Comments on: The “concept” of a “religion”

By: Diana

Diana — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 11:16:00 +0000

Ah my bad…Timimi was born & raised right here in the USofA, and was sent to a private, liberal, Jewish school…

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/580

By: Diana

Diana — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 10:59:18 +0000

OK fair enuf, mebbe he was "ambushed" but so what? Life is one ambush after another. Ambushes flush out the real you.

BTW I just read on Slate about Ali Al Timimi, of whom I had never heard previously. A violent Muslim extremist who preached hate against America and said that 9/11 was justified--

right in America.

Why are these people in our country?

He wasn't ambushed, BTW. Some of the evidence against him was gained by wiretapes, I gather. (I read quickly)

Can someone please tell me what other religion has, at the core of their practice and not the fringes, such a collection of violent hatemongers who are dedicated to the destruction of America and the west?

By: razib

razib — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 10:15:13 +0000

Also, I don't think that that imam was "ambushed" as Ikram defensively claimed. He said what was on his mind, honestly.

the "ambush" point is interesting to me, because it happens to conservative christians too. remember the do jews go to heaven controversies that erupt periodically? christians have, over the centuries, either shifted their view of their religion or they have developed subtle and slippery talking points (hate the sin, not the sinner, etc.) to deal with this. i think ambushes are good for western muslims becuase they need to grow up and engage a society where their values and beliefs aren't accepted as normative. as it is, there is the kid-gloves treatment that many secular liberals give to the religion right now for fear of being termed racist, while frankly, most religious conservatives have a difficult time using the most appropriate rhetorical tools because so many of them can be turned against their own religion.

By: Diana

Diana — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 07:28:11 +0000

"I would expect there to be more male-male sex in traditional Islamic societies, as there is a perpetual shortage of women, due to polygamy."

Then why don't they change it?

I don't find this at all convincing. How do we know what is cause & what is effect.

By: pconroy

pconroy — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 07:04:51 +0000

I would expect there to be more male-male sex in traditional Islamic societies, as there is a perpetual shortage of women, due to polygamy.

Of course, you don’t have to be homosexual to engage in male-male sex – just look at the US prison population – it is often about dominance and intiidation more than anything. Adoloscent male baboons allow more dominant males to mount them, in order to show submission.

By: pconroy

pconroy — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 06:57:36 +0000

Diana wrote:
Getting back to the Muslim homophobia, I find it noteworthy that it exists with a high degree of "queerness"

Yes, that's what I've always been amused at also - there is an obvious dichotomy between theory and practice!

Remember the so called "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, well he had a gay father, and as a teenager posted negative comments about gays in chat rooms, using nom de plumes like "Hine E. Craque". Later he would go to Yemen to study Arabic and Islam, and then on to a madrasa in Pakistan, here's what the above reference has to say about his relationships with his 2 main teachers in these respective countries :
Hayat met Lindh and took him on a tour of various madrasahs, searching for the perfect one from Karachi in the south to Peshawar in the northwest. The young American rejected them all and preferred remaining at Hayat's side. He helped Hayat at his store, a prosperous business dealing in powdered milk. Hayat, who has a wife and four children, says he had sex with Lindh. "He was liking me very much. All the time he wants to be with me," says Hayat, who has a good though not colloquial command of English. "I was loving him. Because love begets love, you know." Lindh's lawyers deny that their client engaged in homosexual relationships.

"He was ready to stay with me," says Hayat, "but I pushed him into the madrasah." Nevertheless, the businessman appears to be jealous of Lindh's relationship with the teacher he recommended, Mufti Iltimas Khan. (Lindh, says Hayat, "loved me more.") The mufti does not discuss the nature of his relationship with Lindh, though he seems happy to talk about the young man. "Everyone who saw him wanted to talk to him and to look at him and to look at his face. A very lovely face he had, John Walker."

So it would seem that these 2 teachers openly spoke of their physical attraction to Lindh, and may both have being having sex with him, and possibly squabbling over who would get be with him?!

By: diana

diana — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 04:46:12 +0000

Yo dudes,

Let's not get off on a "black criminality" tangent. (BTW in NYC where the crime rate has dropped radically young black men are no longer the objects of suspicion they once were. A subject for a Sailer/Leavitt debate, perhaps, but on another thread, please?)

Getting back to the Muslim homophobia, I find it noteworthy that it exists with a high degree of "queerness" as someone on Randy's blog pointed out. (Afghanistan.)

Discuss.

Or is it too obvious?

Also, I don't think that that imam was "ambushed" as Ikram defensively claimed. He said what was on his mind, honestly.

Yeah, sure, he's no different from lotsa Jewish and Christian leaders, but the distinction is that in Western society religious leaders lead fractious organizations that are voluntary. In the Muslim world group adherence is hardly voluntary.

By: razib

razib — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 20:35:47 +0000

well again, most black males aren't criminals. and anyway, the 1/3 number is something in circulation that it is a mistatement, i thought this was "debunked" in the blogosphere a few years back. here it says that 12.6% of black males between the ages of 25-29 are in prison. or check this quote:

One in three black men between the ages of 20 and 29 years old is under correctional supervision or control.

the numbers drop off as you move up the age brackets (and of course, correctional supervision means parole).

By: lkjlkj

lkjlkj — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 17:52:11 +0000

most blacks aren't criminals

true. but 1/3 of black males are in prison. and black criminality is more of a true generalization than german anti-semitism, today at least.

By: razib

razib — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 12:42:30 +0000

the problem with the analogy is that blacks don’t assume that it is constitutionally a matter of blackness that they should be criminals. jews don’t assume that it is constitutionally a matter of fact that they should be liberals (ok, once you get them to be serious ;). many muslims do seem to think that anti-homosexuality is a constitutional element of islam, see the reaction to muslimwakeup or manji. whether it is, or isn’t, a constitutional fact textually or axiomatically the perception is very strong that it is. if muslims don’t know the details of their faith, how they tell us what it is really about in the first place? (ie; peace, toleration, etc. etc.)

also, the analogy to blacks doesn’t work in that even if around half the criminals in the USA happen to be black (or whatever disproportionate you offer), most blacks aren’t criminals. i suspect that most muslims are personally opposed to homosexuality, and would be classed as homophobes, as are many christians in the world. the difference is that the homo-tolerant group of muslims are, in my opinion, a very small minority.

By: Randy McDonald

Randy McDonald — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 12:28:42 +0000

In conclusion, perhaps “black criminality” isn’t the association you should use. “German anti-Semitism,” perhaps?

By: Randy McDonald

Randy McDonald — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 12:18:47 +0000

No problem. As I said elsewhere, there are distinctly Muslim patterns of homophobia. India and Singapore, say, outlaw gay sex drawing upon the sorts of constitutional language used in the West, with the sorts of criminal penalties–fines, imprisonment–used in the West. That’s one tradition.

The tradition that has received perhaps its fullest elaboration in Iran, and which is echoed elsewhere in the Muslim world (not in the entire Muslim world, but still) is rather different. I can’t think of the last time someone was executed in western Europe for the crime of sodomy, for instance. A pattern of “Muslim homophobia” does, in fact, exist, is in fact eagerly claimed by its proponents.

Choudhary? He’s not one of that ilk. Worse, he belongs to the class of people who take it for granted.

By: skoosh

skoosh — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 11:34:12 +0000

Sorry. In newspaper articles, it used to be standard procedure.

And, I know, last word. I don't expect or need a response. I just needed to get that off my chest. Hopefully, I've been able to explain my feelings on this a little better.

By: skoosh

skoosh — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 11:28:00 +0000

Further clarification from Choudhary, to wit: Personally, I am totally opposed to the stoning or capital punishment.... I abhor the idea and practice of stoning of homosexuals anywhere.

What I said was that I accept what the Quran says. The holy Quran does not state anywhere at all about the stoning of homosexuals.

That last point is affirmed by Zain Ali, as Randy quoted above.

I think comparing Choudhary (a Labour MP) to a guy who joined the Anti-Semitic Party misrepresents his position on public policy, to say the least. What is really in Choudhary's heart? How does he really feel about homosexuality? Well, as long as he's willing to defend and advance the rights of homosexuals in society, even at a potential political cost to himself, the issue of his deep-down personal feelings seems moot. Would Karl Lueger have done as much?

Yes, Choudhary's comments were incredibly offensive. No, he probably doesn't really believe that homosexuals should be executed. (We've already agreed on that.) And I didn't question whether his comments were newsworthy (in the sense of being important enough to be re-reported); my grievance is with the way the news was produced, and the context (semantic and social) in which it was packaged as it zipped around the world. As Zain Ali pointed out, "I do feel totally let down by the double-dutch of Ashraf Choudhary, but then again I have heard him proclaim several times that he does not represent Muslims. Rather, he claims to represent New Zealand's ethnic communities." Yet, he is made to represent Muslims anyway, in New Zealand and around the world, even though he wasn't enough of a theologian to know that the Qur'an per se doesn't call for homosexual people to be stoned. (And can you blame him? After all, how many Christians, even non-homophobic ones, know that Jesus never condemns homosexuality in the Gospels, but specifically condemns divorce?) Because of that, 60 Minutes was able to trip him up with a question based on a false premise. And the rest is history.

Why does this bother me? I've been thinking about it for the last three days. Here's a reason. The truth embodied in the phrase "Muslim homophobia" is like the truth embodied in the phrase "black criminality" or "Jewish liberalism" (as seen in that glowing Karl Lueger article linked above). What is it really telling us (most of whom are susceptible to certain cognitive biases) about "those people"?

In the U.S. forty years ago, it used to be standard procedure to identify the race of a suspected criminal, if he wasn't white. Nowadays, it isn't. There is an argument to be made (and some people make it) that the problem of violent criminality is more severe among black people than others, and therefore we shouldn't be afraid to highlight and specifically condemn black crime as such. There is also an argument against doing that.

By: Crabapple

Crabapple — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 16:17:02 +0000

Nice to a see a link to Abiola Lapite. Has he withdrawn his lawsuit against GNXP? (snicker)

By: razib

razib — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 14:39:45 +0000

AM,

interesting point…but the reason i use the term apostate to describe myself isn’t because of an outside reference (the non-muslim world) but the way muslims define it. in the context of what randy is talking about, the death penalty against homosexuals, i would be subject to that punishment as well according to most interpretations of shariat. you are a muslim if your father is a muslim. but the very act of apostasy does indicate that islam isn’t an ethnicity, you can’t simply “leave” being black.

islamic law seems to distinguish between two types of apostates: those who were “born” muslim and those who converted and reverted to their natal religion. the former kind are treated a bit more…harshly it seems, as it is a more violent crime against nature.

as for as people treating you like a muslim, the easiest way to give them some perspective is ask them if they believe in god. if they say yes, tell them they’re gullible. that tends to change their mindset ;)

By: Al Mujahid

Al Mujahid — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 14:05:49 +0000

"as an apostate i sympathize with you randy, and the two situations are not analogous because apostasy is in some ways more socially tolerated than homosexuality".

Razib,
I dont believe you are an apostate.
When you say you are apostate, you give ammunition to the people who treat Islam as an ethnicity (remember the discussion on Hirshi Ali)
I have seen you talk about how you never believed, so you never left Islam if you never believed in it to begin with.
I am a better example of being an apostate, because I believed for years and years and then stopped believing.
I have a problem with people still referring to me as a Muslim even though I have left Islam.
The problem is compounded when a person like you who just happens to have Muslim parents refers to himself as an apostate.

By: David Boxenhorn

David Boxenhorn — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 12:50:28 +0000

Razib, a Justice of the Supreme Court is not allowed to reinterpret the constitution because he thinks it’s wrong, he must base his interpretations on existing principles. The process is identical.

By: razib

razib — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 12:39:28 +0000

men are fallible and can be imprecise (the framers). god can not ;) or so they say….

By: David Boxenhorn

David Boxenhorn — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 12:35:07 +0000

Pardon me if I sound glib about working around obvious interpretations. The process by no means implies being disingenuous. Most religions have a very large number of values which they teach, it is very reasonable to look at the situation, and the relevant principles, and conclude that some other principle takes precedence in this particular case. The same thing happens under American law – look at all the controversies about the interpretation of secular law! Some people believe that the US Constitution guarantees the right to an abortion, some believe it is silent on the matter, and some believe it is prohibited by the Constitution!