It
is time to dispel the myths surrounding Muslims - namely, that we are all
terrorist anti-feminist teetotallers.
June 2007
With George Bush and
Osama bin Laden, those two prodigal sons of oil dynasties, locked in an
ideological battle of global proportions, folk like us who stand in the middle
and believe in multiculturalism, can feel under fire. But in the name of
tolerance, we must fight back to reclaim our common ground. It is time to
declare a "war on error".
For those not in the
know, an Arab Muslim man currently ranks slightly higher than pond life. As
someone who fits into that ethnic category, I find the unflattering assumptions
hard to swallow. Similarly, as a European Arab, I find stereotypes about the
west that circulate in conservative Muslim circles equally bewildering.
In this article, I
want to challenge some of the myths about Muslims and Arabs terrorising
westerners' common sense. In part two, I will turn the tables and look at the
surreal legends about the west that enjoy growing currency in the Middle East.
In the space
available, I can only scratch the surface, but do feel free to add your own
observations.
Error 1:
"Not all Muslims are terrorists, but the majority of terrorists are
Muslims. And Islam is a religion of violence and Muslims do not value
life."
This is a popular
refrain among neocons, the papacy and even Islamophobic liberals and
socialists. Given the age-old rivalry between Islam and Christendom, the
popularity of this view is hardly surprising.
Islam, like many other
religions and ideologies, can be used to advocate peace or violence, push for
social reform or maintain the status quo. In contexts where a philosophy has a position
of broad acceptance and dominance in a society, different interest groups need
to couch their arguments in the framework of the dominant ideology.
As much as we can
generalise about a billion-plus humans, Islam in its totality is no more or
less violent than other faiths, and Muslims value life just as much as
non-Muslims. As in other religions, suicide is forbidden. Islamic traditions
make allowances for people's temporal lives, not just the afterlife. As
religions go Islam, with the exception of the Sufi mystics, is a fairly
materialistic here-and-now kind of faith.
Indeed, Islam was
spread partly by the sword, just like Christianity or any other missionary
faith. But it won far more converts by the word, particularly in Asia.
Every religion (and
almost every ideology) has its fair share of terrorist/violent resistance
groups. Christian groups include the KKK and the anti-abortion Army of God in the US and the brutal Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. Jewish groups include the Kahane Chai
today. Previously, the extremist Lehi and more moderate Hagannah (which became the IDF) were both described
as a "terrorists" by the British at one point or another.
Hindu groups include
the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. The oldest Sikh group is
the Babbar Khalsa which wishes to establish a Sikh state
(Khalistan). Then there is the Aum Supreme Truth in Japan.
That's not to mention
all the violent anarchist and communist groups around the world. And, of
course, when one brings state-perpetrated terrorism into the equation, then the
picture changes even more dramatically.
Error 2: "Arab and Muslim women are oppressed and
have no rights."
Personally, I am a dedicated feminist. I believe in complete equality between
men and women, and do my best to practice what I preach. Besides, if ever I
were to lapse, my wife would have no qualms about reminding me! In fact, given
the quality of some of the women in my life, I am sometimes tempted to believe
that if there must be a superior gender, they may be it.
Nevertheless, strangers do sometimes give Katleen pitying looks when they see
us together, as if to say: "Poor woman, bet you didn't realise what you
were getting yourself into!" I find this particularly ironic if it comes
from some middle-aged housewife or a young woman in tow of some "Jack the
Lad".
And there are plenty
of Muslim and Arab men like me. However, the status of women has not progressed
as far in most Muslim societies as it has in the west - but they are decades,
not centuries behind. In fact in the most conservative countries, such as Saudi
Arabia, Pakistan and Sudan, it has gotten worse.
Nevertheless, in secularised
Arab and Muslim societies, women enjoy many of the rights enjoyed by their
western counterparts. Professionally and academically, many Arab women have
caught up with and overtaken their male counterparts. The feminist movement is
alive and kicking in many Muslim countries and religious feminists are striving
to remould their faith along more egalitarian lines.
That said, the way
society regards women's sexuality and their relative position in marriage
leaves a lot to be desired.
Error 3:
"Muslims do not drink alcohol."
Islam prohibits the consumption of alcohol, but the Qur'an did this gradually
and some verses do attribute to alcohol some beneficial effects.
Despite this divine
injunction, the majority of Muslim countries do not outlaw alcohol and never
have - it is just too popular. It is only the most conservative and extreme
countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Afghanistan that do so. In Saudi
Arabia, there is a thriving bootleg market and the Sudanese still continue to
distil their own date wine. As the United States quickly learnt in the 1930s,
prohibition or not you cannot stop people from enjoying their favourite tipple
- and so most Muslim countries wisely leave it in the private sphere.
In fact, drinking has
historically been such an important part of Arab culture, that it was Arab
chemists who discovered the chemical substance alcohol (an Arabic word) in the
middle ages. Arabic poetry is full of wine analogies and metaphors and Sufi
mystics compare the euphoria of their spiritualism to drinking wine.
Umm Kalthoum, the Arab world's most famous diva, sang a love poem
by Omar Khayyam in which she emphatically declares over and over:
"Has love ever witnessed drunkards such as us?" Of course, she was
being metaphorical, and was not forecasting the advent of binge drinking
snog-fests in Manchester on a Saturday night.
Khayyam's passion for
wine as expressed in his rubaiyat (quatrains) is so famous that a fairly decent
Egyptian wine is named in his honour.
Read part 2
on errors about the west made by Muslims
This column appeared
in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment
is Free section on 22 May 2007.
