was under Clinton's tenure.

My worst fear is the following scenario, which I reluctantly conclude is also the most likely:

1. Guerilla warfare from sunnis remains constant
2. Shi'a join in armed resistance because they see:
   1. the US canceling local elections, denying them self-rule
   2. the religious Iran-backed mullahs speaking of freedom to worship Islam
   3. growing conservative-media-fueled American public sentiment that they are ungrateful wretched wogs
   and then draw the obvious conclusion that the US is trying to stifle Islam, specifically Shi'a Islam, and wants to install a puppet government, not one that respects Islam and its tradition. The constant aggravation of Ahmad Chalabi serves as final proof.
3. The US is forced out of Iraq within 15 years^[1], after an increasingly Palestinian-Israeli conflict type of hostility becomes ingrained among the populace
4. A radical Islamic government takes power in Iraq, gaining popular support by invoking both Islam and liberation language, with the US cast as oppressor in both roles (see Point 2 above):
   1. purges of Sunni and former Baathists
   2. cooperation between Persian Iran and Arab Iraq, with Iran the true master (analogous to the controlling role that Pakistan played in Afghanistan, but with religion, not tribe, as the glue)
5. The reform movement in Iran is suppressed as well with Iran's new strength
6. Iran completes its nuclear weapons.

Ultimately the long term outcome is that Iran and Iraq will converge on the same repressive rule that dominates Iran today.

Is there any cause for optimism? Iran's youth is growing up. There will be a civil war in Iran within the next 30 years. And that conflict will spill over into Iraq. The conflict may well even bring Saudi Arabia in, given that the Sunni Wahabi radicals will see the strong Shi'a as a severe threat.

I think that freedom must come from within. America was not handed its freedom 227 years ago yesterday from France. We fought with our own sons and paid with our own blood. Iran may well achieve liberty on its own, but Iraq is much further behind. If Iran and Iraq do converge, then eventually Iran's instability of its disaffected youth will also infect Iraq (a good thing). And I think that there will be freedom for the next generation.

But our invasion of Iraq will have delayed it by as much as two decades - and has the potential to cause much suffering on a regional scale. Our hands are stained with blood.

The scenario above is at least as likely, if not more so, than the wild rosy fantasies of the neocons (now proven grossly unwarranted) upon which the Bush Administration crafts its foreign policy. But when the lives of foreign subjects (and I mean that word literally) is at stake, not your own citizens, experimentation by imperial powers is nothing new.

History is the greatest unlearned lesson.

^[1] That may be too generous an estimate. President Bush can not order the withdrawal of forces from Iraq during his Presidency, because doing so would be an admission of error - and would surely lead to either his defeat in re-election 2004 or the defeat of a Republican successor in 2008. If the economy improves, then Bush's re-election is virtually guaranteed, and assume that a Republican will succeed him for two full terms as well (roughly the same length of time as the boom following a recession. That means that there might be a Republican president until at least 2016. The situation in Iraq however will worsen independently of the American economy, so there will indeed be a larger and larger disconnect between domestic rhetoric and news from the field. If Bush's Republican successor is indeed politically deaf, s/he might well see keeping troops in Iraq as necessary to political success (which the altered reality of the conservative base will surely insist on). If there are still troops in Iraq by 2016, a Democrat will win that election and pull them out. So the worst case scenario is sometime after 2016. Of course, it could all change much sooner than that.

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construction begins for Bohra Masjid in Fremont .

It's always nice to see local press about my community - this article in the SJ Mercury News is a nice piece about our new masjid there. It also features a lot of good quotes from my friend, Yusuf Ezzy:

``We want to bring his holiness to our town to bless us and leave us with a lot of good fortune,'' said Yussef Ezzy, a Fremont Dawoodi Bohra Muslim.

The history of the Dawoodi Bohra sect in the Bay Area dates back to the late 1950s when the largely professional community of engineers, doctors and business people began emigrating from India.

The masjid, or mosque, will be used exclusively by Dawoodi Bohra Muslims, who number about 50 families in the Fremont area and about 90 families in the Bay Area, according to Mufaddal Hotelwala, a spokesman for the group. He estimates there are about 1,500 families nationwide.

Ezzy, 28, who grew up in Fremont, said his religion played a large role in his life. The community is small and intimate, and its members socialize and worship together.

``I think of myself like anyone else, but as Muslims, we pray five times a day. We don't just go to church once a week,'' he said. ``Furthermore, what his holiness Burhanuddin says is very important; he guides us in a spiritual sense and gives us practical guidance, too.''

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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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