Friday, April 18, 2003
Thanks to everyone who wrote me emails; I haven't been able to get to all of them yet, but I will answer as many as I can. Thank you for all your comments and suggestions!
What It Feels Like For A Girl, Part 2
As far as being a woman in the local mosque, I'll list here the differences between men and women:
*Women get a small room entered from the side of the mosque, instead of the front, to pray in. The men's section is much larger, though it should be noted that while men are supposed to come to Friday prayer, women are not required to. This structure makes it impossible to see the imam (prayer leader), whether praying or giving a sermon on Friday. In some mosques, the women's section is placed directly behind the men, so one can see, but it is to be noted that women always pray behind the men. Most annoying for me, the small children also go with the women, and often cause quite a ruckus, something the men don't have to put up with!
*Women are also generally segregated from men, so there are men's groups and women's groups, and very little mixing. And in Islamic countries, especially the strict ones, this carries over to all aspects of life. I've often wondered how men and women are supposed to understand each other when they don't even talk to each other!
*The rules regarding prayer--women are not supposed to pray when they are menstruating, or fast, or enter the mosque (at least the prayer area) or even touch a copy of the Qur'an, because they are considered to be unclean. Prayers missed this way do not have to be made up, but Ramadan fasts do.
*There is of course the dress code--women are supposed to wear baggy clothes going all the way down to their ankles, wrists, and neck, and cover their hair with a scarf, though this is often adhered to not-very-strictly, especially the scarf part. Many girls and women never wear a scarf outside the mosque. Not more than a few wear niqab (face veil), though it should be noted that those who would are also less likely to leave the house, in my experience.
*Then there's all the rules regarding women in Shari'ah, which is a topic in itself (though they are not followed very much in non-Islamic countries--women get Western divorces so they can get the children and more money, for example!).
*Only men run the mosque, the imam and all those responsible for the mosque are men. Women do run the small Islamic school, but not the actual mosque.
*Interestingly, many women are not in the least submissive, not shy to argue with their spouses or the imam if they feel they are being taken advantage of--though I suppose those that are submissive are those you never hear about--or from!
*Manipulation is a high art among women who can't directly ask the men in their lives for what they want or need.
*Although the official line is that the man must support his wife, in fact many Muslim women do work, though many in traditionally women's jobs such as child care or teaching or nursing. Also, large numbers of Muslim young women are going to university, which will allow them to acquire good jobs. However, it is also true that some Muslim men feel that education is wasted on women, who are just going to stay home with the children anyway.
*In all, it is a confusing blend of East and West: Eastern, Islamic, and Arab (Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, African, etc.) ideas conflicting with Western ideas of rights and Western technology--it seems as if almost every woman has a cell phone! The second- and third-generation Muslims tend to be more Westernized, and even those young people who came to America become quite Americanized (always going off to the mall or to a burger place). I suppose we will have to wait and see what becomes of all this.
As far as being a woman in the local mosque, I'll list here the differences between men and women:
*Women get a small room entered from the side of the mosque, instead of the front, to pray in. The men's section is much larger, though it should be noted that while men are supposed to come to Friday prayer, women are not required to. This structure makes it impossible to see the imam (prayer leader), whether praying or giving a sermon on Friday. In some mosques, the women's section is placed directly behind the men, so one can see, but it is to be noted that women always pray behind the men. Most annoying for me, the small children also go with the women, and often cause quite a ruckus, something the men don't have to put up with!
*Women are also generally segregated from men, so there are men's groups and women's groups, and very little mixing. And in Islamic countries, especially the strict ones, this carries over to all aspects of life. I've often wondered how men and women are supposed to understand each other when they don't even talk to each other!
*The rules regarding prayer--women are not supposed to pray when they are menstruating, or fast, or enter the mosque (at least the prayer area) or even touch a copy of the Qur'an, because they are considered to be unclean. Prayers missed this way do not have to be made up, but Ramadan fasts do.
*There is of course the dress code--women are supposed to wear baggy clothes going all the way down to their ankles, wrists, and neck, and cover their hair with a scarf, though this is often adhered to not-very-strictly, especially the scarf part. Many girls and women never wear a scarf outside the mosque. Not more than a few wear niqab (face veil), though it should be noted that those who would are also less likely to leave the house, in my experience.
*Then there's all the rules regarding women in Shari'ah, which is a topic in itself (though they are not followed very much in non-Islamic countries--women get Western divorces so they can get the children and more money, for example!).
*Only men run the mosque, the imam and all those responsible for the mosque are men. Women do run the small Islamic school, but not the actual mosque.
*Interestingly, many women are not in the least submissive, not shy to argue with their spouses or the imam if they feel they are being taken advantage of--though I suppose those that are submissive are those you never hear about--or from!
*Manipulation is a high art among women who can't directly ask the men in their lives for what they want or need.
*Although the official line is that the man must support his wife, in fact many Muslim women do work, though many in traditionally women's jobs such as child care or teaching or nursing. Also, large numbers of Muslim young women are going to university, which will allow them to acquire good jobs. However, it is also true that some Muslim men feel that education is wasted on women, who are just going to stay home with the children anyway.
*In all, it is a confusing blend of East and West: Eastern, Islamic, and Arab (Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, African, etc.) ideas conflicting with Western ideas of rights and Western technology--it seems as if almost every woman has a cell phone! The second- and third-generation Muslims tend to be more Westernized, and even those young people who came to America become quite Americanized (always going off to the mall or to a burger place). I suppose we will have to wait and see what becomes of all this.
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
What It Feels Like For A Girl
Cheesy title, I know...Maybe My Story would be better, but still generic and cheesy. Anyway...
I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that I am an almost 26 year old female. I picked the name Fatimah, though I don't usually use it in the Real World.
According to Islam, all people are born Muslim, but I can't remember ever believing in God when I was a young child. I even remember being disgusted that people could believe in such a stupid idea when I was 7 years old. But at the same time I was always concerned about stuff like: what happens to you after you die, whether the good and bad would be rewarded and punished, what life was all about, and so on. I could never really find anybody to discuss this kind of thing with.
When I was 12 years old, my family started to go to church for some reason, and I took to it very quickly, interestingly enough. I read the Bible all the way through when I was 14 and wanted to be a good Catholic, reading about the lives of the saints (which also went into my love of history), and read everything I could. I was even confirmed when I was 16. But I never really felt as if I had to believe whatever I was told; I could take it or leave it. I never feared that I would go to hell for not believing; that went against my whole being. No God I could believe in would ever send someone to hell just because they couldn't bring themselves to believe in what some man claimed was the will of God (this is still my belief).
Later my family just stopped going to church, and I kind of lost interest. But I was still interested in religions, and I became very fascinated with Judaism. I even wanted to convert (something I was sure to tell the imam of the mosque I converted at, just to get a rise out of him!) But I didn't know if I could spend a year doing so (most Conversion to Judaism courses seem to take a year), especially since I was still at home and not feeling as if I could share this interest with them. Also, what sect? Reform was of course the "easiest" one, but then I was upset that if I did convert according to Reform ritual, Orthodox and Conservative would probably not accept it. And with the Orthodox, it seemed too difficult to live up to all the laws (especially the one about no driving on the Sabbath, since I don't live anywhere near a synagogue/shul)!
Meanwhile, I bought a Qur'an (the Shakir translation) and read it because (you'll love this!) I felt that I wasn't truly educated if I hadn't read the holy texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I'd already read the Bible straight through a few times, so the Qur'an was next. I can't say I was hugely impressed--there seemed to be too much emphasis on hell and punishment, and too much bashing of Jews and Christians. But I'd always been interested in the Middle East, from the time I'd learned about the ancient civilizations of the region, so I went on to take a class called "Islamic Humanities" in college. I remember several of the stories the (female) professor told, such as Muslims waiting, with lighter and cigarette in hand, for the last bit of the sun to disappear from the sky during Ramadan (the fast includes eating, drinking, smoking, and sex), and how women couldn't drive in Saudi Arabia. I really liked the book we were assigned to read for a class project, Leo Africanus by Amin Maalouf, which is a fictionalized account of the life of the Moroccan traveler, but I remember thinking how terrible things were for the poor women in the story!
Well, September 11th came around and really hit me hard, because I remembered visiting the World Trade Center three years before (during a trip I dragged my mom and younger sister to take to NYC, since I wanted to see the city so badly)--I still have the $11.50 admission ticket. I don't want to sound callous, drawing attention to the buildings instead of the people in them, but what I mean is that that was what really drove it home to me what had happened--I had been in those buildings and seen what was on top, so it was more than an image on TV, and didn't know anybody from the area (New York was like another country to me). Anyway, I read my Qur'an again to try to understand something about this religion. I read as much as I could, the good as well as the bad. I noticed the incredible similarities Islam shared with Judaism, and the idea developed in my mind of converting to Islam instead!
I suppose it was the books of Islamic art that really did me in, as well as my ongoing fascination with all things Middle Eastern, but I finally got the courage to go down to the local mosque, which I admit I was frightened of, mostly because I had no idea what it was about or what happened there. I had emailed the imam before, asking to convert, and he had me come over to the mosque and take shahadah (the profession of faith--Ashhadu la illah ill allah, ashhadu anna Muhammad ar Rasulallah; I testify that there is no God but Allah, I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah). And that was it--I was a Muslim. Of course, then I was supposed to pray 5 times a day, wear the headscarf, etc. I met one woman about my age who had also converted to Islam and was now quite heavily into it, going so far as to wear the black abayah (all-covering black dress) and niqab (the face veil). I asked her a lot of innocent-sounding questions about all aspects of Islam, so I could see if the answers I got were the same I had read, and they were. She even took me shopping to buy some decent all-covering clothes, and was very understanding, saying that one should accept the requirements of Islam, such as hijab, as one felt ready to do so. She was very nice, though I do have to say that I'm not sure her ideas would have endeared her to non-Muslims. Unfortunately she eventually married a Saudi and moved to another part of the country.
It seems to me that the vast majority of Western converts to Islam are women, and I think I can think of some reasons why. For one thing, there's the old cliche about women being more religious than men, and while there's a lot wrong with it, there is also a lot of truth to it. Also, it must be said that new Muslims are made to feel very welcome, as part of something larger than themselves. There is also a searching for limits and rules, something that will tell you how to live and give you a purpose. Most importantly, it provides a sense of certainty in a rather uncertain world, in a way that is really not found anymore in the West. I can't help but call it a longing for an almost medieval way of looking at the world, knowing that you have The Truth and will be admitted to Paradise.
Naturally, I never gave up my voracious curiosity and was soon devouring books about Hadith and Shari'ah, as well as the not-so-nice side of Islam, as well as critical research on Islam, much of which put the traditional accounts of Islam in doubt. I also read The Satanic Verses, just to see what everyone was so upset about. I actually liked that book quite a lot--it's more about India than about Islam, just like most of Salman Rushdie's books. I also pulled off the stunt of reading much of it inside the mosque, along with the aforesaid critical works! Since I was spending a lot of time in the mosque, I brought along reading matter, and so...
So I'm right where I always was, curious but not at all sure what I really believe. As you may have guessed, there is plenty that I find wrong with Islam as it now stands, but at the same time it has a certain emotional resonance with me, given its rather austere nature. To me, it's always seemed that Islam is best suited for the desert, and since I live in a desert, it seemed to fit.
I don't know what I will do. I do pray 5 times a day, finding much solace in it. I have read the Qur'an (in translation) 8 times through and really like it, despite the often ugly thoughts described therein. I have enormous problems with hijab and often don't wear it, at least ouside the mosque, though I never enter the mosque without it on. I don't know about marriage or children; that would imply a commitment and permanence that I don't feel ready for (I'm one of those "scared of commitment" types, always wanting to leave an out somewhere). But I like it too much, and I'm too interested in the subject, so I woudn't think of leaving. I still fear that God doesn't exist, and I wish there were some way to know, really know, for sure. I don't think I'll ever find the answer, which scares me most of all, since I like certainty, but I cannot be 100% certain of something based on faith, whether it's God or atheism.
That's about it, really. I started this blog to have somewhere to dump all of my meandering thoughts about Islam, and I hope you find it interesting!
Cheesy title, I know...Maybe My Story would be better, but still generic and cheesy. Anyway...
I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that I am an almost 26 year old female. I picked the name Fatimah, though I don't usually use it in the Real World.
According to Islam, all people are born Muslim, but I can't remember ever believing in God when I was a young child. I even remember being disgusted that people could believe in such a stupid idea when I was 7 years old. But at the same time I was always concerned about stuff like: what happens to you after you die, whether the good and bad would be rewarded and punished, what life was all about, and so on. I could never really find anybody to discuss this kind of thing with.
When I was 12 years old, my family started to go to church for some reason, and I took to it very quickly, interestingly enough. I read the Bible all the way through when I was 14 and wanted to be a good Catholic, reading about the lives of the saints (which also went into my love of history), and read everything I could. I was even confirmed when I was 16. But I never really felt as if I had to believe whatever I was told; I could take it or leave it. I never feared that I would go to hell for not believing; that went against my whole being. No God I could believe in would ever send someone to hell just because they couldn't bring themselves to believe in what some man claimed was the will of God (this is still my belief).
Later my family just stopped going to church, and I kind of lost interest. But I was still interested in religions, and I became very fascinated with Judaism. I even wanted to convert (something I was sure to tell the imam of the mosque I converted at, just to get a rise out of him!) But I didn't know if I could spend a year doing so (most Conversion to Judaism courses seem to take a year), especially since I was still at home and not feeling as if I could share this interest with them. Also, what sect? Reform was of course the "easiest" one, but then I was upset that if I did convert according to Reform ritual, Orthodox and Conservative would probably not accept it. And with the Orthodox, it seemed too difficult to live up to all the laws (especially the one about no driving on the Sabbath, since I don't live anywhere near a synagogue/shul)!
Meanwhile, I bought a Qur'an (the Shakir translation) and read it because (you'll love this!) I felt that I wasn't truly educated if I hadn't read the holy texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I'd already read the Bible straight through a few times, so the Qur'an was next. I can't say I was hugely impressed--there seemed to be too much emphasis on hell and punishment, and too much bashing of Jews and Christians. But I'd always been interested in the Middle East, from the time I'd learned about the ancient civilizations of the region, so I went on to take a class called "Islamic Humanities" in college. I remember several of the stories the (female) professor told, such as Muslims waiting, with lighter and cigarette in hand, for the last bit of the sun to disappear from the sky during Ramadan (the fast includes eating, drinking, smoking, and sex), and how women couldn't drive in Saudi Arabia. I really liked the book we were assigned to read for a class project, Leo Africanus by Amin Maalouf, which is a fictionalized account of the life of the Moroccan traveler, but I remember thinking how terrible things were for the poor women in the story!
Well, September 11th came around and really hit me hard, because I remembered visiting the World Trade Center three years before (during a trip I dragged my mom and younger sister to take to NYC, since I wanted to see the city so badly)--I still have the $11.50 admission ticket. I don't want to sound callous, drawing attention to the buildings instead of the people in them, but what I mean is that that was what really drove it home to me what had happened--I had been in those buildings and seen what was on top, so it was more than an image on TV, and didn't know anybody from the area (New York was like another country to me). Anyway, I read my Qur'an again to try to understand something about this religion. I read as much as I could, the good as well as the bad. I noticed the incredible similarities Islam shared with Judaism, and the idea developed in my mind of converting to Islam instead!
I suppose it was the books of Islamic art that really did me in, as well as my ongoing fascination with all things Middle Eastern, but I finally got the courage to go down to the local mosque, which I admit I was frightened of, mostly because I had no idea what it was about or what happened there. I had emailed the imam before, asking to convert, and he had me come over to the mosque and take shahadah (the profession of faith--Ashhadu la illah ill allah, ashhadu anna Muhammad ar Rasulallah; I testify that there is no God but Allah, I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah). And that was it--I was a Muslim. Of course, then I was supposed to pray 5 times a day, wear the headscarf, etc. I met one woman about my age who had also converted to Islam and was now quite heavily into it, going so far as to wear the black abayah (all-covering black dress) and niqab (the face veil). I asked her a lot of innocent-sounding questions about all aspects of Islam, so I could see if the answers I got were the same I had read, and they were. She even took me shopping to buy some decent all-covering clothes, and was very understanding, saying that one should accept the requirements of Islam, such as hijab, as one felt ready to do so. She was very nice, though I do have to say that I'm not sure her ideas would have endeared her to non-Muslims. Unfortunately she eventually married a Saudi and moved to another part of the country.
It seems to me that the vast majority of Western converts to Islam are women, and I think I can think of some reasons why. For one thing, there's the old cliche about women being more religious than men, and while there's a lot wrong with it, there is also a lot of truth to it. Also, it must be said that new Muslims are made to feel very welcome, as part of something larger than themselves. There is also a searching for limits and rules, something that will tell you how to live and give you a purpose. Most importantly, it provides a sense of certainty in a rather uncertain world, in a way that is really not found anymore in the West. I can't help but call it a longing for an almost medieval way of looking at the world, knowing that you have The Truth and will be admitted to Paradise.
Naturally, I never gave up my voracious curiosity and was soon devouring books about Hadith and Shari'ah, as well as the not-so-nice side of Islam, as well as critical research on Islam, much of which put the traditional accounts of Islam in doubt. I also read The Satanic Verses, just to see what everyone was so upset about. I actually liked that book quite a lot--it's more about India than about Islam, just like most of Salman Rushdie's books. I also pulled off the stunt of reading much of it inside the mosque, along with the aforesaid critical works! Since I was spending a lot of time in the mosque, I brought along reading matter, and so...
So I'm right where I always was, curious but not at all sure what I really believe. As you may have guessed, there is plenty that I find wrong with Islam as it now stands, but at the same time it has a certain emotional resonance with me, given its rather austere nature. To me, it's always seemed that Islam is best suited for the desert, and since I live in a desert, it seemed to fit.
I don't know what I will do. I do pray 5 times a day, finding much solace in it. I have read the Qur'an (in translation) 8 times through and really like it, despite the often ugly thoughts described therein. I have enormous problems with hijab and often don't wear it, at least ouside the mosque, though I never enter the mosque without it on. I don't know about marriage or children; that would imply a commitment and permanence that I don't feel ready for (I'm one of those "scared of commitment" types, always wanting to leave an out somewhere). But I like it too much, and I'm too interested in the subject, so I woudn't think of leaving. I still fear that God doesn't exist, and I wish there were some way to know, really know, for sure. I don't think I'll ever find the answer, which scares me most of all, since I like certainty, but I cannot be 100% certain of something based on faith, whether it's God or atheism.
That's about it, really. I started this blog to have somewhere to dump all of my meandering thoughts about Islam, and I hope you find it interesting!
What happened to Fatimah?
Fatimah, daughter of Muhammad, is highly regarded by Muslims, the only one of his children to have children who survived him, hence the huge popularity of her name for girls (such as myself; hence my interest in the subject). For the Shi'a, she is held in even higher regard, being the mother of the Imams. The Al-Azhar college in Cairo was named after her by the Shi'ite Fatimid Caliphs (969-1171, founders of Cairo) after her name Fatimah az-Zahra, Fatimah the Resplendent, and the caliphs themselves were her descendents, hence their name. For all of this honor, though, actual details about her life are scant. For example, nobody seems to know exactly when she was born. Her death is more fixed--around three to six months after the death of Muhammad, but her age at death is given as anywhere from 18 to 29. Shi'ites generally go for the 18 year figure, saying that she was concieved right after Muhammad's Night Journey to heaven and born 20 Jumada II, 7 years before the Hijrah, March 27, 615, and died 14 Jumada I 11 AH, August 7, 632, 75 days after the Prophet's death. (All these dates are from the Shi'a, disputed by Sunnis). The problem with this is that she would have been 9 years old at the birth of her first son, Hasan (15 Ramadhan 3 AH, March 1, 625), 10 at the birth of Hussein (3 Sha'ban, 4 AH, January 8, 626) and went on to have two more children. True, this was not unknown at the time, but to me it does seem as though a slightly older age is more reasonable!
Sunnis are a lot vaguer, generally holding that Fatimah was married to her cousin Ali at age 15 and 5 months, thus making her 16 or 17 at the birth of her first son, and about 29 at her death. (These are of course lunar years, shorter than solar years, so her real age would be somewhat less.) This just goes to show how little attention was given to precise dates at the time.
Also, Sunnis give a great deal of attention to Aisha, favorite wife of Muhammad (and daughter of the first Sunni Caliph, Abu Bakr, meaning "father of the virgin," i.e. Aisha), married at 9 and widowed at 18. She is the source of thousands of hadiths in Sunni collections and a figure of admiration, drawing away some of the attention from Fatimah. By contrast, Shi'ites don't like her at all--she was an enemy to Ali (Fatimah's husband, first Shi'ite Imam and fourth Sunni Caliph) and didn't seem to care much for Fatimah, despite the Prophet's saying that "Fatimah is a part of me, whoever hurts Fatimah hurts me." She was a spoiled brat--which if you look at even the stories she tells, seems to be true! But what do you expect from a preteen and teenage girl, anyway? She is the one who snarled "Your Lord rushes to fulfill your desires" after the revelation of a rather convenient Qur'anic verse.
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 6, Book 60, Number 311:
Narrated Aisha:
I used to look down upon those ladies who had given themselves to Allah's Apostle and I used to say, "Can a lady give herself (to a man)?" But when Allah revealed: "You (O Muhammad) can postpone (the turn of) whom you will of them (your wives), and you may receive any of them whom you will; and there is no blame on you if you invite one whose turn you have set aside (temporarily).' (33.51) I said (to the Prophet), "I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires."
The accounts of Fatimah's death are interesting. Sunnis are rather vague, saying that she fell ill and died about six months after the death of Muhammad, after the dying Muhammad assured her that he would be the first among his family to follow him to Paradise. But the Shi'ite story is much more detailed and quite sad. During a dispute about the succession, she was trapped in her home with Ali and her family by the partisans of Abu Bakr, first Sunni caliph, since they refused to accept him, believing Muhammad had chosen Ali as his her. When the door was forced open, Fatimah was crushed between it and the wall, making her lose her unborn son Mohsin and eventually causing her death--thus the assertion by the Shi'a that she was martyred. Here is a rather graphic account of it, and here is an in-depth Shi'a account.
All this goes to show just how little we really know for sure about the early days of Islam, and that even days after the death of Muhammad, there was squabbling and fighting for power. Even during Muhammad's life, the "hypocrites" seem to have been a big problem, given all the Qur'anic verses condemning them. In fact, in the long war surah 9, At-Tauba, fully half of it is devoted to admonishing and condemning those who refuse to fight or who are weak in faith or even will sell out the Muslim community. I don't think it would have merited this kind of attention if it wasn't a big problem! Apparently the stories about how the early Muslims were one in heart and in mind are not quite telling the whole story!
Fatimah, daughter of Muhammad, is highly regarded by Muslims, the only one of his children to have children who survived him, hence the huge popularity of her name for girls (such as myself; hence my interest in the subject). For the Shi'a, she is held in even higher regard, being the mother of the Imams. The Al-Azhar college in Cairo was named after her by the Shi'ite Fatimid Caliphs (969-1171, founders of Cairo) after her name Fatimah az-Zahra, Fatimah the Resplendent, and the caliphs themselves were her descendents, hence their name. For all of this honor, though, actual details about her life are scant. For example, nobody seems to know exactly when she was born. Her death is more fixed--around three to six months after the death of Muhammad, but her age at death is given as anywhere from 18 to 29. Shi'ites generally go for the 18 year figure, saying that she was concieved right after Muhammad's Night Journey to heaven and born 20 Jumada II, 7 years before the Hijrah, March 27, 615, and died 14 Jumada I 11 AH, August 7, 632, 75 days after the Prophet's death. (All these dates are from the Shi'a, disputed by Sunnis). The problem with this is that she would have been 9 years old at the birth of her first son, Hasan (15 Ramadhan 3 AH, March 1, 625), 10 at the birth of Hussein (3 Sha'ban, 4 AH, January 8, 626) and went on to have two more children. True, this was not unknown at the time, but to me it does seem as though a slightly older age is more reasonable!
Sunnis are a lot vaguer, generally holding that Fatimah was married to her cousin Ali at age 15 and 5 months, thus making her 16 or 17 at the birth of her first son, and about 29 at her death. (These are of course lunar years, shorter than solar years, so her real age would be somewhat less.) This just goes to show how little attention was given to precise dates at the time.
Also, Sunnis give a great deal of attention to Aisha, favorite wife of Muhammad (and daughter of the first Sunni Caliph, Abu Bakr, meaning "father of the virgin," i.e. Aisha), married at 9 and widowed at 18. She is the source of thousands of hadiths in Sunni collections and a figure of admiration, drawing away some of the attention from Fatimah. By contrast, Shi'ites don't like her at all--she was an enemy to Ali (Fatimah's husband, first Shi'ite Imam and fourth Sunni Caliph) and didn't seem to care much for Fatimah, despite the Prophet's saying that "Fatimah is a part of me, whoever hurts Fatimah hurts me." She was a spoiled brat--which if you look at even the stories she tells, seems to be true! But what do you expect from a preteen and teenage girl, anyway? She is the one who snarled "Your Lord rushes to fulfill your desires" after the revelation of a rather convenient Qur'anic verse.
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 6, Book 60, Number 311:
Narrated Aisha:
I used to look down upon those ladies who had given themselves to Allah's Apostle and I used to say, "Can a lady give herself (to a man)?" But when Allah revealed: "You (O Muhammad) can postpone (the turn of) whom you will of them (your wives), and you may receive any of them whom you will; and there is no blame on you if you invite one whose turn you have set aside (temporarily).' (33.51) I said (to the Prophet), "I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires."
The accounts of Fatimah's death are interesting. Sunnis are rather vague, saying that she fell ill and died about six months after the death of Muhammad, after the dying Muhammad assured her that he would be the first among his family to follow him to Paradise. But the Shi'ite story is much more detailed and quite sad. During a dispute about the succession, she was trapped in her home with Ali and her family by the partisans of Abu Bakr, first Sunni caliph, since they refused to accept him, believing Muhammad had chosen Ali as his her. When the door was forced open, Fatimah was crushed between it and the wall, making her lose her unborn son Mohsin and eventually causing her death--thus the assertion by the Shi'a that she was martyred. Here is a rather graphic account of it, and here is an in-depth Shi'a account.
All this goes to show just how little we really know for sure about the early days of Islam, and that even days after the death of Muhammad, there was squabbling and fighting for power. Even during Muhammad's life, the "hypocrites" seem to have been a big problem, given all the Qur'anic verses condemning them. In fact, in the long war surah 9, At-Tauba, fully half of it is devoted to admonishing and condemning those who refuse to fight or who are weak in faith or even will sell out the Muslim community. I don't think it would have merited this kind of attention if it wasn't a big problem! Apparently the stories about how the early Muslims were one in heart and in mind are not quite telling the whole story!
Book Review:
The Art and Architecture of Islam 650-1250 by Richard Ettinghausen and Oleg Grabar (Pelican History of Art)
The Art and Architecture of Islam 1250-1800 by Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom (Pelican History of Art)
Islam Vol. 1: Early Architecture from Baghdad to Cordoba by Henri Stierlin (Taschen)
After all the BS, political disputes and religious dogma, this is my favorite part of Islamic culture: the arts and architecture.
My personal favorite is the huge mosque at Samarra (north of Baghdad, Iraq), built under the caliph Mutawakkil (847-861), with the gigantic spiral minaret 164 feet high (55 meters). The mosque itself is absolutely gigantic, covering some 10 acres (240 by 156 m) and supposedly the biggest mosque in the world (except maybe for the Haram in Mecca). (some nice pictures here.) The roof fell in long ago, but they've done a nice restoration job on what's left. I suppose it shows the outsized dimensions of ambition the early Abbasid caliphs (and early Muslims) had. As if that's not enough, there's also a second giant mosque in Samarra built a few years later by Mutawakkil, the Abu Dulaf mosque, which was not quite as big but almost!
Another favorite are the mosques in Isfahan, Iran built by the Safavids (1502-1736, who essentially converted the Iranians to Shi'ites), especially the Masjed-i-Shah (here's a site that lets you tour all the Isfahan mosques). They are covered with blue tile and are quite amazing.
There are also the mosques in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, a city I'd like to see, even though it was the base of the infamous Tamerlane (Timur the Lame, 1336-1405), who enjoyed making "minarets" of the severed heads of his victims. Here's a fun virtual tour, including the Registan, surrounded by mosques and madrasahs, the Guri-Emir Mausoleum (the tomb of Tamerlane), and other stuff, and here's another site about Tamerlane and the stuff he had built.
Anyway, all three of these books have numerous beautiful pictures, the real reason to give them a look. Unfortunately the 650-1250 book is only in black and white, but the Islam volume has most of the same buildings photographed in color and on large pages. Each volume also gives plenty of information on history and art (650-1250 and 1250-1800 are in the same series and one follows the other, and each gives more than you ever wanted to know about anything involving Islamic art and architecture).
Something nice involving Islamic culture for a change...though I suppose someone will bring up the slaves and workers who had to toil for years building all this stuff for these utter tyrants...
The Art and Architecture of Islam 650-1250 by Richard Ettinghausen and Oleg Grabar (Pelican History of Art)
The Art and Architecture of Islam 1250-1800 by Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom (Pelican History of Art)
Islam Vol. 1: Early Architecture from Baghdad to Cordoba by Henri Stierlin (Taschen)
After all the BS, political disputes and religious dogma, this is my favorite part of Islamic culture: the arts and architecture.
My personal favorite is the huge mosque at Samarra (north of Baghdad, Iraq), built under the caliph Mutawakkil (847-861), with the gigantic spiral minaret 164 feet high (55 meters). The mosque itself is absolutely gigantic, covering some 10 acres (240 by 156 m) and supposedly the biggest mosque in the world (except maybe for the Haram in Mecca). (some nice pictures here.) The roof fell in long ago, but they've done a nice restoration job on what's left. I suppose it shows the outsized dimensions of ambition the early Abbasid caliphs (and early Muslims) had. As if that's not enough, there's also a second giant mosque in Samarra built a few years later by Mutawakkil, the Abu Dulaf mosque, which was not quite as big but almost!
Another favorite are the mosques in Isfahan, Iran built by the Safavids (1502-1736, who essentially converted the Iranians to Shi'ites), especially the Masjed-i-Shah (here's a site that lets you tour all the Isfahan mosques). They are covered with blue tile and are quite amazing.
There are also the mosques in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, a city I'd like to see, even though it was the base of the infamous Tamerlane (Timur the Lame, 1336-1405), who enjoyed making "minarets" of the severed heads of his victims. Here's a fun virtual tour, including the Registan, surrounded by mosques and madrasahs, the Guri-Emir Mausoleum (the tomb of Tamerlane), and other stuff, and here's another site about Tamerlane and the stuff he had built.
Anyway, all three of these books have numerous beautiful pictures, the real reason to give them a look. Unfortunately the 650-1250 book is only in black and white, but the Islam volume has most of the same buildings photographed in color and on large pages. Each volume also gives plenty of information on history and art (650-1250 and 1250-1800 are in the same series and one follows the other, and each gives more than you ever wanted to know about anything involving Islamic art and architecture).
Something nice involving Islamic culture for a change...though I suppose someone will bring up the slaves and workers who had to toil for years building all this stuff for these utter tyrants...
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Book Review:
Hagarism
by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook
This book is a real pathbreaker. It proved to be highly controversial with its dramatic rewriting of early Islamic history, and thought-provoking in its examination of the roots of Islamic religion and culture in Judeo-Christian ideas, Greek philosophy, Roman law and Persian statehood. Unfortunately it is an extremely difficult book--it helps to have the equivalent of a master's degree in a number of subjects, including history, philosophy, religion (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Samaritanism) and others. Plus, the authors throw around quite a few obscure quotes--find out how erudite you are by seeing how many of them you recognize! I was fascinated enough to read it twice, including the footnotes, which are nearly as long as the text itself (a compact 120 pages, give or take).
The first couple of chapters set out the authors' own views of the Muslim Conquests, drawing on contemporary Christian and Jewish accounts. They conclude that what Muhammad was preaching was a form of Messianic Judaism, with the goal of conquering the Holy Land from the Byzantines with an army composed of both Arabs and Jews, Muhammad himself the herald of the actual "Faruq," the Redeemer, 'Umar ibn Al-Khattab, known in Islamic history as the third caliph. ('Umar really does have the title "al-Faruq," though in Islamic usage it means "one who makes Truth manifest.") This new religion, a strange blend of Judaism, Samaritanism and Christianity, the authors give the title of "Hagarism," referring to the way Muhammad justified the inclusion of the Arabs by emphasizing the Jews' and Arabs' common ancestor Abraham, the children of Sarah and of Hagar, respectively. Eventually the Jews had to be broken with, and Hagarism continued to develop into what is now Islam, stealing copiously from all the Middle Eastern monotheistic traditions.
Although this reconstruction is to a great degree speculation, the main point of it is not so much the story itself as for what it suggests about the Islamic sources as we have them: They are without historical merit, created to give a plausible origin for Islam and the Qur'an. Even the central Arab origins of Islam are brought into question, suggesting that Mecca and Medina were chosen as sacred sites only after the need was felt to have a suitable location for the revelation of the Qur'an. In another book, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Patricia Crone goes into great detail about how Mecca was totally unknown to the ancients before the time of Islam, about how the tales of how it was a major trading center and how the Quraysh, the tribe to which Muhammad belonged, were rich traders with Yemen and Syria, cannot possibly be true. She also describes how some early mosques were pointed too far north to be pointing at Mecca, instead pointing at a spot much farther north, and how the paganism described in the Qur'an and the life of the Prophet is more like that of northern Arabia than that of the Hijaz, which was almost deserted at the time. In addition, the earliest examples of Classical Arabic are not from central Arabia but from the area around the Fertile Crescent, only penetrating into Arabia later. She suggests that the real site of Muhammad's mission was some point in the north of Arabia, perhaps in the Syrian Desert, and only later was the site of Mecca chosen as the holy city and its central Arabian origins emphasized.
It must be said that these investigations are a lot like the research into the origins of the Old and New Testaments, and are in fact an extension of them. Using the same tools, the authors (among many others) go into the texts and find that the traditional stories around their origin have...historical difficulties. It is up to the reader to decide how much weight to give this research, though it must be said that unfortunately Islam has been more protected by apologists fearing to offend, taking the traditional stories as "gospel" truth and not going into any kind of deep examination. It must be said here that the Hadiths have been considered without historical merit for many decades by many researchers, being mainly created to drive home a point about Islamic law or to explain some mysterious verse of the Qur'an by describing the circumstances of its revelation. Now, it's too bad Saudi Arabia won't let archaeologists dig around Mecca and Medina, we might find out the truth! ("The hard truth is always better than a pleasing fantasy" is my motto!)
I didn't mean to go on so long about the first part, which only makes up about a quarter of the text. More interesting to me is the rest of the book, describing the various origins of Islamic religion and culture. Here, the authors talk about the conflict in worldview between the (ancient) Judaic view of the world as being totally subject to God's will, and the Greek view of a universe governed by impersonal laws. Personal God vs. impersonal laws and concepts, the unknowability of what God will do next vs. the total regularity of Greek laws. With Christianity in the Roman Empire, the two were brought together, the Judaic God and the impersonal concepts and laws of the Greeks. Something of a compromise was effected, where God was still in control but let the universe work according to regular laws, but at some level the tension remained and was brought out in Islam. Islam adopted the Judaic view of a universe totally subject to God's will, but this meant that they couldn't deal very well with Greek philosophy, widely considered to be heretical and leading to doubts in religion.
But where the God of the Jews was somewhat arbitrary yet very personal and close, the Allah of the Muslims was both arbitrary and quite distant, combining the arbitrariness of the Judaic God with the rather distant nature of the Greek concepts. Instead of dealing with only one people, the Jews, Allah had the whole universe to control, humans only a small part of it. (This is where the concept for "The Distance of Allah from His Creatures" came from and it put into words a nagging feeling I had about the distance between Allah and his "slaves"--not children!) Hence the popularity of Sufism.
The book also goes into detail about borrowings from Roman law, which were later made part of Shari'ah (the book gives as an example a law about how many slaves may be freed at a master's death, tracing it through the Roman Empire to the Byzantines to the Nestorian Christians of Iraq to Islamic law), and the use of Persian statecraft to create the new Islamic Empire.
Another fascinating part is the discussion of the fate of various regions under the Arabs. Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Persia, North Africa and Spain are all discussed, what they contributed to the creation of Islamic culture as well as the transformation of all of the above except Persia and Spain into Arab lands.
The book is very difficult but rewarding, and although one might take its conclusions with skepticism, it is certainly a thought-provoking book, giving a close look into the origins of Islamic religion and culture.
Hagarism
by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook
This book is a real pathbreaker. It proved to be highly controversial with its dramatic rewriting of early Islamic history, and thought-provoking in its examination of the roots of Islamic religion and culture in Judeo-Christian ideas, Greek philosophy, Roman law and Persian statehood. Unfortunately it is an extremely difficult book--it helps to have the equivalent of a master's degree in a number of subjects, including history, philosophy, religion (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Samaritanism) and others. Plus, the authors throw around quite a few obscure quotes--find out how erudite you are by seeing how many of them you recognize! I was fascinated enough to read it twice, including the footnotes, which are nearly as long as the text itself (a compact 120 pages, give or take).
The first couple of chapters set out the authors' own views of the Muslim Conquests, drawing on contemporary Christian and Jewish accounts. They conclude that what Muhammad was preaching was a form of Messianic Judaism, with the goal of conquering the Holy Land from the Byzantines with an army composed of both Arabs and Jews, Muhammad himself the herald of the actual "Faruq," the Redeemer, 'Umar ibn Al-Khattab, known in Islamic history as the third caliph. ('Umar really does have the title "al-Faruq," though in Islamic usage it means "one who makes Truth manifest.") This new religion, a strange blend of Judaism, Samaritanism and Christianity, the authors give the title of "Hagarism," referring to the way Muhammad justified the inclusion of the Arabs by emphasizing the Jews' and Arabs' common ancestor Abraham, the children of Sarah and of Hagar, respectively. Eventually the Jews had to be broken with, and Hagarism continued to develop into what is now Islam, stealing copiously from all the Middle Eastern monotheistic traditions.
Although this reconstruction is to a great degree speculation, the main point of it is not so much the story itself as for what it suggests about the Islamic sources as we have them: They are without historical merit, created to give a plausible origin for Islam and the Qur'an. Even the central Arab origins of Islam are brought into question, suggesting that Mecca and Medina were chosen as sacred sites only after the need was felt to have a suitable location for the revelation of the Qur'an. In another book, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Patricia Crone goes into great detail about how Mecca was totally unknown to the ancients before the time of Islam, about how the tales of how it was a major trading center and how the Quraysh, the tribe to which Muhammad belonged, were rich traders with Yemen and Syria, cannot possibly be true. She also describes how some early mosques were pointed too far north to be pointing at Mecca, instead pointing at a spot much farther north, and how the paganism described in the Qur'an and the life of the Prophet is more like that of northern Arabia than that of the Hijaz, which was almost deserted at the time. In addition, the earliest examples of Classical Arabic are not from central Arabia but from the area around the Fertile Crescent, only penetrating into Arabia later. She suggests that the real site of Muhammad's mission was some point in the north of Arabia, perhaps in the Syrian Desert, and only later was the site of Mecca chosen as the holy city and its central Arabian origins emphasized.
It must be said that these investigations are a lot like the research into the origins of the Old and New Testaments, and are in fact an extension of them. Using the same tools, the authors (among many others) go into the texts and find that the traditional stories around their origin have...historical difficulties. It is up to the reader to decide how much weight to give this research, though it must be said that unfortunately Islam has been more protected by apologists fearing to offend, taking the traditional stories as "gospel" truth and not going into any kind of deep examination. It must be said here that the Hadiths have been considered without historical merit for many decades by many researchers, being mainly created to drive home a point about Islamic law or to explain some mysterious verse of the Qur'an by describing the circumstances of its revelation. Now, it's too bad Saudi Arabia won't let archaeologists dig around Mecca and Medina, we might find out the truth! ("The hard truth is always better than a pleasing fantasy" is my motto!)
I didn't mean to go on so long about the first part, which only makes up about a quarter of the text. More interesting to me is the rest of the book, describing the various origins of Islamic religion and culture. Here, the authors talk about the conflict in worldview between the (ancient) Judaic view of the world as being totally subject to God's will, and the Greek view of a universe governed by impersonal laws. Personal God vs. impersonal laws and concepts, the unknowability of what God will do next vs. the total regularity of Greek laws. With Christianity in the Roman Empire, the two were brought together, the Judaic God and the impersonal concepts and laws of the Greeks. Something of a compromise was effected, where God was still in control but let the universe work according to regular laws, but at some level the tension remained and was brought out in Islam. Islam adopted the Judaic view of a universe totally subject to God's will, but this meant that they couldn't deal very well with Greek philosophy, widely considered to be heretical and leading to doubts in religion.
But where the God of the Jews was somewhat arbitrary yet very personal and close, the Allah of the Muslims was both arbitrary and quite distant, combining the arbitrariness of the Judaic God with the rather distant nature of the Greek concepts. Instead of dealing with only one people, the Jews, Allah had the whole universe to control, humans only a small part of it. (This is where the concept for "The Distance of Allah from His Creatures" came from and it put into words a nagging feeling I had about the distance between Allah and his "slaves"--not children!) Hence the popularity of Sufism.
The book also goes into detail about borrowings from Roman law, which were later made part of Shari'ah (the book gives as an example a law about how many slaves may be freed at a master's death, tracing it through the Roman Empire to the Byzantines to the Nestorian Christians of Iraq to Islamic law), and the use of Persian statecraft to create the new Islamic Empire.
Another fascinating part is the discussion of the fate of various regions under the Arabs. Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Persia, North Africa and Spain are all discussed, what they contributed to the creation of Islamic culture as well as the transformation of all of the above except Persia and Spain into Arab lands.
The book is very difficult but rewarding, and although one might take its conclusions with skepticism, it is certainly a thought-provoking book, giving a close look into the origins of Islamic religion and culture.
Book Review:
Queen Noor, Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life
Norma Khouri, Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordan
These two books were just published in February and March of this year, and I read them together. Since they both cover similar ground and became linked in my mind, I'll write about them together.
The Queen of Jordan is still part of the royal family of Jordan and so part of the government, and her book was probably checked by several censors, so I wasn't really expecting much in the way of revelations. Also, it may be impolitic to be too forthcoming with the truth, for any political figure, so I have to say I also took much of it with a grain of salt.
There really wasn't much of a need to do so, though, as the book was almost totally inoffensive, except perhaps for her version of the Arab-Israeli wars, told, of course, from the Arab POV with a certain liberality with the facts, so to speak (i.e. some of it is blatant lies). Also, she can't help throwing in some rather tasteless, shall we say, characterizations of Israelis/Jews e.g. the World Zionist Organization is inexplicably described as "well-funded," Israel exercises a certain "magical power" over the minds of Americans, AIPAC can get any bill through Congress they want, Israelis inexplicably adopting an "unhelpful" "fortress mentality," even though she herself mentions that the PLO's goal was and is to destroy Israel, everything is always Israel's fault...etc. It's subtle but the net effect wasn't very flattering to a woman who fancies herself progressive and open-minded.
ANYWAY...with that caveat, we can go on to the general content. The book is actually mostly about King Hussein, her husband of almost 21 years. Her 26 years of life as Lisa Halaby before meeting the King takes up only 35 pages in a 450-page book, and in the rest of the text the spotlight is always on the King (she calls him alternately "the King," "Hussein," and "my husband" and is hardly ever missing on a page). Unfortunately we don't get to learn much about Noor herself. Her activities, foundations, and charitable works are described with all the depth and detail of a PR statement (actually, those parts even sound exactly like blurbs from a pamphlet or fundraising letter). Her descriptions of meetings with other leaders are totally superficial and rarely do we get to find out what she really thinks of President So-and-So or of Mrs. So-and-So. No dirt or gossip here!
Despite her emphasis on her Arab roots (her grandfather was an Arab Christian from Beirut), Noor comes off as a thoroughly Western woman, with typically American liberal views ("liberal" in the sense of "what she might have got out of 4 years at Princeton"). She seems to have never left the '60s ("War is bad for children and other living things!" and her pacifist leanings). But all of that rings a little false when you realize just how repressive Jordan really is (you can be jailed for criticizing the King, political parties were banned for decades, no general elections from 1967 to 1989, martial law) which you really don't see at all in the book. How could a woman with her professed liberal, democratic views have simply taken all of that in stride? She does describe wanting a little loosening up of the press, but that's about it. And how can she claim that wars never solve anything given even her own history of modern Middle East history? Naivete or disingeniousness?
One of Noor's main goals in this book is obviously to make Jordan look as good as possible, so most of the unpleasantness is simply ignored or whitewashed (but what do you expect from a Queen of Jordan???). Honor killings, of which more later, merit about half a page, and there are supposedly only 25 a year, a ridiculously low number taken from the official statistics. Obviously admitting to more would do serious damage to Jordan's "modern" facade. There is no real sense of the grinding poverty affecting huge portions of Jordanian society, nor of lack of human or women's rights. Even the poor Palestinians rotting in refugee camps and exiled from their homeland, which she draws attention to at every opportunity, are hardly visible as living, breathing humans, only as a symbol of injustice and humiliation. What we're left with is a Jordan out of a travel book, exotic people plying their exotic crafts (the program Noor set up to distribute and sell native handcrafts is discussed at length), with fantastic sights and landscapes.
The oddest thing I found about the book was that Islam was discussed for a sum total of perhaps 2 or 3 pages. For all her claims about how she didn't convert to Islam out of convenience, she barely talks about it. There are a few scattered remarks about her conversion to Islam (the morning of her wedding) and about how Islam has great beauty and the Prophet said that "None of you is a believer unless he wants for his brother what he wants for himself." A couple remarks about Ramadan and praying at the King's grave, a brief discussion of Hajj and that's about it. I was curious about whether she prayed 5 times a day, attended Friday prayers at the mosque, read the whole Qur'an, her views about some Islamic laws, anything...but nothing was forthcoming. And especially her views on hijab! In all the pictures in the book, she is virtually always wearing Western clothes, hair proudly uncovered. The sole exceptions are: a shot of her and her daughter at the King's grave, a small white scarf tossed over her head, barely covering anything, and another of Noor dressed to make Umrah, where you can really see what all that cloth makes her look like! Not that I really care whether she herself wears it or not; it's just that hijab is such a heated topic in Islam I was hoping for maybe a comment or two, especially given the fact that every Islamic scholar I've read or talked to considers it to be a requirement for all Muslim women! I am left thinking she probably shares Queen Rania's stated postion that she doesn't think it's required.
For what it was (a feel-good portrait of an American-born Queen, her King and her love of her adopted country), it wasn't really that bad. I spent a couple of long nights reading it through, unable to put it down for long. But I'm such a book addict anyway... ;-P
The other book, Norma Khouri's Honor Lost, offers a glance behind the facade of modernity Jordan projects. The book, written by the author in an Internet cafe, describes her friendship with a Muslim girl, Dalia (she herself is Catholic), Dalia's love for a Catholic man she meets at the salon in Amman she and Norma run together, the lovers' clandestine meetings (perfectly chaste), and finally the tradegy that ensues when Dalia's family finds out and her father feels he must cleanse his family's honor by stabbing her a dozen times. Norma is finally forced to leave Jordan, knowing that she too is likely to fall to the same fate.
Although mostly a Muslim phenomenon, honor killings also affect Christians, and Khouri describes this as coming from the shared Bedouin Arab traditions that hold all Jordanians captive. She devotes an "Afterword" to the subject of honor killings, pointing out that it is in Jordan's interest to minimize the extent of the problem. After all, how "advanced" can a society be where fathers slaughter their daughters for "dishonoring" their families, just by meeting or even talking to a man? The official figure of 25 killings a year is far too low; the real number probably numbers in the thousands, since most are not classified as such, instead as "crimes of passion" or "suicide" or something else. And worst of all, the killers get away nearly scot-free--three-month prison sentences are common, often waived as "time served" out on bail at home. The laws explicitly permit this, and Parliament has no intention of allowing this to change--why, if a father can't protect his family's honor, the whole society will become degenerate like the West. Change is very slow in coming.
The book is a quick read, coming in at 211 pages of double-spaced text. The pace is quick and lively, and the slice-of-life details of middle-class life in Amman are engaging. At times the writing is a bit awkward and some dialogue a bit stilted, but that doesn't detract from the story, especially given the circumstances of its composition. The main characters are very much alive--Dalia, Michael, herself, even Dalia's unsympathetic brother Mohamed, assigned to chaperone the friends as they work in their salon, and ends up finding out about his sister's secret, leading to her death. Khouri mentions she went to English schools, thus explaining her very good command of English.
What I found refreshing was the lack of apologetics and justification for horrendous acts, a fault that plagues most books currently written about the Middle East. Khouri minces no words in describing the barbarity of honor killings, and she delivers some pointed barbs at Islam itself. She isn't afraid that her story will make Jordan look bad; it's a problem to be got out into the open and solved, an attitude unfortunately lacking in far too much writing about the region.
These books are available at Fine Bookstores Everywhere (tm), alas only in hardback as of yet.
Queen Noor, Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life
Norma Khouri, Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern-Day Jordan
These two books were just published in February and March of this year, and I read them together. Since they both cover similar ground and became linked in my mind, I'll write about them together.
The Queen of Jordan is still part of the royal family of Jordan and so part of the government, and her book was probably checked by several censors, so I wasn't really expecting much in the way of revelations. Also, it may be impolitic to be too forthcoming with the truth, for any political figure, so I have to say I also took much of it with a grain of salt.
There really wasn't much of a need to do so, though, as the book was almost totally inoffensive, except perhaps for her version of the Arab-Israeli wars, told, of course, from the Arab POV with a certain liberality with the facts, so to speak (i.e. some of it is blatant lies). Also, she can't help throwing in some rather tasteless, shall we say, characterizations of Israelis/Jews e.g. the World Zionist Organization is inexplicably described as "well-funded," Israel exercises a certain "magical power" over the minds of Americans, AIPAC can get any bill through Congress they want, Israelis inexplicably adopting an "unhelpful" "fortress mentality," even though she herself mentions that the PLO's goal was and is to destroy Israel, everything is always Israel's fault...etc. It's subtle but the net effect wasn't very flattering to a woman who fancies herself progressive and open-minded.
ANYWAY...with that caveat, we can go on to the general content. The book is actually mostly about King Hussein, her husband of almost 21 years. Her 26 years of life as Lisa Halaby before meeting the King takes up only 35 pages in a 450-page book, and in the rest of the text the spotlight is always on the King (she calls him alternately "the King," "Hussein," and "my husband" and is hardly ever missing on a page). Unfortunately we don't get to learn much about Noor herself. Her activities, foundations, and charitable works are described with all the depth and detail of a PR statement (actually, those parts even sound exactly like blurbs from a pamphlet or fundraising letter). Her descriptions of meetings with other leaders are totally superficial and rarely do we get to find out what she really thinks of President So-and-So or of Mrs. So-and-So. No dirt or gossip here!
Despite her emphasis on her Arab roots (her grandfather was an Arab Christian from Beirut), Noor comes off as a thoroughly Western woman, with typically American liberal views ("liberal" in the sense of "what she might have got out of 4 years at Princeton"). She seems to have never left the '60s ("War is bad for children and other living things!" and her pacifist leanings). But all of that rings a little false when you realize just how repressive Jordan really is (you can be jailed for criticizing the King, political parties were banned for decades, no general elections from 1967 to 1989, martial law) which you really don't see at all in the book. How could a woman with her professed liberal, democratic views have simply taken all of that in stride? She does describe wanting a little loosening up of the press, but that's about it. And how can she claim that wars never solve anything given even her own history of modern Middle East history? Naivete or disingeniousness?
One of Noor's main goals in this book is obviously to make Jordan look as good as possible, so most of the unpleasantness is simply ignored or whitewashed (but what do you expect from a Queen of Jordan???). Honor killings, of which more later, merit about half a page, and there are supposedly only 25 a year, a ridiculously low number taken from the official statistics. Obviously admitting to more would do serious damage to Jordan's "modern" facade. There is no real sense of the grinding poverty affecting huge portions of Jordanian society, nor of lack of human or women's rights. Even the poor Palestinians rotting in refugee camps and exiled from their homeland, which she draws attention to at every opportunity, are hardly visible as living, breathing humans, only as a symbol of injustice and humiliation. What we're left with is a Jordan out of a travel book, exotic people plying their exotic crafts (the program Noor set up to distribute and sell native handcrafts is discussed at length), with fantastic sights and landscapes.
The oddest thing I found about the book was that Islam was discussed for a sum total of perhaps 2 or 3 pages. For all her claims about how she didn't convert to Islam out of convenience, she barely talks about it. There are a few scattered remarks about her conversion to Islam (the morning of her wedding) and about how Islam has great beauty and the Prophet said that "None of you is a believer unless he wants for his brother what he wants for himself." A couple remarks about Ramadan and praying at the King's grave, a brief discussion of Hajj and that's about it. I was curious about whether she prayed 5 times a day, attended Friday prayers at the mosque, read the whole Qur'an, her views about some Islamic laws, anything...but nothing was forthcoming. And especially her views on hijab! In all the pictures in the book, she is virtually always wearing Western clothes, hair proudly uncovered. The sole exceptions are: a shot of her and her daughter at the King's grave, a small white scarf tossed over her head, barely covering anything, and another of Noor dressed to make Umrah, where you can really see what all that cloth makes her look like! Not that I really care whether she herself wears it or not; it's just that hijab is such a heated topic in Islam I was hoping for maybe a comment or two, especially given the fact that every Islamic scholar I've read or talked to considers it to be a requirement for all Muslim women! I am left thinking she probably shares Queen Rania's stated postion that she doesn't think it's required.
For what it was (a feel-good portrait of an American-born Queen, her King and her love of her adopted country), it wasn't really that bad. I spent a couple of long nights reading it through, unable to put it down for long. But I'm such a book addict anyway... ;-P
The other book, Norma Khouri's Honor Lost, offers a glance behind the facade of modernity Jordan projects. The book, written by the author in an Internet cafe, describes her friendship with a Muslim girl, Dalia (she herself is Catholic), Dalia's love for a Catholic man she meets at the salon in Amman she and Norma run together, the lovers' clandestine meetings (perfectly chaste), and finally the tradegy that ensues when Dalia's family finds out and her father feels he must cleanse his family's honor by stabbing her a dozen times. Norma is finally forced to leave Jordan, knowing that she too is likely to fall to the same fate.
Although mostly a Muslim phenomenon, honor killings also affect Christians, and Khouri describes this as coming from the shared Bedouin Arab traditions that hold all Jordanians captive. She devotes an "Afterword" to the subject of honor killings, pointing out that it is in Jordan's interest to minimize the extent of the problem. After all, how "advanced" can a society be where fathers slaughter their daughters for "dishonoring" their families, just by meeting or even talking to a man? The official figure of 25 killings a year is far too low; the real number probably numbers in the thousands, since most are not classified as such, instead as "crimes of passion" or "suicide" or something else. And worst of all, the killers get away nearly scot-free--three-month prison sentences are common, often waived as "time served" out on bail at home. The laws explicitly permit this, and Parliament has no intention of allowing this to change--why, if a father can't protect his family's honor, the whole society will become degenerate like the West. Change is very slow in coming.
The book is a quick read, coming in at 211 pages of double-spaced text. The pace is quick and lively, and the slice-of-life details of middle-class life in Amman are engaging. At times the writing is a bit awkward and some dialogue a bit stilted, but that doesn't detract from the story, especially given the circumstances of its composition. The main characters are very much alive--Dalia, Michael, herself, even Dalia's unsympathetic brother Mohamed, assigned to chaperone the friends as they work in their salon, and ends up finding out about his sister's secret, leading to her death. Khouri mentions she went to English schools, thus explaining her very good command of English.
What I found refreshing was the lack of apologetics and justification for horrendous acts, a fault that plagues most books currently written about the Middle East. Khouri minces no words in describing the barbarity of honor killings, and she delivers some pointed barbs at Islam itself. She isn't afraid that her story will make Jordan look bad; it's a problem to be got out into the open and solved, an attitude unfortunately lacking in far too much writing about the region.
These books are available at Fine Bookstores Everywhere (tm), alas only in hardback as of yet.