There are more than a billion Muslims in the world, each with an individual view of life. So why are they viewed as a unified group, asks Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
n 2007, six years after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, I was travelling through Europe and North America. I had just published a novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and as I travelled I was struck by the large number of interviewers and of audience members at Q&As who spoke of Islam as a monolithic thing, as if Islam referred to a self-contained and clearly defined world, a sort of Microsoft Windows, obviously different from, and considerably incompatible with, the Apple OS X-like operating system of “the west”.
I recall one reading in Germany in particular. Again and again, people posed queries relating to how “we Europeans” see things, in contrast to how “you Muslims” do. Eventually I was so exasperated that I pulled my British passport out of my jacket and started waving it around my head. “While it’s true the UK hasn’t yet joined the euro zone,” I said, ” I hope we can all agree the country is in fact in Europe.”
Six years on, a film inspired by the novel is in the process of appearing on screens around the world, and I am pleased to report that those sorts of questions are a little rarer now than they were in 2007. This represents progress. But it is modest progress, for the sense of Islam as a monolith lingers, in places both expected and unexpected.
Islam is not a race, yet Islamophobia partakes of racist characteristics. Most Muslims do not “choose” Islam in the way that they choose to become doctors or lawyers, nor even in the way that they choose to become fans of Coldplay or Radiohead. Most Muslims, like people of any faith, are born into their religion. They then evolve their own relationship with it, their own, individual, view of life, their own micro-religion, so to speak.
Islamophobia can be found proudly raising its head in militaristic American think tanks, xenophobic European political parties, and even in atheistic discourse, where somehow “Islam” can be characterized as “more bad” than religion generally, in the way one might say that a mugger is bad, but a black mugger is worse, because black people are held to be more innately violent.
Click Link to read full article;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2013/may/19/mohsin-hamid-islam-not-monolith
Posted By F. Sheikh
Islam and Christianity are religions with adherents around the globe and a long history of confrontation that has shaped attitudes. The questioning that Mohsin Hamid describes reflect the historical baggage that is sharpened by the newer conflicts. The presence of sizable Muslim immigrant populations in the west who have not yet learned to assimilate within their host countries further adds to the tensions as xenophobic,and neoconservative groups push the negative stereotypes to further their agendas.
I have already expressed on this subject in my article “Islam and Modernity.” Mohsin Hamid is missing the important point that ISLAM IS A CIVILIZATION comprising diverse cultures and traditions. The fundamental trait of Islam reflects the Arab culture and traditions, while in different parts of the world, regional cultures and traditions are reflected in Islam. It is the civilizational spectrum that makes it monolithic or one unified ummah, whereas individual view of life is based on the impact of culture and tradition of the region where a person is born or is living. His character, Chengez is Muslim only as a member of Islamic civilization. But living in Western society he has been impacted by the culture and tradition of the country he is living in. In the same way our next generation, growing and getting educated in USA is becoming Westernized in many ways, but is and will be known and recognized as Muslims. . . For quick and ready reference I have pasted a section of my article here below, which particularly relates to Islam as a civilization.
WHO ARE MUSLIMS? This is a big question? Whereas all other civilizations in the world have gradually evolved, Islam is a civilization founded by its Prophet. Muslims are citizens of a great ummah, a civilization under the banner of universal Islam, where they believe in One God, the five pillars of Islam–though one may or may not be practicing these tenets. Even an atheist born and living in Islamic sphere cannot divest himself of his Muslim identity. This is because Islam presents an all-embracing system of life comprising a diversity of self-contained culture. Their diversity in different factions and approaches is the result of Islam’s capacity to assimilate other cultures into its system, including Central Asian, Persian, Egyptian, European, Indian, Mongolian, Far Eastern, and now the Western, within its mother culture which is originally Arabian. Viewing Islam in today’s broader perspective, Islamic civilization is a perpetual continuum of Islam’s ideological appeal to humanitarian theism.
Mirza Ashraf
I think not only Islam but all the religions and their followers are wrongly viewed as unified groups different from each other. I agree with Mohsin Hamid that we are Muslim (or a Jew or Christian) only because we were born where we were born. Only the converts may rightfully identify themselves as Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhist or whatever. I don’t think Islam should be declared a “civilization” as Mirza Sahib thinks that Mohsin Hamid is missing the point. No new “civilization” was founded by the prophet of Islam, he did not introduce anything new, he only carried forward the Judaism and Christianity with his own narration and amended (at the most), the old Abrahamic myth incorporating the changes that were reasonable after 600 years of the division of original Judaism. Five pillars (tenets) weren’t much different either, fasting and prayer were already observed by others and Hajj was a ritual adopted from the local pagan’s practice. I also don’t understand “a civilization under the banner of universal Islam” or Ummah …what is a “universal Islam” and what is Ummah, nothing but big words. Why is Christianity not a “Universal Christianity” or Christian Ummah? What’s the difference? My point is, we should not be taken as “monolith”, as Mohsin Hamid says. I am just as much a Muslim as my skin’s color with no choice of my own (I am atheist by choice, by the way). Anybody who might think being a Muslim by birth I am same asTaliban of Afghanistan, Sunni of Pakistan, Shia of Iran, Wahabi of Saudi Arabia has no clue about me. Muslims specially are nothing unified but factions bent on killing each other. Others are the same probably looking at history of bloodshed between Protestants and Catholics. I would like to be related to the Indus Civilization, if at all any civilization label must be applied.
First I read this article with not much attention.
After reading Babar Mustafa’s comment I re-read the original article to understand what are the real issues being discussed here.
My first curiosity was ” Who is Mohsin Hamid”?
I Googled it and here is the bio of Mohsin Hamid.
Mohsin Hamid is the author of three novels: Moth Smoke (published in 2000), a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award; The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), a million-copy international bestseller that was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, made into a feature film, and named one of the books that defined the decade by the Guardian; and, most recently, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013).
His fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, and the Paris Review and been translated into over 30 languages. The recipient of numerous awards, he has been called “one of his generation’s most inventive and gifted writers” by the New York Times, “one of the most talented and formally audacious writers of his generation” by the Daily Telegraph, and “one of the most important writers working today” by the Daily Beast.
He also regularly writes essays on themes ranging from literature to politics and is a contributor to publications around the world, including the New York Times, the Guardian, the New York Review of Books, Dawn, and La Repubblica.
A self-described mongrel, he was born in 1971 in Lahore, Pakistan, and has lived about half his life there. The rest he has spent drifting between places such as London, New York, California, the Philippines, and Italy.
Mohsin studied at Princeton, where he was taught by Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison, and Harvard Law School. He is married and has two children.
He is a young intellectual born in Lahore, Pakistan, educated in USA at Ivy League universities. His books have been translated in 30 languages He has won quite a few literary awards.
His thoughts, ideas are representatives of young Muslim generation of today.
As a young Muslim intellectual he addresses the issue of Muslim discrimination in the west especially after 9/11.
His first point is that Muslims are not a monolithic group of over 1 billion people.
Majority of the Muslims at present are not by choice but being born in Muslim families.
As individuals we interpret Islam based on our own perceptions of reality and understanding of abstract concepts. A Muslim can be an extremely conservative/orthodox/fundamentalist person or can be an extremely progressive/radical/open minded person.
He raised an interesting point, Islam is a religion not a race.
Some Jews (majority not all) may believe that Judaism is a religion as well as a race.
He has pointed out the concept of UMMA which should be discussed in TF USA.
UMMA was relevant only in the past, or it is also relevant today.
Now let us take up Babar Mustafa comments.
His comments are intellectually challenging as well as interesting.
Babar Mustafa has raised and discussed quite a few complex points.
Right now I would like to compliment him on his courage to openly admit that he was born in a Muslim family but now he is an atheist.
I would ask Babar Mustafa one question.
Would you please share with TF USA affiliates why you became an ATHEIST?
What is so special about it (ATHEISM)?
You seem to be a person of high intellect and well read.
Why you gave up Islam and transformed yourself into Atheism?
Your answer will be read by lot of people with lot of interest and curiosity.
Your other points are not being ignored. They will be addressed, rebutted and discussed.
Noor Salik
Why I am an atheist;
Thank you Salik Sahib for the praise but I better set the record straight – I do not consider myself an intellectual. At best I am a practical and rational person and I see things logically. I am not highly educated (degree wise) but I have read a few books and traveled (sailed) the globe many times over, met all kinds of people, seen razzle dazzle of the West and misery of human kind first hand. I am 60 and retired as a Chief Engineer merchant marine.
I was a Muslim until I was a total ignorant. Growing up in a traditional Sunni Muslim family I observed all the rituals of Islam and participated as long as it was interesting but when I was thirsty or hungry I broke my fasting, I went to mosque until moulvi started telling “miracles” and I said to myself, yeah right, Moses turned sticks to snakes etc. I lost interest in prayers after listening to imams praying year after year for Kashmir and Palestine. So basically I escaped the indoctrination and was one among seven siblings who never turned the second page of first sapara despite beatings by moulvi sahib as I did not understand one word of Arabic and could not memorize lines I didn’t know the meanings of. So I entered the real world with a clean slate and blank mind (not indoctrinated). I will not narrate all the little things that gradually added up for me to cross over to become a non believer. I am not sure if I should call myself an atheist but its a label I was given by my friends who tried to “enlighten” me with Quran and that is when I actually read the translated Quran and the more I read the more things I found baseless and objectionable. If I have to label myself anything I might choose “naturalist” as it was the evolution and Darwin’s book “The Origin of Species” that made sense to me and unlike Quran, the more I read the more it made sense. Over the years I developed great interest in evolution and astronomy and Darwin and Einstein became my heroes….and I could not listen to my friends talk about God. What God, what He does, no answer, nothing but His resume is of a cruel personality, nothing to show for except credit for misery and floods and earth quakes and destruction. Once I understood evolution, found that all life originated from one life and we descended from apes and our basic cell (building blocks) was so strikingly similar to the plants too and our DNA is 98% same as chimps and basically we are related to flies and the grass too, there was no way I could even listen to the religious version of genesis any more. Over the last ten years or so I have read a lot of books including Quran, much of Bible, history of religions by Karen Armstrong and Muslim authors too (Tamim Ansari’s Destiny Disrupted, The Invention of Jewish People by Shlomo Sand, a Jew, etc.), read on astronomy and a bit of geology (to understand the workings of our planet and the universe), watched a lot of science channel and watched Carl Sagan’s Cosmos (the best teacher ever). Now I feel that I am not an ignorant anymore (and not a scholar at all too). Now knowing that earth quakes and eruptions don’t, can’t, happen due to immoral behavior of humans, glaciers don’t melt due to homosexuality, but its the tectonic plates movement and cyclic variations of global temperatures. Its not God’s wrath but earth’s orbit around sun (which is not circular all the time) and distance from Sun that causes ice ages and warm cycles. One can only believe in a God as depicted in Bible and Quran as long as one is ignorant of facts of life and universe. How can a God come to exist if nothing is created without a creator, an entity superior to all creation is possible to come to exist but not the rest of the creation just doesn’t make sense. How can fire turn to flowers, how can clay birds fly, how can a God ask his creation to sacrifice his son, what kind of father will intend to cut his son, what kind of husband trades his wife with the slave of a pharaoh and what kind of human being leaves his son and son’s mother in the middle of the desert, what kind of brother cheats his brother with the assistance of their mother for blessings by deceiving his blind father, how can one respect a person who is guilty of slaughtering 800 men in the square of Medina and distributes the women of slaughtered men as gifts, how do you respect some one as a prophet who leads the ambush on a trading caravan for the purpose of looting, who marries a six year old in his fifties….or even forties!!
People can pray on but I can not pray from an entity that supposedly is responsible for whatever I have to pray for in the first place and how do you expect mercy from such an entity that sat over centuries of practice of human slavery, that is if you know what it was like being a slave, an entity that never saved a child from being raped and then buried alive, who sat over Hitler’s attempt to exterminate Jews – His chosen people..I can not keep religion in a separate box in my brain and disregard all the knowledge of how the real world works…one has to be either capable of not applying one’s knowledge to determine what is a fact and what is a fantasy, or, a total ignorant of how universe works. I am sorry for having offended any reader who might have cared to read what I said.
Babar
Babar Sahab,
Noorji did a great job in bringing you in,
You are in same page with late George Carlin “Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money.”
I am waiting for the fireworks to ensue. Thanks a lot
Babar Sahib has written an admirable and honest journey from religion to atheism. But we are also aware of similar admirable examples of individuals, one such individual is a respectable member of Thinkers Forum USA, who were born in a secular family and studied religion on their own, read much of the same literature as Babar Sahib did, but reached different conclusion and became religious. I think it is a matter of personal experiences, biases, perceptions, interpretations and coloration of events that influence one’s choices.
Comments by Dey Jee are light hearted but interesting. I do not think there will be fireworks. Although whatever Babar Sahib wrote is an honest personal story, but nothing new that has not been said before by the Apostles of Atheism like Richard Dawkins and late Christopher Hitchens, but they collect money by selling books and seminar’s fees for saying the same things-in more extreme language.
Fayyaz
I have been reading and exploring some values in islam lately and interestingly I came across an ideology of the religion that seemed to be very logical. I am talking about the phenomena referred to as Quranism. I am not sure how many people on this board are aware of this ideology. But until recently I was completely aloof of this concept. I think Quranism is the appropriate tool to bring Islam back into the fold of modern society and empower individuals to become successful in modern life yet at the same time create a personal relationship with god/ spirituality. I increasingly suspect that Quranism may have led to the golden age of islam therefore it is direly needed in this day and age to return the religion to its former glory. Here is a link that explains the tenets of quranism to those unaware:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quranism
No, i was not aware of this ideology(it pays to be a TF subscriber) but after reading it i like it a lot. It would unite all the Muslim sects into one group and we’d stop wasting our time and energy on issues like how long our beards should be and how short our trousers and insisting on actually sighting the moon to decide our calendar. These are just a few examples; there are many, many unimportant issues that would go away.
Dr. Fayyaz Sheikh has entered interesting comments on Babar Mustafa comments about Atheism. But he has equated two conditions “Being an Atheist” and “Being not an Atheist”
Then he has given an example of another TF USA affiliate whose intellectual research took him in opposite directions as compared to Babar Mustafa.
Here is quote:
“one such individual is a respectable member of Thinkers Forum USA, who were born in a secular family and studied religion on their own, read much of the same literature as Babar Sahib did, but reached different conclusion and became religious. ”
I would request this individual whom DR. Fayyaz Sheikh is referring to, if he shares with TF USA the reasons about his journey from “Being Secularist” to “Being Religious”.
Then TF USA affiliates can do a comparative and critical analysis of two thought processes.
In due course I will do a critical analysis of Babar Mustafa reasons as to why he became an atheist.
I would request other affiliates to participate in this analysis.
Here are two options.
(1)
If you disagree with Babar Mustafa reasons for his becoming an Atheist from a Muslim,
please say so and share with TF USA your thought process and reasons.
(2)
If you agree with Babar Mustafa’s reasons and thought process, please let TF USA know.
If your reasons are different from Babar Mustafa, please say so.
Let me make a statement.
There are over 7,000,000,000 (7 billions) persons living at this moment on the earth.
If number of zeroes after 7 are incorrect, please correct them.
All human beings physical existence is lateral but their intellectual existence is lateral as well as vertical.
So intellectually human beings exist in the shape of pyramid.
A pyramid is widest at the bottom and smallest at the top.
Intellectually ascending sequence is:
Believers in Animism, polytheism, monotheism, skepticism, agnosticism and atheism.
There is no direct correlation between intelligence and a person’s belief system.
A believer can be a person of high IQ but they are in extreme minority.
Statistically majority of people of high IQ are not believers in supernatural phenomenon.
To be a believer you do not need a higher IQ and to be an atheist you do need a higher level of IQ.
If you disagree with these statements, please enlighten me with your arguments.
Noor Salik
Fayyaz Sahib is correct that I haven’t said anything that has not been said before. Social media and forums like this have made it easy to talk about such matters. I don’t expect any fireworks here either because the affiliates here are tolerant, broad minded and educated.
Salik Sahib the point that 7 billion believers ( of various faiths) is a misleading fact, the fact is the numbers of true believers will be far less and overwhelming majority is just follower of their ancestors belief without having questioned the belief, just as I was. It certainly is not a matter of IQ either, a lot of highly intelligent friends of mine keep trying to re-convert me and there are so many scientists and philosophers who are believers. I think it’s the sense of betrayal that keeps people from openly questioning their belief and respect for their elders, peers and the tribe that makes them look the other way and keep reasoning/rationality separate from belief/religion.
I have no doubt if people are not brain washed/indoctrinated from childhood and presented God Hypothesis vs Evolution hardly any one will reject Einstein and Darwin in favor of a shepherd’s dream three thousand years ago without any rationality. Another factor for success of belief is human need for hope and frankly I have personally faced situations at high seas where I wished there was a God and looking after me.
You have stated ” There is no direct relationship between intelligence and a person’s belief system” but the next three sentences seem to contradict that statement. The correct inferences from those 3 sentences would be that there is some correlation between intelligence and belief system(with which i agree). Obviously the correlation is not a 100%; there are many, many very intelligent persons who are believers.
The word MONOLITH, literally means, a large single upright block of stone especially a pillar or a very large organization or institution that is seen as impersonal and slow to change. The title Muslim Ummah was adopted as a nation of many tribes converted to Islam. The tribes retrained their identities remaining within the banner of Muslim Ummah. As Islam spread in different regions the concept of Ummah started losing its role soon at the end of Hz Uthman’s period. Therefore, in my view, historically, politically and socially, Islam projected monolithic unity for a very short period, and today Muslims are no more a Monolithic Ummah.
ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION: As I have quoted earlier, BERTRAND RUSSELL (an agnostic) was the first Western Philosopher to have said, that Mohammad created a civilization. After him BERNARD LEWIS, (A Jewish atheist) a Professor Emeritus at the Princeton University who could read, write and speak Arabic, spent all his life in studying, teaching, and writing books on Islam and Middle East, was the first to tell the Westerners the dangers from Islamic Civilization. Soon after him, the famous SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, wrote the Clash of Civilizations, openly warning the West dangers of a re-activating Islamic Civilization if it is not nipped in the bud. Why Christianity is not a civilization is because, Christ said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” that helped separation of religion from politics.
In fact what is confusing us whether theologically Islam is monolithic or civilizational. Religion’s role is and has been like a spirit or soul that keeps the body alive. Politically, socially and now culturally, Muslims have adopted and assimilated many diverse traditions and cultures but consciously or unconsciously they retain the spirit of Islam. As the Islamic world is in shackles today greater confusion and misunderstanding arises amongst the Muslims as to where they are standing today. But the world beyond Islam knows that this civilization has the potential to re-emerge, therefore every Muslim country from Morocco to Indonesia is being subjected to internal or external conflicts.
Mirza Ashraf