Category: Articles

NOVA Documentary: “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial”

When: Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Louisiana Public Broadcasting, 7-9 p.m.

WYES, New Orleans, 7:30-9:30 p.m.

View online on Wednesday, November 14, 2007.

The story of the first legal case involving intelligent design creationism, Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District (2005), will be told in a two-hour documentary, “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial,” that will air on PBS’s NOVA on Tuesday, November 13. Barbara Forrest, Professor of Philosophy in the Dept. of History and Political Science at Southeastern Louisiana University, served as one of the expert witnesses for the plaintiffs and will be featured in the documentary along with other participants in the case.

In December 2004, eleven parents of public school students in Dover, PA, filed the first lawsuit in a United States federal court against the teaching of intelligent design creationism in public school science classes. The following year, on December 20, 2005, Judge John E. Jones III, Middle District of Pennsylvania, saying that “ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents,” ruled that the teaching of intelligent design violates the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution.

A short interview clip with Forrest and other participants in the case is available on the NOVA website. Forrest recounts her experiences in the trial in the 2007 edition of the book she co-authored with Paul R. Gross, Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (see Creationism’s Trojan Horse). Forrest also wrote an article about the trial that is available online: “The ‘Vise Strategy’ Undone: Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District.

At universities today, the most popular potential US presidential candidate is smart, young, black, good-looking, likeable. His events draw frenzied crowds (a bad sign); pundits say he’s a rock-star (another bad sign).

Why is Senator Barack Obama so popular? His healthcare plan is pedestrian; his foreign policy outlook is interchangeable with Hillary Clinton’s, or Mitt Romney’s for that matter. It’s partly to do with his image as a young charmer and partly because he opposed the Iraq War “from the beginning”, as he likes to remind people. But his position on Iraq is not as hardline as Bill Richardson’s, for example. And laying claim to being the most charismatic Congressmen is really only like claiming to be the most open-minded Klansman. His popularity, I think, is related to his favourite applause-line, which goes roughly as follows: “We have to change our politics and come together around our common interests and concerns as Americans… Change in our politics can only come from you.” It was with those words that Senator Obama announced his presidential run.

There have been many overpraised perorations in the history of US politics, but Obama’s reputation-making “Audacity of Hope” address to the 2004 Democratic Convention really reeks of corniness. If you watch the video, you’ll see people who are actually crying and shaking as the Senator trots out such pearls as, “There is not a liberal America and conservative America, there is the United States of America!” Forgive me for not tearfully struggling for breath as I type these words, but it just doesn’t do it for me.

What could be less controversial than claiming to stand against “division” and for “unity”? I wouldn’t be surprised if every single modern American politician has pulled this same rhetorical move, at one time or another. Remember, GWB was originally elected as “a uniter, not a divider”. Even at the corresponding Republican Convention in 2004, it was a Democrat who gave the keynote address, claiming that some good old-fashioned bipartisanship was necessary. Perhaps the only political clichÈ more annoying than this is the trend of calling the campaign trail drudge a “conversation” with the people; every politician who wants to be seen as “in touch” with “fellow Americans” now loves nothing more than having an ongoing conversation or dialogue or chit-chat with you.

Strange, though, that Democrats still fall for the “bringing the country together” gambit. After all, haven’t a significant number spent the past few years complaining that Bush has used wartime unity rhetoric to silence dissent? I vividly recall watching interviews with Democrats who claimed they simply could not – could not – vote against the Patriot Act, or the Iraq War, or any number of bills that they assented to, for the solitary reason that it would have been divisive to depart from the regnant orthodoxy. Nor do Democrats care that Gerald Ford got away with pardoning Richard Nixon for the fatuous reason that the nation needed “healing”. But then, the Democrats have their own reasons for keeping the consensus card on hand: it got Bill Clinton out of opinion poll trouble in 1998, when he decided that nothing was more important than bombing a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan – anything else, like impeachment, was a disruption. Politics has reached a stage where you look credible if you can claim to be a “moderate”, and you look savvy and wised-up if you can say that your opponent is “divisive”.

The open secret of American politics, of course, is that there is too much consensus and not enough conflict. The major parties are agreed on almost every major issue. Even over Iraq the Republicans are moving closer to the Democrats – or is it the other way round? As to what the issues are, there is no debate. Obama is right when he says that American domestic politics has an air of “smallness” to it. But that’s precisely because the parties have a diminishing number of issues over which they dare to disagree; more “togetherness” is hardly the answer. There hasn’t been a genuinely conservative Republican president for a long time; there hasn’t been a genuinely liberal Democratic president for even longer.

If Obama were serious about “a different kind of politics”, he would say that he is OK with division. Thomas Paine, the greatest of America’s founders, got it basically right: “Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.” It is odd that the public should be so titillated by politicians who are lukewarm in all their convictions, except for the conviction that they are moderate. Who wants a “moderate” president on human rights or corruption or church-state separation?

At least in a small way, any politician purporting to be “above” politics must be taken at his word: the manoeuvre is essentially a cop-out. If you don’t like politics, which inherently involves dispute, being a politician is a bizarre career path. If you want soothing psychobabble about healing wounds, try therapy. This is doubly important for anyone who claims to be a progressive politician. All progress involves struggle: American independence, women’s suffrage, black civil rights – these were not gained through a joyous conversation, but through tense, bitter, open confrontations.

More than this, consensus politics, anti-politics politics, whatever you want to call it, is boring. That’s almost worse than being irresponsible. Al Gore may be sincere in his lamentation that the media is not sufficiently interested in “issues”, and too interested in Paris Hilton, but the media is only partly to blame. Mr Gore will find that the fault is largely that of public opinion and the public opinion industry, which reward floweriness dressed up as conviction. To stand on principle is to risk being branded “extreme” or “a fringe candidate”; to risk a fight with an opponent is to be accused of “partisanship”. Even against Hillary, the queen of bland centrism (which really means conservatism), Obama has a good chance of winning the race to the middle, and he’ll have simpering admirers shouting, “Hope!” following him all the way.

Skepticism is a funny thing, even among the Greeks – especially among the Greeks. The “original” skepticism would have been completely palatable to modern religionists, because it challenged pre-Socratic efforts to attain a true picture of the world and stoic claims to have the map to true knowledge. To the early practitioners of skepticism Thales’ notions just didn’t hold water, and if Heraclites was right today, he might well be wrong tomorrow. “‘What I may think after dinner is one thing,’ returns Mr. Jobling, ‘my dear Guppy, and what I think before dinner is quite another thing.’” A little healthy skepticism never hurt anyone, except those with fixed and final positions, those who claim to possess the whole and unvarnished truth, or the careless throng who pride themselves on leading an unexamined life.

The Greek word skepsis has about a dozen definitions in the big Oxford Greek Dictionary, the most common being “examination,” or “inquiry,” though it can also mean “doubt,” and “revision,” – as to revise an opinion – like Mr. Jobling at dinner time, but for cause, not whim or indecision. It always implies a certain restlessness or impatience with answers and “positions.” According to an unreliable tradition (and most ancient traditions are) it was Plato’s nephew and “successor” Arcesilaus who revised (Diogenes says “meddled with”) the teacher’s system by stressing the importance of arguing both sides of a case, giving weight to evidence and argument. How this was “new” is not clear from the reports; the sophists did it; Socrates did it. Even Arcesilausian “skepticism” seems to have come from Uncle, who had said that “nothing can be known with certainty, by the sense or by the mind,” a conclusion which taken to its limit means that the conclusion cannot be known with certainty. So there we are. Skepticism always lands you in the solipsistic mud and solipsistic mud exists only outside the mind, and hence cannot get you muddy. But in paving the way for what academics like to call Academic skepticism, Arcesilaus paved the way for an important development. Take those arrogant troglodytes, the stoics. The followers of Zeno were the reductivists of the ancient world. This means they only believed in mud puddles. Sensory impressions or rather katalêpsis – a mental grasping of a sense impression) – guarantees the truth of what is grasped, or in this case, fallen into. If one assents to the proposition associated with a kataleptic impression, i.e. if one experiences katalêpsis, then the associated proposition cannot fail to be true. To put it simply: for any sense-impression S, received by some observer A, of some existing object O, and which is a precise representation of O, we can imagine circumstances in which there is another sense-impression S’, which comes either (i) from something other than O, or (ii) from something non-existent, and which is such that S’ is indistinguishable from S to A. Questions? So the definition of truth, which Plato had made an Idea (call it I if you want), fell on the knife of the stoics’ claim that only kataleptic experiences are true and that the true stoic wise-man (who was seen to be a more perfectly developed type of humanity—a bit like Aristotle’s megalopsuchos except taller) is capable of infallibility. For Arcesilaus, this is folly: first because we can be mistaken about sense impressions (as the Arab philosopher Al-Ghazali noted centuries later), and second because the world and life-in-it that we experience is more complex than our senses can grasp, and also because our sense experience fails to de-code the world of value that is also an essential part of human perception – lived experience. It is all, as a teacher of mine used to say, about our epistemic limits – a nice way of saying that to some people a palm tree is a cycad within the genera palma and to others a meeting place for an evening rendezvous on a deserted beach. Not either – or, of course, but when – then.

Why all this about skepticism and a nephew of Plato, barely visible in the footnotes? There is a confused idea that modern science has vindicated the stoic view of the world by refining and redefining what constitutes a kataleptic experience. True, the skeptics were correct to suggest trickery, hallucination, error, and deceit weighed heavily against the infallibility of the senses. But hasn’t modern science improved the thoroughgoing empirical model espoused by the stoics, to the extent that the skeptical caveats now count for much less? Freud deciphered the dream state; Einstein the continuum of time and space. –Jews since Moses have been busy compensating for Grandpa’s imaginary friend. And even non-Jews have contributed to the scientification of understanding. Even if the media insist that there are two sides to every story, isn’t it really the case that there is only one – the kataleptic one? And didn’t we all learn to be self-effacing about this when we learned the scientific method? The motto of false self-effacing irony. Science deals with facts, not truth; probability—(heaven forbid) not certainty. After all, a thousand bits of experimental corroboration can be falsified by one patchwork-colored elephant. In the treasury of scientific knowledge, the holy grail is the principle that the limit of the epistemic quest is the possibility a fact can be un-facted. (“Not bloody likely,” is not to be said out loud, especially by Nobel laureates). In this way skepticism has been deflated and subsumed into scientific method. Research professors have given it its own room at the back of the house, like a troublesome grandparent, and invite it to dinner every time a new discovery is announced. C P Snow and Karl Popper may quibble with these metaphors. But a true reductivist will bristle. A true reductivist will say that an essential element of the modern outlook – a condition of being modern, indeed – is to enshrine the scientific as the only appropriate way of viewing the world we see. Snow touched on this in his 1959 Rede lecture recalling a group of Cambridge dons (“educated men”), who were speaking contemptuously of the illiteracy of scientists. He comments, “… if I had asked [them]…What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, ‘Can you read?’ — not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their Neolithic ancestors would have had.” The Snows of the twentieth century insisted they had not forsaken the verities; goodness, truth and beauty were alive and well, and living in the apartment next to a reprogrammed skepticism. But now the good was grounded in the goodness of a particular “way” of knowing particular kinds of things; truth, the basic axioms we need to refine that knowledge, and beauty the beauty of the cosmos – in its deciphered and intelligible form.

But this is not a postmodernist screed against science. It is a question looking for an answer, and not just in the scientific arena. Has skepticism no separate voice in the understanding of the world? If it does, is it limited to stabs at religious dogma, debunking miracles and visions, looking for Chiye-Tanka’s poo in the Oregon woods or space debris in New Mexico? –The kind of skepticism that (it seems to me) gives back to credulity as much as it takes away. The humanist intellectual tradition, which is something I find vitally important, was shaped by a healthy respect for epistemic limits – not about a particular stance toward the infallibility of method and experience. The biblical God fell to skepticism (not science) only a few centuries after Anselm announced His discovery. Biblical infallibility did not fall to Darwin but to Erasmus – even Luther’s German successors; church authority began to tumble when Lorenzo Valla went to work on the claims of Pope Stephen II in 1440, not when Galileo was proved right. None of the perpetrators of these designs had any notion of the scientific method; what they did have was a healthy sense of the disconnect between what was claimed to be known (or true) and what a liberal application of skepticism discovered to be the case. Later on, biblical scholars would call this the hermeneutics of suspicion. It’s a phrase worth remembering.

And in the world of human values? Skepticism has done yeoman’s service in a non-scientific sort of way in freeing us from the taboos and stereotypes of tradition. If we point to the “achievements” everyone agrees are politically salutary—civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, you name it, we ordinarily hear in the background the voices of skeptics who doubted the prevailing orthodoxy and the way a social world was interpreted. Is this the same as demythologizing the cosmos? Yes and no, but mainly no. It’s not just that social worlds are made by fools like us, but only Process can make a tree. It is that social worlds are provisional in a way the physical world is not, and to the extent “laws” operate in both nature and society, they are different sorts of laws. Doubtless, ideas whose time has come, come—but not without nursemaids. Skeptics have undeniably been good nursemaids for every liberation movement of the last three centuries: only a Bible rendered politically ineffective by the growth of democratic secularism could be non-instrumental in maintaining the slave trade. Only a secular government could keep in check and (mainly) out of power those who want a Christian America, with all that might imply for social justice and the environment. If skepticism is defined as a kind of heresy, heresy applied to repressive, cruel or dogmatic social orthodoxies, then it has done a pretty good job in those areas where it has been able to do its work.

Skepticism has been less good, however, where it might do the most good. Arcesilaus taught that no intellectual position can be fixed and final. This was not a statement about truth, directly, but about the infallibility of knowing. The two-sides dialectic was not a doctrine about giving equal time to opposing viewpoints—that is an American media obsession not Greek philosophy. What skepticism entailed was the obligation to test good arguments against each other—“The fire of argument is the test of gold.” Now, as a skeptic and a humanist let me say something for which I ask, and have no right to expect, God’s forgiveness for, even if he existed to grant it. The real crisis of skepticism is reflected in a skeptical deference to those who feel that science can provide answers to all questions of value, serve as its own guide in questions of ethics, and is ultimately compatible with a species of Truth completely different from the lowercase truth one arrives at in other enterprises. Sometimes, as Snow recognized, humanists abjure the sciences out of ignorance—a real, persistent, and inexcusable ignorance. Sometimes they abjure the sciences because they see through the false modesty to the methodological conceit that locates both the nature of the universe and the meaning of life in the house that the stoics built. Whatever the anatomy of the problem the two cultures still exist, much the same as in 1959, complicated in America, at least, by the fact that outside the circle of educated men and women who cannot define acceleration and energy, there is a subculture of yahoos who defend such ignorance on religious grounds and reductivist humanists who define the epistemic limits as what science can teach us. The answer to the two-cultures problem, if there is one, is a reemphasis on the two-(good) sides polity of the skeptics.

Finally, at a social level, skepticism has been snoozing, along with modernism and historicism and other materialisms. Humanism is in disarray—not old and new versus tried and true, but a humanism that wants to liberate itself from the skeptical worldview that gave it birth. The social dogmas of the multicultural society are now being accepted as “reasonable” because they predominate, not because they have been thought through; or “right” because they happen to violate “religious” opinion which we think modernity has so thoroughly discredited that argumentation is superfluous. The enfolding of all rights–civil, gay, women’s, fat, challenged, seniors’, children’s–into “basic human rights” is the sort of category error that skeptical thinkers used to demolish like God did Sodom, and with the same apparent vengeful delight. Worse, those fondest of making it these days are globalists and humanists who have no particular use for the other manifestations of multiculturalism. But the iconoclastic kick is gone. To suggest that a self-respecting humanist must be, above all, skeptical in his approach to social catechisms, in the way his ancestors were toward other sacred books is—incorrect. And so, we embrace reason, but not the consequences of reason; and we pay tribute to skepticism until the sacred cow turns out to be another barnyard animal. If it were Oz, we would turn back just before Dorothy discovers the hoax. Inconsistency is consistency: Mr. Jobling begins to make sense.

To make matters worse for the skeptic, he is now told that the quest is for “social justice.” It sounds noble—not worth questioning, something everybody is “for.” And that the goals (all progressive and therefore right) of social justice cannot be achieved by discussion but only by law. The fate of the failed philosopher is to be a lawyer, and of a bad idea to become a law, an official “position.” Humanism especially suffers from a native desire to have the moral gravity of religion without its baggage, without the supernatural, without the obedience; but what it gets without skepticism and self-reflection are ideas reduced to legalities, pronouncements, and positions. A skeptical humanism would probably recognize no intellectual position as a “humanist position,” especially on the mere basis it differed from a religious one. It would be more in line with the skeptical tradition to differ from all positions, and to be especially suspicious of the ones that have been legalized, pronounced, globalized, trendified, or inserted into a socially correct catechism. I am, if I must be coffee-spooned into slogans, pro-choice, about 60% of the time. I cannot however imagine assuming this position with a fixed certainty, offering it as universal, considering it unassailable; and it is a skeptical humanism that makes me restless to know the other side and the exceptions to my view. As a matter of simple preference I support the cause (the right?) of gays who want to possess the same benefits as married heterosexual persons. But, as an historian, I find the contemporary debate fatuous. The history of the purpose of marriage influences my thinking, and a respect for language makes me want to know whether “marriage” is the best word for a same-sex union. (Appositely, I still want to know why ordained Anglican women refuse to be called priestesses but like the idea of women priests.)

As a skeptical humanist, I believe that such positions should never be framed dogmatically, and that humanism reduced to scientific simplicity at one level or legality at another will be humanism in a convoluted, reduced, and semantically weakened sense.

Extract from my book in progress, A Higher Atheism.

R. Joseph Hoffmann, PhD

Senior Vice President
Director of the CFI Institute
Center for Inquiry International

In 1748 the great Scottish philosopher, David Hume, first published his “lemon test” concerning miracles. It goes like this: “No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be even more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish…” Hume concludes his point by saying:

When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion. (1)

In the years since the 9-11 catastrophic religious zeal appears to have engulfed every area of human interaction. Even science, especially the field of medical research has jumped onto the bandwagon and now it is common to find “so-called” scientific studies about the effects of “intercessory prayer.“ By carrying out this kind of research medical investigators are, in effect, attempting to study the existence of miracles. defined as an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs. (2)

Let me emphatically state at the outset, that I do not criticize anyone for praying for themselves or anyone else if they choose to. Nor do I deny that there may be benefits to some individuals that stem from prayer. These activities might stimulate subtle mechanisms of psychology and physiology which, when understood more fully, may add to the established benefits of medication and surgery, as they obviously do in psychiatric illnesses. Along with placebo effects, the alleged benefits of prayer may be the result of feelings of well-being, optimism and confidence, that result from praying and similar practices like meditation or relaxation. I agree, all of this may exist, and could, perhaps should, be a subject of legitimate scientific inquiry. (3, 4)

But the interaction of psychology and physiology is not the subject of this essay. My comments are addressed only to what most people mean when they say, “I’ll pray for you.” The meaning that implies a request for intercession from a “higher power.” What this reference to prayer means, is that the wishes of the supplicants will be heard by some agent and*if the agent is convinced to act*the course of events will be changed for the better, in accordance with the prayer. Thus, the meaning of “intercessory prayer” which this commentary attempts to address: the study of the existence of miracles, which implies the study of the existence of God.

There is incredible irony of all of the previous “experiments” involving intercessory prayer. Every one of them has been seeking evidence of a most trivial kind, that could even be mistaken for a placebo effect, or a statistical artifact, from an alleged Power of the most unimaginable magnitude. Power which presumably was the source of the astounding creation of hundreds of billions of galaxies, which are composed of hundreds of trillions of stars, dotted with singularities and “black holes” possessing immense gravity and crushing annihilatory densities; all of which are dancing with exquisite accuracy in spectacular elliptical orbits over a time- and distance-span of fourteen billion light years; Power that has designed astonishingly complex molecular systems, composed of amazingly intricate atomic foundations; all operating according to the mechanics of gravity and other little-understood forces which bind atomic nuclei together while swarms of electrons maintain their balance around their stupendously dense centers in microscopic imitation of the grander galaxies; Power which orchestrated the rules of light propagation and spectrums of colors all arranged in fantastically diverse, visible, as well as invisible, wavelengths and patterns.

Meanwhile, they seek evidence of this breathtaking immensity by searching for a measurable difference between the arterial blood flow of a few cardiovascular patients who were prayed for and a few other unfortunates who were not . . . a difference in blood pressure between one group of hypertensives who were prayed for and another who were not. It is as if one were asking a composer with a quadrillion times the musical capacity and comprehension of a Ludwig Von Beethoven to demonstrate his musicianship by writing out the notes to “Three Blind Mice.”

How petty and insulting to whatever deity these investigators claim to be investigating, when the most they can ask of that which has created biological systems from algae to sequoia giganticus and amoebas to human brains “Let me see if you can fertilize this ovum in a Petri dish with one of your hands tied behind your back.”

The issue is about prayer to a deity or his representative – beings that do not exist within the known physical universe, a qualification acknowledged even by educated religious believers, which should include medical researchers who engage in the scientific investigation of natural phenomena. What I am trying to make clear is that those who believe in God and the power of intercessory prayer, are speaking of concepts that are not material and therefore not part of the physical world. Yet they want to connect these phantasms with the scientifically demonstrated forces and structures of the physical world…and moreover, to have these influences measured in physical experiments.

Many of these studies claim to have demonstrated the effectiveness of intercessory prayer. (5) Of course, many do not, and one meta-analysis of fourteen such studies concluded, “There is no scientifically discernable effect for Intercessory Prayer (IP) as assessed in controlled studies. Given that the IP literature lacks a theoretical or theological base and has failed to produce significant findings in controlled trials, we recommend that further resources not be allocated to this line of research.” (6) I hasten to point out, that some studies indicate that there may also be certain disadvantages that accrue from similar psychological and physiological mechanisms. In a most notable example, in the April issue of the American Heart Journal one of the study’s findings was that “a significantly higher number of the patients who knew that they were being prayed for — 59 percent — suffered complications, compared with 51 percent of those who were uncertain.” One of the investigators, Dr. W. Bethea, said it is possible, “that being aware of the strangers’ prayers also may have caused some of the patients a kind of performance anxiety. . . . It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?” (7)

So not only do some “scientists” seem to believe that intercessory prayer can be helpful, they are also concerned that it could be harmful. This is suspicious, to say the least, because it should be apparent that, most of these “results,” both positive and negative as well as neutral, are explainable either as psychosomatic effects, as above, or even more likely, as statistical artifacts. But more importantly, if the concept of intercessory prayer has any meaning whatsoever, in the metaphysical sense, would that mean that the deity was not only ignoring the request, but in some instances, punishing the supplicant as well?

Whatever the competing explanations may be, a major reason for the indeterminacy, is that the dependent variables which are chosen in all of these studies, by their very nature, were not unambiguous enough to produce an unequivocal outcome. There is and always has been in these studies, the likelihood that the null hypothesis, or alternative hypotheses, prevail.

Finding differences between groups, especially differences brought about by a “treatment,” is the sine qua non of experimentation. However, when two groups are compared on some criterion measure, there will always be some difference. The important task is to distinguish between a “measured difference,” a “statistically significant difference,” and an “actual or real difference.” The first two are separate and unequal approximations of the third, which is unattainable reality, although the first two are often mistaken for the third. Neither of the first two can ever hope to be estimates of that which is outside of reality. (8)

An Experiment

In order to carry out a confirmatory experiment – one that would leave no possibility of an alternative explanation – the investigator would have to produce evidence of an effect that could only be explainable by a force unknown to science – the intervention of a deity or its agent. There are outcomes that could eliminate doubt about experimental artifacts and they would have to involve dependent variables that could not occur except by divine intervention. Investigators would have to come up with a dependent variable that could withstand the lemon test, one that would yield clear-cut results. There are such variables.

For example, one very simple experiment, the results of which would leave little or no doubt about the effectiveness of intercessory prayer, could involve the regeneration of an amputated limb. (9) All that would be required is an adequate sample of amputees as subjects and a sizeable number of believers who will earnestly pray over them. These should not be hard to locate. The investigators could employ as many universities and people as possible – all the willing believers in the country if necessary – to pray every day for a year that at least one amputee would have a limb regrown, and then, at the end of that year, examine all the thousands of amputees for signs of regenerating limbs.

Any amputee who wants to be included in the experimental group would be examined beforehand by a panel of physicians to ascertain that he or she is indeed an amputee. DNA samples on the subjects would be taken before and after the study to ascertain that the amputee identified at the beginning would indeed be the person who was examined a year later. There would be no limit on the sample size. No need for randomization, t-tests, analyses of variance, factor analyses, significance levels or confidence intervals. The subjects would present themselves at the end of the year and be examined to see if a single missing limb had been restored. Any priest, minister, rabbi or lay person would be permitted to recommend subjects for the experiment, and any could observe the examination for the regenerated limbs. There should be no limitation on the number of amputees, people who pray for them, and observers to keep everything organized and uncontaminated.

When a single limb has thus been observed to have been regenerated, then we will have seen unequivocal evidence for the power of prayer. This would be a real test to put before the immovable object; the irresistible force; the ultimate omniscience, the omnipotent, omnipresent supremacy of all that the believers in a supernatural being endow that Master Architect with. The creator of the entire universe should have no problem recreating a limb.

Perhaps this study could be even carried out at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., under the aegis of the study going on there, known as the MANTRA II (Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic TRAinings) Project. “Noetic” interventions like prayer and music imagery and touch studies called (MIT) therapies are defined as “an intangible healing influence brought about without the use of a drug, device or surgical procedure,” according to the researchers. The word noetic generally has to do with intellectual matters, which under the circumstances seem to be the dubious use of a perfectly good English word. They have already published the results of the phase I feasibility-pilot, known as the MANTRA I. (10, 11)

Prominent in the field, Duke University has a long history of interest in arcane practices, going back to the work of J. B. Rhine as early as 1927. Rhine was interested in mediums, the afterlife, telepathy and clairvoyance and as the originator of the terms “extra sensory perception” (ESP) and “psychokinesis” (PK), he provided “legitimacy” and material for prestidigitators, psychics and entertainers like Uri Geller (of spoon-bending fame), while maintaining that he was advancing a new field of science he called “parapsychology.” Incidentally, he had been accused of fraudulently juggling his data by, among others (including his wife), Martin Gardner (12). His legacy has undoubtedly influenced the studies on intercessory payer now known as the MANTRA I and MANTRA II, which were carried out at Duke. (13)

Opinion

Intercessory prayer is a request to God to change his or her mind about the already established plan for the universe and make it go another way. Of course, this implies that a perfect deity’s plans, which would (by definition) have to be perfect, should now be altered at the urging of an imperfect being. This is logical reason enough to refute the possibility of intercessory prayer’s effect, since perfect beings cannot be outguessed by fallible mortals. Nevertheless, believers in the power of gods, saints and angels claim that these agents are able to alter or suspend the well-established laws of the universe at their whim…or at the request of the believer, through prayer.

If we were speaking of magic or sorcery, or any belief systems outside of Western Judeo-Christian tradition, most investigators would agree that these ideas (of intercessory prayer’s effectiveness) are ridiculous and consist of superstition at best. In only one area, the field of Judeo-Christian theology, are the very same phantasms accorded the status of legitimate entity, and amenable to scientific scrutiny. Why? Why are Judeo-Christian ideas – superstitions by any accepted taxonomy of logic – allowed to maintain a grip on, not only political, social and economic values in our society, but on scientific ones as well. How can we explain the avalanche of articles that are now apparently available about this current preoccupation of American medicine with the miraculous. (14, 15, 16, 17)

In March of 2005, my article “Searching in the Darkness: About Prayer and Medical Cures” was published as a commentary in Medscape General Medicine. (18) I was motivated to write it after seeing that there were fifteen articles listed in Medscape on the subject of “intercessory prayer,” and at that time, I found it hard to believe that so many researchers would spend their time on such an endeavor. Many of these studies were aimed at investigating the possibility that prayer could influence the outcome of a variety of medical conditions ranging from infertility to cardiac surgery. This occurred shortly after the exposure of “the Columbia University prayer fiasco” (19, 20) and I believed that, in its aftermath, we would begin to see a diminution of interest in this allegedly scientific area of research.

Last week, I put the word “prayer” into Medscape’s search engine, and to my astonishment, it provided me with a list of 136 articles. In disbelief, I went to Google, and entered the search words, “intercessory,” “prayer,” “cure,” and “medicine,” and it yielded 206,000 “hits.”

I believe that this focus on “intercessory prayer” is but one manifestation of a larger movement, begun when the National Institutes for Health (NIH) formed the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). The goal of this organization is ostensibly an attempt to bring more diverse tools into the healing professions’ armamentarium, and it provides the funding for many of the studies that deal with alternative medicine. (21)

The NCCAM at the National Institutes of Health released a survey in May of 2004 that showed that, “36 percent of U.S. adults use some form of alternative remedies.” They defined complementary and alternative medicine as “a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices and products that are not currently considered to be part of
conventional medicine. Those practices include acupuncture, meditation, the use of herbal supplements and prayer. When prayer used specifically for health reasons is included in the definition of complementary and alternative medicine, the number of U.S. adults using complementary and alternative medicine rises to 62 percent.” (22)

It is disheartening to see the number of supposedly educated and intelligent professionals who are involved in the futile process of attempting to investigate that which cannot be part of the physical universe, and hence, not open to scientific examination. As I quoted him in my earlier article on this same subject, Desiderius Erasmus described these people as “looking in utter darkness for that which has no existence whatsoever.”(23) Scientists have no business wasting their time and money (and certainly not the taxpayers’ money where it is NCCAM funded research) investigating “that which has no existence whatsoever.” In fact, in my opinion, those who do, should be labeled “pseudo scientists.” (24, 25, 26)

Let’s re-examine, once more, the notion of supplication to a deity, or one of his agents, in which a request is made for a suspension of the known laws of nature. We don’t know them all, but they do exist, and science is their investigating agent. For any scientist to engage in a study that attempts to understand how something that does not exist in the material world (God or his agents), employs a mechanism that does not exist in the material world (miraculous cure, or prayer-related amelioration of symptoms) is simply working in the wrong field. He or she does not belong in science – or one of its main applied areas – medicine; theology would be an acceptable alternative.

Have the tentacles of politico-religious, anti-scientific zealotry ensnared medical researchers? It seems to me, that political, financial and ideological forces are behind the rise in so-called alternative medicine, and intercessory prayer is riding the wave. For a description of this issue and articles that deal with the many complications surrounding an investment in alternative medicine and its implications for traditional western medicine and all of science see the website of Dr. Clark Bartram, a pediatrician with a sense of humor.(27)

Because of the situation I have described, in my opinion, it represents a serious degeneration of the meaning of the terms, “medical research,” and/or “scientific research.” As a result, accepted standards of scientific research are falling by the wayside.

The Tangled Web

For reasons that go way beyond the scope of this commentary, there is an interesting conglomeration of characters, locales, organizations, traditions, etc., which cluster around studies into the arcane. For example, is it an accident that Dr. Krucoff is the principal investigator of the Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Trainings (MANTRA) Study Project at Duke University Medical Center; and is also on the board of directors of The Rhine Research Center, which was established by J. B. Rhine the preeminent investigator into the paranormal?

In addition to the political complexity surrounding NCCAM, including why it has funded over a half-billion dollars worth of research into Reiki, herbal remedies, chiropractic and “distance healing,” it would take an inordinate amount of time to investigate the backgrounds of all the private funding organizations behind the prayer studies and behind “faith-based initiatives.” Some of the funds for studies mentioned in this commentary were provided by grants from the RAMA Foundation, Bakken Family Foundation, George Family Foundation, FACT Foundation, Duke University Heart Center, Duke Clinical Research Institute, Columbia University Medical Center, Geisinger Medical Center, Scripps Clinic, and the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and the Templeton Foundation. Perhaps someone would be willing to study the relationship and motivations of granting agencies that support these studies.

This would be a gigantic investigation in and of itself, and beyond the scope of this commentary, in which I intended to focus exclusively on intercessory prayer. However, it is important to note that some of the “Complementary and Alternative” procedures, e. g., acupuncture and herbal supplements are based upon something physical, a substance and/or a process, and as strange as many of these procedures may seem to be, they are still within the testable universe of physical science. Intercessory Prayer is another matter entirely.

References

1. Selby L. From David Hume. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Bigge, ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1902 pp. 114-16.

2. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary; Tenth Edition; 1997

3. Lundberg G.D. Evidence-based medicine or faith-based medicine? Medscape General Medicine. 2004;6(4).

4. Arias, Donya C. Alternative Medicines’ Popularity Prompts Concern: Use of Alternative and Complementary Remedies on the Rise. Medscape General Medicine. 2004; 8(2).

5. Krucoff, M.W. American Heart Journal. Volume 142, Issue 5, Pages 760-769 (November 2001).

6. Masters, K, Spielmans, G. and Goodson S. Annals of Behavioral Medicine 2006, Vol. 32, No. 1, Pages 21-26

7. Benson, J. Dusek, J. Sherwood, P. Lam, C. Bethea, W. Carpenter, S. Levitsky, P. Hill, D. Clem, Jr., M. Jain. Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: A multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer. American Heart Journal, April 2006, Volume 151, Issue 4, Pages 934-942.

8. Gaudia, Gil medscape.com Commentary: When Is a Difference Not a Difference: Medicine or Shooting Craps? Posted 07/28/2006

9. I got the idea for this from Why does God hate amputees?

10. Krucoff, M, Crater, S, Gallup, D Blankenship, J Cuffe, M Guarneri, M Krieger, R Kshettry, V, Morris, K Oz, M. Music, imagery, touch, and prayer as adjuncts to interventional cardiac care: the Monitoring and Actualisation The Lancet, Volume 366, Issue 9481, Pages 211-217.

11. Krucoff, M.W. American Heart Journal. Volume 142, Issue 5, Pages 760-769 (November 2001).

12. Gardner, Martin. On the Wild Side. Prometheus Books. Amherst, New York, 1992.

13. a history of Rhine’s work

14. Arias, Donya C. Alternative Medicines’ Popularity Prompts Concern: Use of Alternative and Complementary Remedies on the Rise Medscape General Medicine. 2004; 8(2).

15. Glickman-Simon, Richard Introduction and Complementary and Alternative Medicine: An Evidence-Based Approach
Medscape General Medicine. 2004;6(4).

16. Désirée Lie, – Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM): What Should Physicians Know? Medscape General Medicine. 2004;6(4).

17. Gaudia, Gil. Searching in the Darkness: About Prayer and Medical Cures. Medscape General Medicine. Commentaries. March 2, 2005

18. Cha KY, Wirth DP, Lobo RA. Does prayer influence the success of in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer? J Reprod Med. 2001;46:781-787.

19. Flamm, BL. Inherent Dangers of Faith-Healing Studies Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine / Fall/Winter 2004-05 Volume 8 ~ Number 2

20. Department of Health and Human Services; National Institutes of Health;
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

21. Alternative Remedies

22. Stenger V.J. Has science found God? Free Inquiry Magazine. 2001;19.

23. Dennett, D.C. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. New York: Viking. 2006.

24. Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion: New York. Houghton-Mifflin. 2006.

25. Harris, Sam. Letter to a Christian Nation. New York: Knopf 2006.

26. Unintelligent Design.

Every morning, the bell rings. It’s not my cell-phone alarm nor the siren broadcast by big mansions for the periodical shifting of laborers. The bell rings everyday and I am hearing it for the last twenty-eight years (apart from a few odd days). It’s evident that millions of Hindus throughout the world hear these bell-echoes every day in the early morning. The frequency of this bell must have been raised exponentially these days as the Hindu’s greatest festival Dashain has finished recently.

Being a Hindu by birth and a secular humanist by thought, I am always at a cross-roads in shaping myself into the proper track with regard to atheism and theism. The trail is muddy and complicated, but I have been struggling hard to establish myself as a secular humanist who believes in the rationality of reasons and facts and enjoys the perennial beauty of scientific accomplishment.

One of the impoverished regions of south-Asia but always independent, Nepal, the Himalayan country, has been fighting for her legitimacy for many years. From being a Hindu kingdom for hundreds of years to being a secular state, the country has witnessed several political revolutions that have always been intermingled with the questions of religion. The country has a diverse terrain and peoples, although more than 70% of the people are Hindus. Finally, the country is successful in establishing herself as a new secular state of this century. We must cheer for this new secular country although millions of non-secular bells continue to ring every morning in the secular country.

Every morning as I walk through my village and pass the Hindu deity, I never show any religious norms other than watching the believers queuing up and the blood-shedding of poor animals that are slaughtered every day. My friends laugh at me internally for not showing any religious norms but they are not going to challenge my belief of secularism as they don’t have the rationality of reasons and truth. Unfortunately the blood-sprinkled bell continues to ring.

It’s been more than five years that I have declared myself as a secular humanist, and the foundation pillars of secularism are becoming strong and mature as I read many works by Paul Kurtz and other prominent humanists. Also I was lucky to experience the social life among secular Chinese people for almost a year. These are some critical as well as practical foundations that were underlying my tributaries and shielding me from the pitch of those bells that continue to ring everyday.

I am not going to fight with my mother for the bell she is ringing every-day because there are millions of mothers and millions of sons and daughters hearing this pitch every morning. They are not going to stop it no matter how hard I try, but I am of the firm belief that people are going to ask about the rationality of bells sooner or later.

I remember my grandma telling fairy tales of god and goddess and how those shadows were sticking inside my grey matter for many years even after her death. As far as I remember, she performed all her religious ritual and pilgrimage duties but she passed away merely at the age of 58 suffering from cancer. I am pretty sure that she must have rung that monotonous bell for 18,250 times assuming that she rang the bell at least once a day for fifty years, although it is customary that most Hindus ring it twice a day. However, the story of her bell has been passed from generations to generations and I am afraid that my mother is going to tell the same superstitious story to my offspring.

Eloquently, the fact is that the old-bell is loosing its frequency and penetration compared to the modern bell of communication. My mother must be hearing phone-rings at least three times a day, more than frequency of her old bell. I am pretty sure that the pitch and echoes of the modern bell will prevail in the days to come, and that that bell has the power to give answers and reasons that the old bell has deprived people of. The only tool to decrease the frequency of the old bell is the education and knowledge that peoples of this region desperately need, to wipe out the ignorance that has been cultivated for hundred of years from generation to generation.

Ravi Dhungel lives in Kathmandu, Nepal. Visit his blog at Nepali Lad.

Introduction

A previous article [1] suggested that a suitable response to the recent influx of Islamic ideas would be to apply typically Western methods of enquiry to Islam itself. The article presented, as an example, a critical discussion of the inheritance laws as set out in the Quran and concluded that the laws were ineptly specified, thereby providing evidence that the Quran was composed by a fallible human mind. This conclusion is in direct and irreconcilable conflict with the central Islamic assertion that the Quran was composed in its entirety by an almighty, all-knowing deity: the Biblical God.

This article continues in the same vein, but discusses not the details within the Quran, but the accounts of its creation as presented in mainstream Islamic literature. These accounts, though contested elsewhere (e.g. [2]), are taken at face value in what follows as is, for the sake of the argument, the existence of the Biblical God. The purpose of the article is therefore not to cast doubt on either the history or the deity but simply to determine whether there is evidence of the claimed connection between the two.

The Islamic story of the origin and nature of the Quran

The orthodox account of the origin of the Quran has been presented in many sources. This article draws mainly on two, both of which are available on-line. The first [3] is by a Christian Missionary, Edward Sell and the second [4] is by a European convert to Islam, Ahmad von Denffer.

Islam claims that, around the year 610 in Mecca, in what is now Saudi Arabia, Muhammad ibn Abdullah was designated as God’s final Messenger, or Prophet, and began to hear divine communications, relayed to him by the Archangel Gabriel. He continued to receive these messages until his death in 632 and, subsequently, the messages were compiled into a book: The Quran. The Quran is regarded as the actual word of God and remains the primary source of guidance for Muslims.

Given the overwhelming importance of the sacred task that Muhammad had allegedly been entrusted with it is remarkable that, at the time of his death in 632, no complete, approved written Quran is believed to have existed, though there were reputedly a number of partial or private versions, either written or preserved in people’s memories (7th century Arabia being primarily an oral culture) plus a large number of fragments recorded on diverse media. In 633, the first Caliph, Abu Bakr commissioned the production of a complete written Quran, though there is no evidence that this became anything more than a personal copy kept by Abu Bakr then, after his death, by the next Caliph, Umar and then by Umar’s daughter (and one of Muhamamad’s widows) Hafsa.

The situation remained unaltered until 653 when the third Caliph, Uthman, determined that a standardised version should be created, since Muslims in Iraq and Syria (parts of the ever-growing Islamic empire) had variant versions which had given rise to quarrels. His scribes went over Abu Bakr’s version (retrieved from Hafsa), rendering it in the Meccan dialect. Uthman then commanded that all other copies (including Hafsa’s) should be burnt, leaving the revised version as the official and only representation of the Quran, and so it remains to this day.

In what follows, the locations within the Quran of selected passages are denoted by (Qa:b), where ‘a’ is the Sura (i.e. Chapter) number and ‘b’ is the verse number. As in [1], the Arberry translation [5] is used for quotes.

Collection of the Hadiths

The Quran is not the only Islamic scripture. There are also the Hadiths: a large body of anecdotes concerning the things Muhammad said (providing an interpretation of the Quran) or did (thereby providing an example of correct behaviour or ritual), which are second only to the Quran in terms of the reverence in which they are held. The Hadiths, together with biographies such as [6] are also the source of other aspects of Islamic law not covered by the Quran such as, for example, the death penalty for renouncing Islam (apostasy) or the use of stoning for adultery. The two main Hadith collections were compiled over 200 years after Muhammad’s death. Extracts from the Bukhari collection [7] are referred to by the key (Ba:b:c), referring to Bukhari, Volume ‘a’, Book ‘b’, Hadith ‘c’.

A few key features of the Quran

The detailed contents of the Quran are not the subject of this article. However, a few of its features need to be mentioned. The most basic is its purpose. At the very start of Sura 2, the Quran tells us:

That is the Book, wherein is no doubt, a guidance to the Godfearing

So the Quran is a book of guidance and the ‘Godfearing’ are Muslims (and Muslims only). What were God’s intentions in revealing the Quran? The following quotation is from [8], a manual of Islamic law available in an English translation. In Section o8.0, which deals with renouncing Islam, a number of acts which entail apostasy are listed. One of them is:

To deny that Allah intended the Prophet’s message….to be the religion followed by the entire world.

which is self-explanatory.

An important point for all non-Muslims to appreciate is that the Quran is intrinsically an Arabic text. The basis for this view is (Q12:2):

We have sent it down as an Arabic Quran; haply you will understand.

God’s word, therefore, is in Arabic and Arabic only. Any attempt to render the text in another language is not simply an act of translation, but potentially one of alteration. Therefore, translations are regarded with caution within Islam; a translated Quran is considered not to be a true Quran, but more like an interpretation or commentary.

Although it is less widely known, it is also believed that the Quran was originally revealed in seven different forms. The source of this belief is contained in the Hadiths. (B3:41:601) reports:

Narrated Umar: “I heard Hisham bin Hakim bin Hizam reciting Surat-al-Furqan [one of the chapters of the Quran] in a way different to that of mine… Allah’s Apostle [i.e. Muhammad] said…. ‘The Qur’an has been revealed in seven different ways, so recite it in the way that is easier for you’.”

One final aspect of the Quran: one which cannot be overlooked, is the question of the dependence of its rulings upon the context in which they first appeared. The situation is described by Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress [9]:

For the last 1400 years, Muslims and their religious scholars have dealt — and are still dealing — with the important question of how much of the Quran is binding on Muslims at all times and how much of its teachings apply only to the age of the Prophet Muhammad and the particular circumstances in which he and his followers lived. This is a continually difficult question, but one on which impressive scholarly work has been done; more yet is needed.

Summary

According to Islam, the almighty God intended that His religion, specified in the Quran and elaborated upon in the Hadiths, should be the one followed by the entire world. One might therefore expect that His plan for revealing and spreading Islam to the world would exhibit evidence of having been conceived and executed by an intellect far superior to our own. Let us consider the evidence and see if this is so. If it is not, we may tend to favour the competing explanation: that Muhammad was one of countless individuals, past and present, who heard ‘voices’ and that the Quran was, therefore, entirely a product of his own mind.

Discussion

The use of prophets

For those brought up with Christian, Jewish or Islamic beliefs, the concept of prophethood may seem so familiar as to be barely worthy of comment. Yet, as a means for an almighty being to channel His communications to humanity, it seems to be rather an odd choice, given that He must surely have the power to broadcast His message simultaneously to all the world’s peoples, if He so wished.

In addition to being extremely slow and inefficient, the use of prophets suffers from the drawback that each prophet has to establish his own credibility. In ancient times, as now, there was no way, even with the best will in the world, for a person to distinguish reliably between a real prophet and a false one and, as a result, false prophets confuse the picture even more. So the question is: why would God risk the rejection of His words by choosing a method of revelation which lacks credibility because it is so obviously open to fakery and self-delusion?

The example of Muhammad’s early attempts to spread the word to his fellow Meccans is a case in point, with the experience being a slow, frustrating and sometimes dangerous one. As a result of the general scepticism and hostility, early conversions to Islam happened slowly. It is estimated in [10] that, 13 years after he had started, Muhammad’s converts numbered only around 100. His lack of success and the persecution of the early Muslims caused him and his followers to migrate to Medina, some 200 miles to the north, after which his fortunes improved markedly. The simple fact is that most of Muhammad’s compatriots, when given the free choice (an arrangement which was not to last), did not believe him. This difficulty in getting the Message across continues to the present day.

That God was aware of the credibility problem is beyond doubt, since the Quran describes how previous prophets were challenged, mocked, taunted, accused of being frauds and sometimes attacked. Tellingly, the Quran also abounds in both defensive self-reference (e.g. Q41:44) and in tirades against the unreasonable stubbornness of unbelievers (e.g. Q15:14,15). Remarkably, God was not content with this state of affairs and contrives to make things even more difficult. In (Q31:25), God tells us that

Even so We have appointed to every Prophet an enemy among the sinners; but your Lord suffices as a guide and as a helper.

The reference to other prophets is significant. The Quran maintains that, prior to its appearance, “every nation” was sent a prophet (Q16:36), with the total number being estimated by later commentators as anything up to 200,000 ([3], p239). The perplexing use of designated ‘enemies’ to hinder the efforts of the prophets may explain the seemingly almost complete fruitlessness of God’s previous efforts. Even accepting this hindrance, one cannot help wondering how, given this saturation coverage of the Earth’s peoples, God’s word failed to survive past the Iron Age except within one tribe: the Jews. Even in their case, according to Islam, the scriptures were corrupted.

That this ‘prehistory’ is believed to have occurred is an underappreciated feature of Islam. Under normal circumstances, i.e. if the actions were being attributed to a human cause, a record of one partial success in couple of hundred thousand attempts would result in the person responsible being demoted, dismissed or executed, depending upon whom he answered to. However, in the case of a plan attributed to God, no such conclusions can be countenanced within Islam. The apparent failure has to be represented as a success or, alternatively, blamed on someone else. The ‘someone else’ is non-Muslim humanity; the ones who failed to take heed of the prophets and (in the case of the Jews) corrupted the Scriptures. However, Islam also claims that God causes and foresees everything that occurs and had therefore deliberately caused the previous difficulties. This contradiction leads directly to the perplexing Islamic stance on free will which holds that, God’s complete control notwithstanding, humans are to be punished (in the afterlife) if they fail to follow the straight path provided by Islam.

The creation of the Quran

The story of the revelation of the Quran is as puzzling as the story of the earlier prophets. Despite the latter’s almost total failure, God again selected the same method of transmission. Furthermore, although God’s message was supposedly intended for all peoples and for all time (‘the religion followed by the entire world’), Islam maintains that God has expressed it only in Arabic; this being then, as now, a minority language in world terms.

Then, there is the problem of the seven versions. There are enough Hadiths on this subject to make this conclusion unavoidable for Muslims yet, oddly, not nearly enough to reflect its significance. If the story is true, Muhammad would have had to have spoken all seven each time a passage was revealed yet, in the Hadith quoted above, Umar (the same Umar whose daughter Hafsa became one of Muhammad’s wives) was unaware that alternatives even existed.

In the absence of any evidence as to what the seven forms of the Quran might have been, Muslim scholars have, for centuries, tried to square the circle of there being seven forms originally, yet only one now, without any alteration having taken place. There is, unfortunately, no wiggle room here since the Quran predicts its own uncorrupted and complete preservation (Q15:9), so any loss or alteration cannot be acknowledged. There is no support for the contrived ‘explanation’ that these seven forms were merely different Arab dialects [4] and the idea that God would create seven separate versions in order to indulge the inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula, yet ignore the major languages of the rest of the world, is surely too implausible, even for an account in which suspension of disbelief is a prerequisite. Muhammad’s revelation concerning the existence of seven versions must surely strike the uncommitted reader as his attempt to finesse himself out of the consequences of previous occasions when he had failed to recall correctly the exact wording of a verse.

The case of the seven versions is not the only occasion where what appears to be a simple human failing is given a divine gloss. (Q2:106) refers to verses which God supposedly had ‘cast into oblivion’; caused Muhammad to forget, in other words. The same verse describes the process whereby delivered verses were supposedly abrogated, or superseded, by later ones; a strange procedure for a text which had supposedly existed in Heaven since the beginning of time and a problem for subsequent generations since the original chronology was lost. (Q22:52) relates an occasion where verses had to be retracted because ‘Satan’ had deviously slipped them into Muhammad’s mind and (Q3:7) refers to verses which are ‘allegorical’: incomprehensible, as far as the reader is concerned.

The years following Muhammad’s death

Muhammad was a mortal man and, in 632, he died as the result of the rapid worsening of an illness. Upon his death, the Quran was left in a somewhat disorganised state. Verses existed in people’s memories, in incomplete and differing compilations and on various unusual media, such as the shoulderblades of sheep [4]. Von Denffer asks us, with naïve optimism, “What arrangement could have been better…?” ([4], p33). The answer is, of course: a collected, approved copy of the kind produced later by Uthman, whose decisive though dictatorial action was responsible for the preservation of the Quran from 655 to the present day. Von Denffer also tries to maintain that the retrieval of these fragments during the initial compilation under Abu Bakr was a simple matter of visiting Muhammad’s old house, collecting the fragments and parcelling them up with string. The comment of Zaid Ibn Thabit, to whom the task fell: “By Allah, if he (Abu Bakr) had ordered me to shift one of the mountains (from its place) it would not have been harder for me than what he had ordered me concerning the collection of the Quran.” (B6:60:201) suggests otherwise.

For Muslims, the dogma of an unchanged Quran clashes uncomfortably with the fact that their own literature records that different versions of the Quran were in circulation after Muhammad’s death. One only has to contemplate the gravity of Uthman’s decision to burn copies which had existed since Muhammad was alive to appreciate that the differences must have been significant. Moreover, parts of the Quran were evidently lost forever, as described in some detail by Gilchrist [11], who cites examples recorded within early Islamic literature. The most unambiguous statement to this effect comes again from Umar (B8:82:816):

I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, “We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book,” and consequently they may go astray by leaving an obligation that Allah has revealed

Umar’s concerns were well-founded, because the stoning verse is, indeed, no longer there. This infamous Islamic punishment for adultery nevertheless remains in force because of evidence in the Hadiths that it was sanctioned (and personally carried out) by Muhammad himself. There is no way to reconcile the information in the early Islamic reports with the dogma of an unchanged Quran except with a level of wishful thinking which only the preconvinced can achieve.

Context

Attempts by Westerners to quote the Quran back at Muslims are often met with the response that the non-Muslim has failed to take into account the context of the original ‘revelation’ and has therefore misinterpreted the text. The quotation by Elmasry [9], given above, largely gives the game away: Muslims are also bemused and have failed to resolve the problem even to their own satisfaction in nearly one and a half millennia of “impressive scholarly work”.

As with the case of the previous prophets, the implications of the above are profound, but hardly ever discussed. The difficulties that Elmasry describes imply that God jumbled together commands designed to cover temporary circumstances with those of a more general application and gave no indication how to tell the two apart, resulting in confusion which has lasted for over 1350 years. Moreover, no amount of impressive scholarly work can resolve this problem, since no further information will ever become available.

There is no more stark example of the problems that the above gives rise to than the controversy surrounding the notorious passage known as the ‘Sword Verse’ (Q9:5): “..slay the idolaters wherever you find them”. Unfortunately, ‘God’ fails to make clear whether this applies for all time, or not, with the result that some Muslims believe one thing and the rest, the other. The verse which, almost single-handedly, defines the relationship between Islam and the rest of the world, is ambiguous.

Conversion of the unbelievers

An obvious necessary step in the adoption of Islam by the entire world is that unbelievers should convert into Muslims and it is reasonable to enquire as to how this conversion was supposed to be achieved. Many features of the Quran itself and of its emergence seemed designed to promote doubt and to discourage free, rational conversion and, as far as can be determined, the overwhelming majority of Muhammad’s fellow Arabs behaved exactly as anyone would behave today if confronted by someone claiming to be a prophet. They did not convert en masse until Muhammad had gained a good deal of entirely non-spiritual power.

The obstacles to informed rational conversion for the remainder of the world’s peoples are even more severe. The Quran is in Arabic; most people do not speak Arabic. The message has to be spread throughout the earth, so the Quran has to be translated. However, the Quran cannot be translated and remain the Quran. For this to be resolved according to God’s intentions, it would appear that everyone on earth needs to learn Arabic and, in order for the contents of the Quran to be appreciated fully, it should preferably be learned as a first language. However, even in parts of the world which have been Muslim for some considerable time (e.g. Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan and Iran), this has not taken place. This leads to the strange situation of the supposed words of God being repeated reverentially by non Arabic-speaking Muslims, even though they have no clue what they are saying. Was this God’s intention?

So what, exactly, was God’s plan for conversion of the unbelievers? We may not have been told the details but, presumably, what took place over the next 1350 years was its realisation. But it seems scarcely credible that, with all the means at His disposal, God selected, as his method of mass communication, jihad – military conquest by the Arabs and their converts. Yet that is largely how Islam has been propagated. And despite its initial brutal success, God’s method for spreading Islam has been somewhat ineffective ever since the Arab/Muslim war machine ground to a halt centuries ago. After nearly 50 generations, most of the unconquered world remains unconvinced by Islam’s message. How much simpler and more successful it could have been; how much bloodshed could have been avoided, if a more elegant method of transmission had been selected.

Conclusions

Anyone considering the above must surely find it a challenge to discern any evidence of divine planning in the haphazard and, at times, chaotic sequence of events leading to the creation and compilation of the Quran that we see today. Furthermore, when judged against the supposed divine goal of the adoption of Islam by the entire world, many features of the process: the futile efforts of the (alleged) previous prophets, the confusing, Arabic-only message, the failure of Muhammad to provide a written, approved copy, the absence of any effective strategy for the rational conversion of the unconvinced, are simply inexplicable. The alternative explanation; that the Quran was composed piecemeal, consciously or unconsciously, by Muhammad, fits the story perfectly. The conclusion is surely inescapable: there was no plan behind the Quran; just a man.

But…

Muslims believe that there is direct proof of the divine origin of the Quran. It is asserted that the Quran is inimitable, that is; that its contents are such that only God could have composed it. The basis of this remarkable claim will be discussed in the next article.

References

1 The Islamic Rules of Inheritance in the Quran. http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=270

2 Ibn Warraq. The Quest for the Historical Muhammad. Prometheus Books. 2000.

3 Edward Sell. The Faith of Islam. SPCK Press, Madras, 1907. http://www.answering-islam.de/Main/Books/

4 Ahmad von Denffer. Introduction to the Quran. Studies in Islam and the Middle East ePublishing Series. http://majalla.org/books/2004/intro-to-quran/1-intoduction-to-the-quran.pdf

5 Arthur Arberry (Translator). The Koran Interpreted. Touchstone Books. 1996. http://arthursclassicnovels.com/arthurs/koran/koran-arberry10.html

6 Ibn Ishaq. The Life of Muhammad (originally Sirat Rasul Allah). Translated by A. Guillaume. Oxford University Press. 1967

7 USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts. University of Southern California. http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/

8 Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (d. 1368), Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, (rev. ed., trans. Nuh Ha Mim Keller, Beltsville, Maryland: Amana, 1994)

9 Mohamed Elmasry. Does the Quran sanction violence? http://muslim-canada.org/elmasry.html

10Ali Dashti. Twenty Three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad. Mazda Publishers. 1994.

11 John Gilchrist. Jam al-Qur’an: The Codification of the Quran text. http://www.answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/Jam/index.html

Dear friends in WIB [Women in Black],

In response to the mail alerting us about this event against ‘Islamo
fascism’ led by conservative forces, I think there is a need for
clarification from us, who lived under ‘Islamo fascism’:

First of all, let me say that the term ‘Islamo fascism’ was initially
coined by Algerian people struggling for democracy, against armed
fundamentalist forces decimating people in our country, then later operating
in Europe, where a number of us had taken refuge.

For us, it has never been equated to Islam, but it points at fundamentalists
only: i.e. at political forces working under the cover of religion in order
to gain political power and to impose a theocracy (The Law – singular – of
God, unchangeable, a-historical, interpreted by self appointed old men)
over democracy (i.e. the laws – plural – voted by the people and changeable
by the will of the people).

For fundamentalists indeed are ideologically close to fascism/nazism. Of
course one cannot equate Muslim fundamentalism to fascism because those
phenomena happened in different times and history. However, there are
similarities that should ring a bell to our ears: just like fascists,
Muslim fundamentalists believe not in a superior race but in a superior
creed, like nazis they believe that non believers or ‘kofr’ are
‘untermensch’ ( some of them even used this very term !) that should be
physically eliminated (and please please please remember that it is
Muslims who do not adhere with their version of Islam that are first
targeted by Muslim fundamentalists and are their first victims); like
fascists they believe in a mythical past ( whether Ancient Rome or the
Golden Age of Islam) that justifies their superiority ; like fascists they
are pro-capitalists; like fascists they put women in their place ( church,
kitchen and cradle); etc…

This is why we called them ‘Islamo fascists’.

The fact that this term has now been recuperated by the Right and even the
Far Right, in order to express plain racism against supposedly ‘Muslim’
people is terrible and should of course be combatted.
However we have seen over and over again in Europe well meaning people
siding – de facto – with fundamentalists, in the name of defence of
‘Muslims’ or of ‘Islam’, and walking hand in hand with them in
demonstrations.

I therefore urge you to carefully plan how you are going to oppose the
‘awareness week on islamo fascism,’ in ways that will support the democratic
forces and women within Muslim countries, and not reinforce the
fundamentalist fascist forces.

Please remember that fundamentalist forces are those who slaughter women
everywhere in Muslim countries and communities, those who promote war not
peace. You cannot support them in the name of anti racism and human rights
without signing our own death penalty at the same time.

If you demonstrate, as I hope you will, please support democratic anti fundamentalist forces in our countries, do not let
fundamentalist forces manipulate you in the name of human rights. Make a clear-cut difference between 1. migrants from Muslim countries,
2.Muslim believers (who are the only ones who should be called ‘Muslims’), 3. Islam, and 4. fundamentalists: these are different categories that
cannot be intermingled without playing into the fundamentalists’ game, and against women.

I take this opportunity to let all of you know how hurt and angry I was when
a statement was discussed at the end of the WIB meeting in Valencia, that,
in its first paragraph, supported Hamas as the legitimate winner of the
‘democratic’ elections of 2006.

It is one thing to say that western governments used a supposedly
antifundamentalist stance to play their own game in the Middle Eats. It is
one thing to say that Palestinian people have a right to self determination.
But, as a women’s organization, it is another thing to support Hamas. As
women against war, it is another thing to equate a democratic process with
democracy and ignore the consequences for women…

Let me explain my point : ‘democracy’ has two meanings; 1. it describes a
process of political representation through the vote of all citizens, and 2.
it also represents an ideal of justice, equity and equality . So far
parliamentary democracy (i.e. the vote of all the people) is better, more
just, more representative of the people, than monarchy (the rule of one
leader), or oligarchy (the rule of a selected group), etc…But we should
not confuse the means – elections – with the aim – a just society. Yes,
elections are generally the imperfect but best way to come closer to a more
just society – however sometimes the people make a very wrong choice that
denies justice to a part of the people: one should remember that Hitler was
legally elected . Despite the fact that the rule of electoral process had
been respected, his reign in Germany cannot be counted as a phase of
democracy i.e. more just society – definitely not for Jews, Gypsies, gays,
disabled people, communists and political opponents in general.
One of us in Valencia was a Palestinian lesbian citizen of Israel: you
cannot pretend to igniore the fact that, had she lived under Hamas’ rule,
she would not have been with us, nor would have she been alive. To me, very
clearly, signing a statement in favor of Hamas was signing her death penalty
in the name of the rights of the Palestinian people, which we all stand for.
How could WIB do that? How could WIB agree to a hierarchy of rights in
which people’s rights, minority rights, religious rights, cultural rights,
etc… supercede women’s rights? in which women’s rights are subsumed to all
these other rights?

We women have to invent ways to defend basic human rights and democracy,
to combat racism and discrimination, without trading the rights and often
the lives of our sisters in doing so.

It is a complex task, no doubt. But I do hope that WIB will face the
challenge.

The opposition to this event in the USA that confuses a whole population of
migrant descent with Muslim fundamentalists would be a good opportunity to
design ways to face the challenge. Thanks in advance to all of those who
will at least make the attempt!

All the best to all of you

Marieme Hélie-Lucas

Marieme Helie Lucas is an Algerian sociologist, founder and former International Coordinator of the ‘Women Living Under Muslim Laws’ international solidarity network.

This letter was published on the international Women In Black email information list on 5 september 2007 and is republished here by permission.

Posted October 24 2007

Richard Dawkins says that it is “the awakening of women” that will solve the problem of “the worldwide menace of Islamic terrorism and oppression”.

His remarks came while praising the winner of this year’s “Secularist of the Year” award from the National Secular Society. The £5,000 prize went to Mina Ahadi, an Iranian woman who was forced to flee her native country after leading a campaign against the compulsory veiling of women. Because of her resistance to the clerical regime, her husband and four of her colleagues were executed, and she only narrowly escaped the same fate.

She now lives in Germany and has founded the Committee of Ex-Muslims, a movement that is rapidly spreading across Europe. She has also founded the Committee Against Stoning, which now has 200 branches worldwide.

Richard Dawkins said: “I have long felt that the key to solving the worldwide menace of Islamic terrorism and oppression would eventually be the awakening of women, and Mina Ahadi is a charismatic leader working to that end. The brutal suppression of the rights of women in many countries throughout the Islamic world is an obvious outrage. Slightly less obvious, but just as outrageous, is the supine willingness of western liberals to go along with it. It is worse than supine, it is patronising and condescending: “Wife-beating is part of ‘their’ culture. Who are we to condemn their traditions?” A religion so insecure as to mandate the death penalty for apostasy is not to be trifled with, and ex-Muslims who stand up and fight deserve our huge admiration and gratitude for their courage. Right out in front of this honourable band is Mina Ahadi. I salute her and congratulate her on this well-deserved award as Secularist of the Year.”

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “We are proud to have been able to give Mina this honour – she is a woman of incredible courage and tenacity. The suffering she has endured has not dimmed her determination to improve the lot of women oppressed by Islam and other religious traditions.”

Posted October 21 2007

I recently enjoyed the new Richard Dawkins series on Britain’s Channel 4, in which the scientist explores the world of alternative therapies – therapies which have few health benefits but are nevertheless funded by public money. Dawkins, of course, is known for his criticism of religious faith – not just religious states, wars, or terrorism, but the texts and the faith itself.

Here are some reactions to Dawkins’s viewpoint.

Dawkins is an unashamed proselytiser. (Madeleine Bunting)

What is arguably more interesting about Dawkins’s TV work is the sense in which his public advocacy of atheism is coming to look more and more like media-savvy forms of contemporary religion, particularly evangelicalism. (Gordon Lynch)

And yet, Dawkins is as reluctant as any evangelical fundamentalist to recognise the importance of an element of doubt, or doubt of doubt, in religious faith, or to accept that much of the content of religious faith is metaphorical, poetic and symbolic rather than factual in a scientific sense. (John Cornwell)

Do you recognise a pattern here? There is a dismissive consensus that, on occasion, slips into hysterical paranoia:

The militant atheists have a moral mission: to improve the world by working towards the eradication of religion. (Theo Hobson)

Fundamentalist atheists want to replace old religions with their own. To them all previous prophets were false. Their fervour makes them as blind and uncompromising as those following the religions they detest. (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown)

My personal favourite, though, has to be this from Tobias Jones:

There’s an aspiring totalitarianism in Britain which is brilliantly disguised. It’s disguised because the would-be dictators – and there are many of them – all pretend to be more tolerant than thou. They hide alongside the anti-racists, the anti-homophobes and anti-sexists. But what they are really against is something very different. They – call them secular fundamentalists – are anti-God, and what they really want is the eradication of religion, and all believers, from the face of the earth.

There have also been comparisons between science and religion, and declarations that the Enlightenment led to the gas chambers.

What to make of these writers (who appear in popular liberal newspapers and magazines) who say that critics of religious fundamentalism are no different from religious fundamentalists…just because they are quite passionate in their views? These pundits (shall we call them ‘anti-secular fundamentalism fundamentalists’?) are telling us, in essence, that people who are for free speech and human rights are the exact same as people who are against these things.

Zhou Fang, of Warwick University, summed up the ridiculousness of this argument:

Where are the atheist terrorists? What is this atheist hell that we think believers are going to be sent to? Where are the burning placards waved by atheist protesters?

This isn’t a true equivalence; it does discriminate. When people discuss religious fundamentalism and ‘atheist fundamentalism’ it is always the secular fundamentalist that comes off worst. It is always the critics of religion, not its followers, who have the explaining to do.

And that makes a kind of sense. If you write something bad about Christopher Hitchens, he may be annoyed but he won’t actually kill you. Write something critical of Islam (or Christianity or Hinduism) and there is a good chance that you may be attacked, threatened, your name and details put on some Redwatch equivalent somewhere. Atheism is a safe target.

Another reason is the left’s changing attitude to religious faith in general. In classical Marxist theory, faith was both a comfort to the oppressed and an illusion that had to fall before true happiness could be obtained. Now, faith is seen as a more spiritual alternative to our decadent consumerist society. Hence, dissidents of Muslim background such as Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are slandered as neocons and Uncle Toms for criticising Islam.

The moral equivalence betrays a lack of knowledge, a lack of empathy and a lack of imagination. It is intellectually lazy (because it can’t be bothered to look into its two comparators and find out the difference) and intellectual cowardice (because it doesn’t have the courage to recognise what is worth fighting for, and to make a commitment to fighting for it). It’s also a legacy of free market culture. Nothing good in the shop? Just walk out.

People who conflate religious fundamentalists with secular liberals often make great play of their open-mindedness. To which I’d say: fair enough. But having an open mind is not enough; it has to be allied with a sense of judgement and discrimination. Without that, it leads to a moronic acquiescence with any and every nonsensical fringe idea – I’ve heard the open-mind defence being used to justify support for 9/11 denial, for the Illuminatus conspiracies and the Bible Code. Being open-minded is not about passively accepting every half-arsed theory that floats into your head. It is about questions and debate and criticism.

George Orwell, in 1942, was attacked by three pacifist writers who felt that there wasn’t much to choose from between democracy and fascism. ‘Orwell dislikes French intellectuals licking up Hitler’s crumbs,’ said D S Savage, ‘but what’s the difference between them and our intellectuals who are licking up Churchill’s?’ When Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four, he made equivalence a large part of Party propaganda. The slogans went: war is peace, and freedom is slavery, and black is white. Now apologists for religion are using the same type of rhetoric, taken to similarly stupid extremes – claiming that reason is madness, that love is hate, that life is death.

Posted October 19 2007

I note with interest that Margaret Downey organized a blockbuster atheist conference in the Washington, D.C. area, to which she brought many of the “new atheists.” We congratulate her on her energy. However, may I agree with Sam Harris who states that in accepting the label of “atheist” that “we are consenting to be viewed as a cranky sub-culture… a marginal interest group that meets in hotel ballrooms.”

May I first compliment Sam (as the newest kid on the block) for his two fine books and his eloquent voice now being heard on the national scene. May I then disagree with his subsequent “seditious proposal” that we should not call ourselves “secularists,” “humanists,” “secular humanists,” “naturalists,” “skeptics,” etc. “We should go under the radar for the rest of our lives,” he advises. We should be “responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them.”

That sounds lofty but in my view it is counter-productive. For in order to develop new ideas and policies that are effective, we need to organize with other like-minded individuals. And a name is crucial. If we followed Sam’s advice, the critical opposition to religious claims would naturally collapse. If we generalize from this, we could not come together as Democrats or Republicans, Libertarians or Socialists, feminists or civic libertarians, world federalists or environmentalists, utilitarians or pragmatists. Should we operate only as single individuals who may get published or speak on street corners with little influence or clout? Come on, Sam, that is unrealistic; for almost no one would be heard and we would be lone voices in the city canyons, unheard and drowned out by the powerful media. We say that democracy best functions when the citizens of a country unite under whatever label they choose to achieve what they deem to be worthy goals. True, you have had a best-seller which brought you to the public forum. But for most people the opportunity to affect the public debate is lost unless they work together with others to make their views heard, and unless they build institutions dedicated to their ideals and to the values they hope will endure.

Paul Kurtz is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, chairman of CSICOP, the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine.

Posted October 10 2007

The New Humanist Manifesto

1. There are lots and lots of atheists and agnostics and people who really don’t know really what to think, or why.

2. We need to build a movement just for them.

3. And a big table.

4. Atheists and agnostics really need to discover the wisdom of the Buddha…

5. And Rainbow Love.

6. The problem with the Old Humanism is that it is Old.

7. The New Humanism is New. This is fundamental.

8. In the new humanism, everything will be tentative. For example, if someone asks us, “What do you stand for?” we must not take offense. We must say: “Why is that important to you?”

9. Similarly, if an Anti-New Humanist attacks us, we must say, “Why are you attacking us? Have some green tea and relax.”

10. The New Humanism is hopeful. The Old Humanism was critical. It is not our job to be critical. It is our job to be hopeful.

11. We are religious atheists. We believe that there is no God, and that Jews are his chosen people. Likewise, the Chinese, Inuit, Low-achievers, etc.

12. There is no contradiction in this. New Humanists have risen above contradiction to the All Embracing.

13. And Rainbow Love.

14. Everything is Mood.

15. New Humanists have no scripture.

16. New Humanists have a Project: their Project is to re-write Woody Allen’s “Life is Worth Living” speech in Manhattan.

17. Start Now.

18. The New Humanism is not a fad. It is not a cult. It is not a religion. If you are pressed, say “It is not anything in particular.”

19. Men are equal to women, All people of the earth should have equal rights. Everyone. There should not be discrimination based on race, sex, gender, sexual orientation or class. Democracy is better than slavery. Assault weapons should be banned. The New Humanism is the first movement in world history to teach this doctrine.

20. In re-writing Woody Allen’s speech, replace “Tracy’s face” with “that special someone,” Otherwise, do what you want.

21. America is a great country. It may not be the greatest country. This is fundamental.

22. Truth is negotiation, often confused with correspondence to facts.

23. Facts have two sides, your side and my side.

24.. Everything is Narrative.

25. And Rainbow Love.

The New Humanism conference was held in April 2007 at Harvard.

R. Joseph Hoffmann, PhD
Senior Vice President,
Director of the CFI Institute
Center for Inquiry International

September 18, 2007

To His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations,

The people of Iran are experiencing difficult times both internationally and domestically. Internationally, they face the threat of a military attack from the US and the imposition of extensive sanctions by the UN Security Council. Domestically, a despotic state has – through constant and organized repression – imprisoned them in a life and death situation.

Far from helping the development of democracy, US policy over the past 50 years has consistently been to the detriment of the proponents of freedom and democracy in Iran. The 1953 coup against the nationalist government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq and the unwavering support for the despotic regime of the Shah, who acted as America’s gendarme in the Persian Gulf, are just two examples of these flawed policies. More recently the confrontation between various US Administrations and the Iranian state over the past three decades has made internal conditions very difficult for the proponents of freedom and human rights in Iran. Exploiting the danger posed by the US, the Iranian regime has put military-security forces in charge of the government, shut down all independent domestic media, and is imprisoning human rights activists on the pretext that they are all agents of a foreign enemy. The Bush Administration, for its part, by approving a fund for democracy assistance in Iran, which has in fact being largely spent on official institutions and media affiliated with the US government, has made it easy for the Iranian regime to describe its opponents as mercenaries of the US and to crush them with impunity. At the same time, even speaking about “the possibility” of a military attack on Iran makes things extremely difficult for human rights and pro-democracy activists in Iran. No Iranian wants to see what happened to Iraq or Afghanistan repeated in Iran. Iranian democrats also watch with deep concern the support in some American circles for separatist movements in Iran. Preserving Iran’s territorial integrity is important to all those who struggle for democracy and human rights in Iran. We want democracy for Iran and for all Iranians. We also believe that the dismemberment of Middle Eastern countries will fuel widespread and prolonged conflict in the region. In order to help the process of democratization in the Middle East, the US can best help by promoting a just peace between the Palestinians and Israelis, and pave the way for the creation of a truly independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel. A just resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the establishment of a Palestinian state would inflict the heaviest blow on the forces of fundamentalism and terrorism in the Middle East.

Your Excellency,

Iran’s dangerous international situation and the consequences of Iran’s dispute with the West have totally deflected the world’s attention and especially the attention of the United Nations from the intolerable conditions that the Iranian regime has created for the Iranian people. The dispute over the enrichment of uranium should not make the world forget that, although the 1979 revolution of Iran was a popular revolution, it did not lead to the formation of a democratic system that protects human rights. The Islamic Republic is a fundamentalist state that does not afford official recognition to the private sphere. It represses civil society and violates human rights. Thousands of political prisoners were executed during the first decade after the revolution without fair trials or due process of the law, and dozens of dissidents and activists were assassinated during the second decade. Independent newspapers are constantly being banned and journalists are sent to prison. All news websites are filtered and books are either refused publication permits or are slashed with the blade of censorship before publication. Women are totally deprived of equality with men and, when they demand equal rights, they are accused of acting against national security, subjected to various types of intimidation and have to endure various penalties, including long prison terms. In the first decade of the 21st century, stoning (the worst form of torture leading to death) is one of the sentences that Iranians face on the basis of existing laws. A number of Iranian teachers, who took part in peaceful civil protests over their pay and conditions, have been dismissed from their jobs and some have even been sent into internal exile in far-flung regions or jailed. Iranian workers are deprived of the right to establish independent unions. Workers who ask to be allowed to form unions in order to struggle for their corporate rights are beaten and imprisoned. Iranian university students have paid the highest costs in recent years in defence of liberty, human rights and democracy. Security organizations prevent young people who are critical of the official state orthodoxy from gaining admission into university, and those who do make it through the rigorous ideological and political vetting process have no right to engage in peaceful protest against government policies.

If students’ activities displease the governing elites, they are summarily expelled from university and in many instances jailed. The Islamic Republic has also been expelling dissident professors from universities for about a quarter of a century. In the meantime, in the Islamic Republic’s prisons, opponents are forced to confess to crimes that they have not committed and to express remorse. These confessions, which have been extracted by force, are then broadcast on the state media in a manner reminiscent of Stalinist show-trials. There are no fair, competitive elections in Iran; instead, elections are stage managed and rigged. And even people who find their way into parliament and into the executive branch of government have no powers or resources to alter the status quo. All the legal and extra-legal powers are in the hands of the Iran’s top leader, who rules like a despotic sultan.

Your Excellency,

Are you aware that in Iran political dissidents, human rights activists and pro-democracy campaigners are legally deprived of “the right to life”? On the basis of Article 226 of the Islamic Penal Law and Note 2 of Paragraph E of Section B of Article 295 of the same law any person can unilaterally decide that another human being has forfeited the right to life and kill them in the name of performing one’s religious duty to rid society of vice.[1] Over the past few decades, many dissidents and activists have been killed on the basis of this article and the killers have been acquitted in court. In such circumstances, no dissident or activist has a right to life in Iran, because, on the basis of Islamic jurisprudence and the laws of the Islamic Republic, the definition of those who have forfeited the right to life (mahduroldam) is very broad.

Are you aware that, in Iran, writers are lawfully banned from writing? On the basis of Note 2 of Paragraph 8 of Article 9 of the Press Law, writers who are convicted of “propaganda against the ruling system” are deprived for life of “the right to all press activity”. In recent years, many writers and journalists have been convicted of propaganda against the ruling system. The court’s verdicts make it clear that any criticism of state bodies is deemed to be propaganda against the ruling system.

Your Excellency,

The people of Iran and Iranian advocates for freedom and democracy are experiencing difficult days. They need the moral support of the proponents of freedom throughout the world and effective intervention by the United Nations. We categorically reject a military attack on Iran. At the same time, we ask you and all of the world’s intellectuals and proponents of liberty and democracy to condemn the human rights violations of the Iranian state. We expect from Your Excellency, in your capacity as the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to reprimand the Iranian government – in keeping with your legal duties – for its extensive violation of the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights covenants and treaties.

Above all, we hope that with Your Excellency’s immediate intervention, all of Iran’s political prisoners, who are facing more deplorable conditions with every passing day, will soon be released. The people of Iran are asking themselves whether the UN Security Council is only decisive and effective when it comes to the suspension of the enrichment of uranium, and whether the lives of the Iranian people are unimportant as far as the Security Council is concerned. The people of Iran are entitled to freedom, democracy and human rights. We Iranians hope that the United Nations and all the forums that defend democracy and human rights will be unflinching in their support for Iran’s quest for freedom and democracy.

Yours Sincerely,

Akbar Ganji

Endorsed by more than three hundred prominent writers and intellectuals, among them Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Noam Chomsky, Ronald Dworkin, Robert Bellah, Alasdair MacIntyre, Orhan Pamuk, J.M. Coetzee, Seamus Heaney, Nadine Gordimer, Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, Umberto Eco, Mario Vargas Llosa, Isabel Allende, Michael Walzer, Seyla Benhabib, Cornel West, Michael Sandel, Eric Hobsbawm, Slavoj Žižek, Hilary Putnam, Alan Ryan, Zygmunt Bauman, Joshua Cohen, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Kwame Anthony Appiah, Todd Gitlin, Ashis Nandy, Ariel Dorfman, Ziauddin Sardar, Howard Zinn, Michael Bérubé, Ronald Aronson, Mark Kingwell, Juan Cole, Katha Pollitt, Ahmed Rashid, Rafia Zakaria, Pankaj Mishra, Danny Postel, John Ralston Saul, Malise Ruthven, Naomi Klein, and Terry Eagleton.

September 11, 2006 8 p.m.

Today is September 11th and I suppose every single person in this country knows what they were doing on this date five years ago. I recall the feeling of unreality I had as I watched a small TV screen here at home repeatedly play tiny images of two towers collapsing. And then, in the immediate aftermath, do you remember how many in this country – especially among intellectuals and academics – wanted to discuss what “we” had done to “deserve” this? Those were hard days, and in many respects the years since then have been harder still, for although I had by then already spent decades in the strange ideological climate of American academic life, I never expected to see such an orgy of “blame America first” unleashed in this country. Nor did I have any way of anticipating how serious the real consequences would be when those attitudes, nurtured in the idle confines of academia, spilled over into the very dangerous world outside.

I would hate it if our old friendship were to dissolve over politics, mere politics. But I can’t not respond to your last letter, in which you stated that you were just as worried by Christian as by Muslim fundamentalists. Repeatedly in the past few years I’ve heard acquaintances, even relatives, express the same view. To my mind, however, this is a preposterous comment, for it evades the crucial recognition that something new has been unfolding before our eyes. Not that 9/11 inaugurated that new stage. I think, rather, it marked the end of the beginning, and the subsequent stage, the middle part, is still underway. How it will play out is unclear, but I believe that failure to recognize the significance of Muslim terrorism is extremely dangerous and may well haunt us in the future. Equally myopic, I think, are parallels between Christianity in pre-modern times, or violence in the Hebrew Bible, and Islamism today. The fact is that Judaism and Christianity have undergone reforms that took hundreds of years, and Islam, despite some attempts at reform, has not done so, as many Muslim scholars note. So invoking the Crusades and the Inquisition as counters to Islamism today is a misguided thing to do. Yes, possibly Islam might eventually evolve in a more liberal direction, but right now it is fighting any such changes tooth and nail and taking that fight global.

Perhaps you don’t realize that the popularity of radical Islam is rapidly increasing all over the world, to the point that some terrorists in the West are, these days, recent converts to Islam, or immigrants who are unwilling to adapt to the values of the societies in which they sought refuge. But I don’t see how it’s possible to ignore not only the real violence but also the mere threat of violence, which, in conjunction with the spread of radical Islam, is having a profound effect. Who would have expected the most liberal societies (e.g., the Scandinavian countries) to fail to defend their own values against the demands of Muslim immigrants. Consider the episode of the cartoons of Mohammed. With the sole exception of Denmark, where the cartoons were first published last year, the Scandinavian countries didn’t even dare defend free speech and a free press – at least not if Muslims objected. But these same countries do defend the rights of Muslims, probably out of fear of them, to engage in the most open hate-speech. In fact, these still-liberal countries are often financing the very Islamist communities that aim to dismantle them, communities that are insisting on their own separate laws, and courts, and customs…And such demands, backed by threats, seem to be spreading to other countries as well.

It’s true I share your distaste for all types of religious fundamentalism. But that doesn’t prevent me from noting the different demands and agendas of each type, as well as their numbers and influence in the real world today. Where are the Christian fundamentalist leaders whose intent is to destroy another country? Yet many Muslim leaders publicly state that their aim is to destroy Israel. Jews first; then Israel; then Western culture. As Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah, said about Jews: “If they all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” And Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, states plainly his aspiration to get rid of both America and Israel. There’s no dispute about the statements made by these and other Muslim leaders, merely about whether or not they should be taken seriously. Given the Islamist attacks that have been occurring around the world in recent decades (leaving aside for now the centuries-old matter of Islamic imperialism), the answer appears self-evident.

…I’m pausing here, because I see that in the preceding paragraph I jumped from the general subject of radical Islam to its not-so-hidden agenda, and that has to do with Jews and the state of Israel. This is without doubt at the heart of so much of the debate about the place of Islamism in the contemporary world. It’s worth looking at a map of the Middle East in order to grasp the significance of the rise of radical Islam. There are twenty-two Arab countries. Look at the space they occupy. By contrast, note how small Israel is – in both area and population. Does anyone think or claim that Israel is trying to take over any Arab country? Or that Israel aspires to destroy Arabs, Muslims, or any non-Jews generally? That’s a laughable suggestion, isn’t it? Did you know that Israel has about seven million people (of whom one million are not Jews), and that the whole world today has only about 14 million Jews? But there are 200 million Arabs just surrounding Israel. (This is worth remembering when one reads death rates from the latest military conflicts, which show Israel is more effective militarily than its enemies -thus far at least, no doubt because it has had to be if it hoped to survive). And there are perhaps 1.5 billion Muslims in the world today. Not all of them of the same type, of course, but there’s simply no comparison between the numbers of Muslim fundamentalists and Christian ones, much less Jewish ones, of whom there are very few. Nor, if one tracks their actions, which is far more important than their rhetoric, does it appear that each type of fundamentalism is equally harmful, equally destructive in its influence around the world.

And then there is the matter of the forgotten or ignored history of the Middle East. Few people who weigh in on these subjects seem aware that in 1948 about the same number – 800,000 – of Jews left Arab countries as Arabs left Israel. Those Jews were all welcomed into the small new nation of Israel, while the Arabs who left or were expelled from Israel (the narratives vary) were for the most part not accepted into the surrounding Arab countries. Instead, they were set up in refugee camps, to fester as a group that could be used against the new state. My guess is you didn’t know this detail, so one-sided is the view even, or especially, of educated people, of the conflict between Jews and Arabs. For some years it’s been clear to me that Arabs are winning the propaganda war against Israel, and the displaced Palestinians have had an enormous role in this success. The plan, in other words, has succeeded marvelously and has distracted the entire Arab world for generations now from dealing with its own tyrannies, its critical social and health problems, its populations’ lack of political representation, its brutality toward non-Muslims, its gross inequalities of every kind – all of which dwarf any problems Israel might have in forging a just society. Sure, it’s easy enough to criticize one or another Israeli policy, but that does not alter the fact that Arab and Muslim hostility to Israel (both physical and ideological) goes back to before 1973, before 1967, before 1948. Have you heard about the forced conversion of Jews to Islam as late as the nineteenth century? About the Arab riots in Jerusalem that began in 1920 and the effort to force Jews out of Palestine decades before the creation of the state of Israel? About the anti-Western Muslim Brotherhood, ancestor of Hamas and other radical Muslim groups, which came into being in the 1920s in Egypt and spread from there?

Did you know that until 1967 there wasn’t even a “Palestinian” identity among those Arabs that had left Israel? Only a general undifferentiated Arab identity, riven by internecine conflicts and with shifting borders as political and doctrinal quarrels unfolded? Though you’re acquainted a bit with my family history, it probably never occurred to you that I am actually a Palestinian, born in Palestine, where my mother’s family went (when do you think? do you believe we were all refugees from Nazi Europe?) at the beginning of the 20th century. But of course no Jew today is considered Palestinian, a term that has acquired a specific political connotation. The radical Muslim view (which flies in the face of thousands of years of history) that Jews have no historical ties in that part of the world has gained considerable ground of late, as I was reminded by an “innocent” comment made to me recently by a historian colleague, a decent person no doubt, who wondered aloud whether it really was a good idea to have established the state of Israel in the first place. About what other country in the world is such a question ever raised?

Though I was born in Jerusalem, you and I have rarely discussed the Middle East. Every other political issue in the world, yes, but not that one. Perhaps we avoided it; or perhaps I did so – out of a desire not to engage in any special pleading. Certainly, I was never a defender of Israel. For years I followed the line that the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians (using the now-conventional terms) was one of two competing nationalisms, a view that makes it unnecessary to actually learn any history! I even used to defend the one-state solution, Palestinians and Israelis living in harmony together. In the radical circles that I frequented at the time, no one pointed out that simple demographics would mean Israel would soon enough turn into a non-Jewish state; nor did I know anything about the long history of dhimmitude – the subjection of non-Muslim peoples to Islam, or what it meant.

I think it was only about eight or ten years ago that I became increasingly impatient with the standard anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian views in my academic milieu. No doubt this was part of my growing disillusionment with so much academic discourse. The more I saw particular views (on the Left) take on the status of unquestioned truths, the more skeptical I grew. And it became impossible for me not to notice what seemed to be an unwritten code among us academics: Israel was not to be defended, nor were Jews. Our Vietnam-era politics seem to have automatically assigned us to the pro-Palestinian side, befitting all our other Third-Worldist sympathies, often unencumbered by real information.

But even once I did start to wake up, you and I still never discussed the Middle East. I knew it was not a subject that interested you much, and it was easy for me to ignore it as well. No more. I wonder, now, at the “postmodernist” equanimity that refuses to register the reality of different societies, their histories, their values. For the reality is that Israel is virtually the only country in the Middle East where there exists a free press, free elections (and real opposition in politics), where women have full political and civil rights, and there is open homosexuality – just to mention a few things that are sine qua non for campus activists. And all these, too, are under attack by radical Muslims who want to spread Sharia throughout the world,, who openly talk about reestablishing the caliphate, the high point of Muslim domination of the world. Meanwhile, in Arab and Muslim countries, anti-Semitic propaganda is now routine, with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion once again widely circulated and believed, and with TV shows that are blatantly anti-Semitic (and of course anti-Zionist) targeting children in the Middle East. In Europe, too, anti-Semitism is spreading at an alarming rate and is evidently once again becoming respectable. True, it’s mostly in Africa and the Middle East that the standard, not the extremist, view is that no Jews were killed in the World Trade Center because they’d all been warned and therefore hadn’t gone to work that day; but even in Europe and the U.S. one hears this claim made in all seriousness from time to time.

Have you seen footage in the last few years of the major anti-war groups in the U.S.? The anti-war movement is mired in anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian sentiment – which suggests that anti-Bush anti-war passions aren’t really about whether or not Bush was justified in invading Iraq. I suspect that a great many people on the Left have had their brains permanently addled by their hatred of Bush, to the point that they’d be satisfied if Iraq turned into a total disaster – just so that Bush could be blamed for it.

And then there is the incontrovertible reality that Israel is criticized for things no other country in the world is criticized for (including the right to defend itself). This detail ought to make any rational person wonder about the energy driving these criticisms. Actually, Israel’s actions are constantly debated by its own population, where no one is afraid of voicing dissent. But when one contemplates the very different standards to which Israel is held, it’s hard to avoid the implication that no one expects Muslims to behave in a civilized way, so they don’t get subjected to criticism even when their actions are far more savage than anything Israel has ever done. What do you suppose the reaction would be if Israelis beheaded a kidnapped journalist and sent those photos around the world? And, by the way, Daniel Pearl was far from the only person beheaded in recent years by Islamists. Where is the outrage about such barbarism? Instead one finds apologetics and cautions to not generalize about Islam from “isolated incidents.”

The recent war between Israel and Lebanon has provided another handy occasion for the closet anti-Semites to come out, by claiming they’re not at all anti-Semitic, merely anti-Israeli. This would be a legitimate distinction if there weren’t a complete identity between these two in the minds of many Muslims and their sympathizers. Just read what Muslims say about Jews. Not that they’re much kinder to Christians Do you know about the centuries-old Muslim attacks on Christian communities in the Middle East? Have you noticed that the moderate Muslims we hope actually exist in the Middle East and elsewhere rarely speak up and thus have virtually no representation anywhere? It’s probably because they know better than most how their co-religionists traditionally deal with dissenters (as with apostates).

Did you notice how little attention was given to the fact – plainly reported but rarely discussed — that the two Fox news journalists kidnapped in Gaza (in August 2006) were forced to convert to Islam in order to save their own lives? As if this were an insignificant detail instead of a major indicator of what Muslim radicals have in mind. (Are Christian fundamentalists forcing conversions on anyone?) Equally interesting was that no one bothered to consider the significance of the detail that the journalists themselves and everyone concerned about them breathed a sigh of relief when they were back in Israel, that supposedly iniquitous country! Apparently everyone knows, despite all the bad press about Israel being just like Nazi Germany, that Israel is in fact a liberal democracy and that these men would be safe there, as are the gay Muslims who take refuge in Israel. Yet it’s Israel, not any Arab or Muslim country, that is the object of attacks in the media (where staged events are reported as outrages committed by Israel), and it’s Israel alone that is the target of divestment campaigns and boycotts by westerners.

I am astonished that so many academics on the supposedly progressive side simply do not admit that everything they value (including cultural diversity, gay rights, women’s empowerment, the freedom to express their own ideas) is literally intolerable to radical Islam, and that millions of people today adhere to this view of Islam and loudly proclaim their hatred of the West and all it stands for. The silence of most American feminists is particularly appalling, and I can only imagine that they are caught in their own ideological schemata, which somehow blind them to the necessity of protesting oppression when it is perpetrated by non-Anglo, non-White people.

Despite all the charges of racism, I don’t see much anti-Arab or anti-Muslim sentiment in this country. Certainly not on college campuses where criticism of Israel and the U.S. is constantly voiced and seldom challenged. It’s striking that even our conservative president feels obliged to echo standard liberal pro-multicultural ideas – for example, to carefully distinguish between the “few” bad guys and all the other Muslims in the U.S. But he’s right that there is an Islamic fascism, if one understands fascism as a totalitarian control over all aspects of life. Read what Islamist leaders say quite openly about their agenda; it absolutely does not include tolerance of opposing or dissenting ideas, free speech, freedom of religion or conscience, or women’s rights. Why shouldn’t Islamic fundamentalists be ever more blatant about their beliefs? They are growing in popularity and their numbers are increasing. The history of Islamic terrorism over the past few decades (even leaving aside the long historical record) reveals that it’s not because of what Bush or his predecessors have done, but because of the whole complex of modernization, liberalization, and secularization that these fundamentalists cannot abide, for these will indeed challenge and assail their beliefs, and perhaps change them.

If you are still tempted to worry as much, as you wrote, about Christian fundamentalists as about Muslim ones, just ask yourself about the agenda of each group, their numbers, their geographical presence, their past and present violent actions, the political responses to them, and the sort of press they each get in the West. So – the problem of phony parallels (between Muslim and other fundamentalists; between Israel and South Africa or – as is openly said these days – Israel and Nazi Germany) really does need to be cleared up. True, not all terrorists are Muslims. But in fact global terrorism these days is almost entirely an expression of radical Islam – with a political-theological program and a clearly-articulated agenda. Do Basque terrorists attack North America? Did the IRA? Nor should anyone think these Islamists are just isolated fanatics; Nasrallah has become a hero in much of the Muslim world, as is Bin Laden.

Few of our colleagues seem to understand that Islam is not merely a religion. It is a religious and a political movement, and in these intertwined aspects it does represent a threat to western, modernizing, and liberal values everywhere. Yet on campus (and far too often in the media) we are busily treating the Islamic world as a Third World underdog that has to be defended, excused, and protected from criticism. At least that’s the most generous explanation I can think of for so many colleagues’ gross ignorance and lethal politics. Or is it that they don’t really believe there’s any danger? Do they have so little respect for Muslims today that they assume they could never succeed in imposing their views on the non-Muslim world? If not, why are they so unconcerned about their own future? Have they truly no clue as to what an Islamist regime would mean for everything – every single value, belief, principle, and everyday matter – these academics hold dear? And these are the very academics who constantly assert that all education is political, which gives them a pretext for not even trying to keep their politics out of the classroom. What, then, do you suppose they’re conveying to their students?

But what most distresses me is that our generation of professors has contributed in a major way to the current atmosphere, one in which many academics are reticent about criticism of Islamism while also being unable or unwilling to see our own society as worth defending. It’s as if those of us who have had the best that this country has to offer have, through some twisted logic, become unable to see what it is about this society that, whatever its defects, makes people from all over the world wish to live here. After all, it’s our generation that caricatured the western tradition as the work merely of “dead white men”; it’s people like you and me who led the charge against “ethnocentrism” and “Eurocentrism,” who popularized ceaseless talk of “white privilege,” and promoted attacks on science and reason as uniquely western prejudices.

For years we echoed the standard nonsense about the bankruptcy of the Enlightenment project and repeated Marcuse’s views on “repressive tolerance,” as if these were a real response to the tyranny and censorship found in so many other societies. No wonder so few of our colleagues and students are able, let alone willing, to defend those western values. And why should I even be surprised at anything that goes on in academic and intellectual circles? I’m sure I’ve told you that, merely for describing the intolerance and dogmatism so rampant in women’s studies programs, I’ve been labeled an “anti-feminist supporter of white male supremacists” (I kid you not), and a reactionary, and . . . the labels go on and on. But the personal annoyances of such things matter not at all in this sorry story, compared to the possibility that we are watching our society commit suicide, with “the best and the brightest” lighting the way.

There is a passage from the famous Jewish sage Hillel that I often think of these days. More than 2000 years ago he wrote: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

Daphne

Daphne Patai teaches in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This article is from her book What Price Utopia? and Other Unpopular Essays, forthcoming from Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.

My father lived in Amsterdam for five years. Every time I went over to see him I was asked by friends if I was intending to smoke large amounts of dope and/or have sex with large amounts of prostitutes. Amsterdam’s image is of a party town. English stag parties descend on the city every weekend to take advantage of a supposed liberalism which many of them would abhor if it were introduced in their home country.

The image is misleading, though. The red light is confined to a few areas of the city. People work hard in the Dam. My father wrote, ‘For sure, they don’t like freeloaders. It’s pump or drown. Do what you want otherwise, but take your turn at the pump.’ He described what he saw as a ‘deeper coldness in the Dutch character.’

Perhaps it’s this coldness that accounts for the seething resentments towards immigrants and immigration. But then, this exists in every country. In Britain, my homeland, people sit in pubs and go on about how the asylum seekers are milking our benefits system while at the same time taking all our jobs – a nice little conjuring trick if you can manage it.

In Holland there are concerns regarding integration. The Dutch right claims that Muslim immigrants are living in Holland with no intention of integrating with Dutch culture. They set up little dish cities on the edge of town, sign on for state subsidies and spend their time watching Turkish and Moroccan soap opera. There is a conspiracy theory that Muslim immigrants compromise a fifth column aimed at turning Europe into Eurabia and installing a new Caliphate. Once confined to the fevered edges of political debate, this paranoid lie has seeped into the mainstream. Thanks to Bat Ye’or, Oriana Fallaci and Melanie Phillips, the Eurabia theory is gaining ground.

Then in November 2004 a Dutch-Moroccan man, Mohammed Bouyeri, shot and killed the film director Theo van Gogh. He then took out a letter addressed to the then Dutch politician Aayan Hirsi Ali and pinned it to the corpse’s chest. The letter explained that van Gogh had been murdered because he had directed Submission Part 1, a film critical of Islam. The letter warned that Hirsi Ali would be next.

Into the fallout stepped Ian Buruma. His book, which was shortlisted for this year’s Samuel Johnson Prize, reads like a novel. He brings the main players from the sterile objectivity of reportage to the full-blooded life of fiction. Like many good fiction writers, he starts with first impressions, then goes back through the roots of his character’s past. Pim Fortuyn, the camp and egotistical rightwing politician, appears as a strange and enigmatic outsider who mocks the ruling classes while desperate to join them. Theo van Gogh comes off as an overweight, bellowing, crazily funny car-crash of a man, a Boris Johnson for the art world. Only Hirsi Ali appears as she does in standard accounts; a calm and collected beauty with a powerful mind. Going back through decades of Dutch history, Buruma reminds me of Stephen King in the manner in which he shows that the lives of disparate and opposed people – Fortuyn, Bouyeri, van Gogh – cross and change each other in small yet significant ways.

Buruma himself comes across as a private eye, coaxed out of retirement for one final case. He pounds the streets of Amsterdam and Utrecht, trying to find the answers, and interviewing everyone from the friends of Theo van Gogh to Moroccan immigrants to Islamist historians. What made Bouyeri kill van Gogh? Multiculturalism? Islamophobia? Mental illness? Why?

Big events like this always prompt a call for a ‘debate about multiculturalism,’ as if multiculturalism is this new thing that was invented by some liberal think tank in the 1990s. The subtext is that multiculturalism is something that can be reversed. Yet every society is multicultural, and always has been; America, in particular, owes its economic success to generations of diverse labour. With the exception of isolated tribes, there has never been a complete monoculture – and attempts to establish one generally end in the death camp.

However, Buruma’s explorations around this idea are interesting. A psychiatrist shares his theory that people who come to very liberal societies like Holland from very closed and theocratic countries like Iran succumb to a kind of cultural schizophrenia that manifests as real mental illness. Holland is probably the freest society in the world, and religious societies the most repressive. Muslim immigration into Holland made Amsterdam the city where the Apollonian and Dionysiac halves of the human psyche come together and do battle. Freedom can be scary. Aayan Hirsi Ali’s sister Haweya told Aayan that living in the West was like being in a room without walls.

Now we come to a notable flaw of Murder in Amsterdam. Buruma is a fair man and will bend over backwards to see your point of view. He distrusts strong opinions and covers the text in layers of ambiguity and nuance. There’s nothing wrong with that; nuance is a fine quality in a political writer. But Buruma lets himself slide into a fashionable moral equivalence between religious fundamentalism and people who are against religious fundamentalism. Nick Cohen picked up on it immediately:

Anxiety about causing offence, however, brings with it the danger of creating an imaginary, communalist bloc – the Muslims, in our case – and betraying the very people who have most right to expect your support.
For all his subtlety and seriousness, Buruma falls into the trap and is uncomfortable with brown-skinned people who take ideas of human freedom too literally. When Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose film for van Gogh on the treatment of Muslim women provoked his murder, tells him that there can be no colour bar on feminist freedoms, Buruma says that “one can’t help sensing that in her battle for secularism, there are hints of zealousness, echoes perhaps of her earlier enthusiasm for the Muslim Brotherhood”. There is a revealing slipperiness in that sentence: the use of “one can’t help sensing” instead of “I think”; and the deft deployment of a “perhaps” to slip in the slur that those who believe in the emancipation of women are the moral equivalents of those who would keep them subjugated. Murder in Amsterdam is well written, well researched and often wise, but a faint whiff of intellectual cowardice rises from its pages none the less.

Accompanying this is the sense that Buruma would rather jump through hoops of burning flame rather than commit himself to a coherent opinion. Bouyeri, at his trial, explained his crime this way:

He was obligated to ‘cut off the heads of all who insult Allah and his prophet’ by the same divine law that didn’t allow him ‘to live in this country, or any country where free speech is allowed… ‘You can send all your psychologists and all your psychiatrists and all your experts, but I’m telling you, you will never understand. You will never understand. And I’m telling you, if I had the chance to be freed and the chance to repeat what I did on the second of November, wallahi [by Allah] I’m telling you, I would do exactly the same.

Buruma knows that wallahi means ‘by Allah,’ and yet he can’t acknowledge that religious faith was a factor, if not the factor, in Bouyeri’s actions. He is not alone. Good and intelligent people, who know politics inside out, will go to any lengths to avoid criticising religious faith – or even discussing it altogether.

Islamism is a religious movement that is not supported by most Muslims and that counts Muslims as the bulk of its victims. Yet people talk about terrorism and extremism without ever conceding that the terrorists and extremists may actually mean what they say. I used to think, like Cohen, that this sprang from a well-meaning desire not to be seen as discriminating against Muslims. Now I think it’s mostly down to fear. The opponents of the religious hatred bill in Britain said that the new law, essentially an extension of the blasphemy laws, would lead to a culture of self-censorship. They were too late. It’s already here. There are whips in the liberal soul.

If you have a house party, what do you do when people gatecrash the party, tell you that they hate the party and everything it stands for, that the women in the house should cover themselves from head to toe in sackcloth, that the homosexuals and Jews at the party should leave immediately on pain of death, and that all your drink should be poured away – and that if you argue with them, they’ll kill you?

A friend of van Gogh’s told Buruma that the party of Amsterdam had finally died.

What distressed him, more than anything, was the end of a particular way of life, a kind of ‘free-spirited anarchism’ full of ‘humor and cabaret’, a life where it was possible to make fun of things, to offend people without the fear of violence. ‘A kind of idyll,’ he sighed, had come to an end.

Open letter to the Home Office,

The Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner
5th Floor, Counting House, 53 Tooley Street, London, SE1 2QN England

Telephone: 020 7211 1500
Fax: 020 7211 1553

indpublicenquiries@ind.homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

Copies to the UK media and Mr Richard Caborn,

MP for Sheffield Central cabornr@parliament.uk

Re: Pegah Emam Bakhsh

21 August 2007

Pegah is a young Iranian woman who faces deportation from the UK. She applied for asylum in the UK fearing her life in Iran as a lesbian. She was refused asylum by the British authorities. Last week she was detained without warning and sent to Yarlswood for deportation on 16th August. At the very last minute she was granted stay until August 27th so her MP for Sheffield Central, Mr. Richard Caborn, could look at her case. Another report states that a new removal date has been issued for August 23rd at 9.21.

The Iranian Queer Organization – IRQO (www.irqo.net info@irqo.net tel: 001-416-548-4171) has been active to stop Pegah’s deportation. We sincerely hope that Mr. Caborn together with the active role of IRQO can save Pegah from being deported to Iran where she will be arrested tortured and most likely executed.

In Iran, homosexuality is a crime and punishable by hanging or stoning. The Islamic Republic of Iran has executed many homosexuals openly and in public. It is a well known fact.

We support Pegah’s application for political refugee status in the UK and urge all to oppose the UK government’s decision to deport her and support her case. Pegah SHOULD NOT be deported. She has, according to international human rights convention the right to be granted refugee status by the British government. If deported to Iran she will be persecuted for her sexual orientation and the British government will be in breach of its agreed human rights convention.

What are the real issues here? Increasing the number of deportees to meet the targets? Or deport her and see what happens? When she is tortured in Iran then she will have a strong case for asylum?! With the publicity she has now, the chances of the latter are more probable. Would that help the British authorities? Will it set the record straight? A battered or dead woman’s body proving the British authorities wrong! What a civilised way to settle the matter. One thing is sure if Pegah is returned to Iran the target has been met! We are talking about human life not statistics. Pegah has to be saved.

Introduction

Few people in the West can be unaware that the present period in our history is characterised by unprecedented access to Islamic ideas and attitudes. Such a state of affairs should be regarded not necessarily with trepidation, but as an opportunity to address such new concepts with of one of the West’s greatest assets: the spirit of analytical enquiry. This article discusses Islam but, in contrast to many books and articles covering this topical and controversial subject, it considers not whether Islam is good or bad, but whether Islam is true or false.

Muslims believe that, around the year 610 in what is now Saudi Arabia, Muhammad ibn Abdullah began to receive messages from the Biblical God and continued to receive these messages until his death in 632. Subsequently, according to Islam, the messages were compiled into a book known as the Quran, which thereby became a book of guidance, setting out the behaviour that God expected from humankind. Because Muslims regard the Quran as the word of an almighty, all-knowing God, they believe that it cannot and does not contain errors or imperfections. One proven error and, in principle, the Quran is shown to have a fallible human author and Islam is shown to be false.

The following presents a detailed description of one of the most straightforward and unambiguous imperfections in the Quran, involving that most exact of sciences, mathematics, in that most important of subjects, money. The topic is rather untypical of the book’s usual subject matter and concerns the division of a deceased’s wealth after death. You would expect that an almighty God would make a competent job of setting out the rules. However, what you will find is that the rules are a muddle. Incompleteness could perhaps be forgiven on the basis that some of the details had been lost, but there is no excuse for incoherence, inconsistency and incomprehensibility. Although a detailed treatment of the subject may be, in all honesty, rather dull, the reader who perseveres will be repaid with persuasive evidence that the world’s second largest religion had its origin not in divine revelation as claimed, but in the imagination of a 7th century Arabian merchant.

The source

A fundamental difficulty with a critique of any part of the Quran is that it is intrinsically an Arabic text and cannot be translated without alteration. Putting aside the question of why God should transmit His final message to mankind in a language that only a small fraction of humankind understands, it leaves us with the problem that any translation can be criticised as inaccurate, if its contents prove to be embarrassing. The only solution is to compare various translations, adding to the complexity of the problem but avoiding the fatal error of misinterpretation and often highlighting the confused nature of the original text.

The translation used in the quoted sections below is predominantly that of Arthur Arberry (1905-1969), a former Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge. The version is entitled “The Quran Interpreted” (Ref. [1] below). According to [2]:

The translation is without prejudice and is probably the best around. The Arberry version has earned the admiration of intellectuals worldwide, and having been reprinted several times, remains the reference of choice for most academics. It seems destined to maintain that position for the foreseeable future.

Arberry’s version is compared with a number of others in what follows.

Which parts of the Quran deal with inheritance? In order to avoid accusations of misrepresentation, I have used the words of Ibn Kathir (1301-1373), author of one of the most respected tafsirs, or interpretations of the Quran [3]. He says, referring to Sura (Chapter) 4, Verse 11: “This [verse], the following [Verse 12], and the last honourable verse in this Sura [i.e. Verse 176] contain the knowledge of Al-Fara’id, inheritance. The knowledge of Al-Fara’id is derived from these three verses and from the Hadiths on this subject which explain them”.

It should be mentioned that the Quran’s rules have subsequently been refashioned into a workable (though not necessarily equitable) system for the distribution of a deceased’s legacy. This task evidently began in the early days of Islam, since the Hadiths, mentioned above, are a collection of anecdotes of the words and actions of Muhammad and his companions, eventually collected together some 200 years after Muhammad’s death. None of this subsequent rationalisation is of any relevance; only the coherence of the Quran’s rules is of interest, so the Hadiths will be ignored and only the three Verses; 11, 12 and 176 of Sura 4 will be discussed. Muslims would be unlikely to argue with the proposition that God should be able to specify rules competently without the need for a helping hand from humans.

The rules

First: Verse 11; this reads:

…concerning your children: to the male the like of the portion of two females, and if they be women above two, then for them two-thirds of what he leaves, but if she be one then to her a half; and to his parents to each one of the two the sixth of what he leaves, if he has children; but if he has no children, and his heirs are his parents, a third to his mother, or, if he has brothers, to his mother a sixth, after any bequest he may bequeath, or any debt. Your fathers and your sons – you know not which out of them is nearer in profit to you.

Near the start of Verse 11, Arberry’s version says “..if there be women [i.e. daughters] above two,….,but if she be one”, thus omitting the case of two daughters. Whose error is this? Rodwell [4], Pickthall [5], Sarwar [6] and Shakir [5] concur with this translation. However, Yusufali [5] and Al-Hilali & Khan [7] refer to “…two or more..”, thereby (temporarily) rescuing the verse. To add further confusion, Ibn Kathir, who follows the latter opinion, comments “We should mention here that some people said the verse only means two daughters, and that ‘more’ is redundant, which is not true”, where the “some people” were undoubtedly informed Muslims. Already, the confusion is such that the same phrase has been taken by various scholars to mean (in standard mathematical notation), >2, =2 or ≥2. The conclusion is clear: the error is in the original text.

Later in the verse, after the phrase “if he has brothers”, Yusufali and Al-Hilali & Khan add “(or sisters)”, clearly an inclusion not in the Arabic. Rodwell, Pickthall, Sarwar and Shakir stick to the all-male version, though Sarwar assumes that “brothers” specifically refers to the plural, i.e. to “more than one .. brother” rather than an implied “brother or brothers”.

But that is not all. There is a further uncertainty about whether the verse applies to men and women, or just to men. Arberry and Rodwell use ‘he’ throughout whereas Yusufali and Al-Hilali & Khan are equally consistent in using ‘the inheritance’ in place of ‘what he leaves’ and Sarwar similarly refers to ‘the legacy’ thereby making the verse applicable to both sexes. Pickthall and Shakir start off in a gender-neutral style, but then refer to ‘he’. As a final complication, where all the other translators refer to ‘children’ (…if he has children; but if he has no children… ), Pickthall says ‘if he have a son; and if he have no son’.

The choice of which of the versions to adopt here needs to be made carefully. They seem to group into Yusufali and Al-Hilali & Khan on one side and everyone else on the other, with Sarwar at times going off on his own. It is evident that Yusufali and Al-Hilali & Khan, on a number of occasions, add words or phrases to assist with the generality and comprehensibility and it is for this reason that there is an obvious suspicion that they are giving ‘God’ a helping hand. Furthermore, it is conceivable that Arberry et al did not review all the implications of the rules, but merely translated what was there. Therefore, on the basis of this argument, it is assumed that the translation of the latter group (which includes Arberry) is the more accurate one.

Verse 12, which has been separated here into two parts, specifies:

And for you a half of what your wives leave, if they have no children; but if they have children, then for you of what they leave a fourth, after any bequest they may bequeath, or any debt. And for them a fourth of what you leave, if you have no children; but if you have children, then for them of what you leave an eighth, after any bequest you may bequeath, or any debt.

If a man or a woman have no heir direct, but have a brother or a sister, to each of the two a sixth; but if they are more numerous than that, they share equally a third, after any bequest he may bequeath, or any debt not prejudicial.

Though not exactly transparent, the verse is rendered similarly by the various translators. As an aside, it is instructive to consider the extraordinary difficulties which even the early Muslims faced with the Arabic version of the second part of the verse. According to Ibn Kathir, the opening phrase reads “If a man or a woman was left in Kalalah” where “Kalalah is a derivative of Iklil; the crown that surrounds the head” [3] This phrase is essentially meaningless as it stands and a suitable interpretation, that of “a man who has neither ascendants nor descendants” or, as Arberry expresses it, a man or a woman having “no heir direct” was only arrived at by (essentially) informed guesswork. However, even this leaves it unclear as to the status of a spouse.

Now, compare the second part of Verse 12 with Verse 176, reputedly the last part of the Quran ever to be revealed:

…concerning the indirect heirs. If a man perishes having no children, but he has a sister, she shall receive a half of what he leaves, and he is her heir if she has no children. If there be two sisters, they shall receive two-thirds of what he leaves; if there be brothers and sisters, the male shall receive the portion of two females.

Now, compare the beginning of Verse 176 with the beginning of the second part of Verse 12. They appear to cover the same example of a man with no parents, children or spouse but with surviving brother(s) and/or sister(s). However, the rules in the two cases are quite different. A way out of this discrepancy, though it has no support in the Quran, is to assume that Verse 12 refers to the siblings having only the same mother as the deceased, i.e. half siblings. Verse 176 is then taken to refer to full siblings or to half siblings having only the same father as the deceased.

Yet further problems arise when one tries to work out the numbers. In many instances, the fractions do not add to 1, meaning that there is money left over (whose fate the Quran does not specify) or, worse, that there is a shortfall. For example: a woman with two living parents dies, leaving a husband and two daughters According to first part of Verse 12, the husband gets ¼ of his late wife’s estate (but if they have children, then for you of what they leave a fourth). The daughters, according to Verse 11 (and assuming that the verse applies to both sexes) get 1/3 each (..then for them two-thirds of what (he) leaves) and, by Verse 11 again, the parents get 1/6 each (..and to (his) parents to each one of the two the sixth of what (he) leaves, if he has children), making a total of (1/4 + 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/6 + 1/6) = 1¼, or 25% more than the amount available. Of course, various ways out of these problems have been formulated, but only by adding further rules not in the Quran. The Quranic rules alone are, as the above discussion shows, badly flawed.

For those readers whose interest in Islamic inheritance law has, against all the odds, been awakened by the above description, an account of the (Sunni) rules as applied in practice is given in ([8], Section L). Note, however, that because of the difficulties discussed above, Shiite rules are somewhat different. A more detailed discussion is given in [9].

The conclusion

As above, we are forced to ask: if the author was an almighty God, could He not have produced a clear, complete and consistent statement of His requirements? It is evident from (e.g.) [3] that a considerable amount of thought was brought to bear on turning the confused rules in the Quran into a workable system. That this rationalisation has been achieved is a tribute to human ingenuity; that it has taken place without an admission that the original rules were badly flawed is a greater tribute to the human ability of self deception. The chaotic prescription in the Quran is so obvious a mark of human authorship, and careless human authorship at that, that one is forced to profess astonishment that this remains unrecognised by the entire Muslim world.

References

Quran translations are widely available on the internet. The addresses given below were active when I was writing the article, but others can easily found if the cited ones cease to work. The Tafsir Ibn Kathir may be a little more elusive. As far as I am aware, [8] is available only in book form.

1. Arberry, A (Translator). The Koran Interpreted. Touchstone Books. 1996.

2. Khaleel Mohammed. Assessing English Translations of the Quran, The Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2005, Volume XII, Number 2.

3. Tafsir Ibn Kathir. Miracle Quran

4. Rodwell, J.M. (Translator). The Koran. Phoenix Press. 1994 Also: Rodwell Index

5. USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts. University of Southern California.

6. The Holy Quran. Translated by Muhammad Sarwar

7. Muhsin Khan and Muhammad Al-Hilali. Complete Interpretation of the Meaning of the Noble Quran in the English Language.

8. Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (d. 1368), Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, (rev. ed., trans. Nuh Ha Mim Keller, Beltsville, Maryland: Amana, 1994)

9. Answering Islam.

When my daughter’s friend told me a couple of weeks a go, that her socialist lesbian friend has a poster on her wall saying: “we are all Hezb’ Allah Now!” I said: “my God! [and I am an atheist] something has gone fundamentally wrong.”

I asked myself, what are they trying to do, mock socialists? Or, are they simply brainwashed? What is this world coming to?

This young woman has all the necessary ingredients for fighting against political Islam and Hezb’ Allah. First of all she is a woman. Just the fact of being a female is enough to make you a staunch enemy of a radically misogynist movement, unless you are brainwashed to do the opposite.

To add to the irony, she is a lesbian. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death according to Islam and in countries under its rule. To be homosexual makes you want to flee from any place that the Islamists have any power. Dozens of homosexuals have been hanged in recent months by the Islamic Republic of Iran. She, a lesbian, born in Iran, or in a region under Hezb’ Allah, would have to seek refuge in Britain. But she is lucky enough to be born here and does not have to live in the fear of her life, like poor Pegah who fled Iran to seek refuge in Britain, and whom the British government now wants to deport back to Iran*. Is this socialist-lesbian supporter of Hezb’ Allah aware that her support of political Islam makes Pegah’s case even more difficult? The Home Office does seek legitimization for such deportations by such quasi-left Islamist propaganda. And finally she claims to be a socialist. Wherever one stands on the political spectrum, it is a well-known and accepted fact that socialism is about equality, fairness and aspirations for a fairer society. If one chooses socialism, that should mean one cares for fellow human beings and aspires to equality and freedom and to all those values that are despised by the Islamic movement. Many thousands of socialists have been imprisoned, tortured and executed by the Islamic Republic alone.

Then, what has gone wrong? Why is she so passionate about the Hezb’ Allah? An ideological falsification is responsible for this turn of events. Pragmatism has helped the course of events, as well. Let’s start with the latter. This most probably good-hearted young woman is rightly sick and tired of American and British aggression and crimes committed in Iraq and the Middle East. She is sick and tired of the injustices imposed on the Palestinian people. She rightly condemns American and British states for all these crimes and atrocities and for their full fledged support for the state of Israel and last year’s war on Lebanon. She is just to do so. However, on the other side, since George Bush has defined the enemy as Islamists, she automatically turns to full support for the Islamists.

The American and British aggression and military actions against the people in the Middle East have helped to draw a wrong image of the Islamist movement. The Islamist movement and ideology have been falsified as the liberators of the people in the Middle East or the Palestinians. This is false. Islamists are one the most brutal movements in the history of mankind. They are no liberators. They are a force of reaction and darkness. This message must be spread.

Islamists are not the spokesperson for the Palestinians or Iraqi people. They do not represent the pain and grief these people suffer by these wars. They are not people’s representatives; they are brutal and ruthless. What we need to make clear is: in the war between US and Islamists, between the two poles of terrorism, we do not need to support either. We must condemn both. We should form a third pole, a third voice to oppose both.

24 August 2007

Majedi.azar@gmail.com

Azar Majedi

Azadizan.com

Against Gender Apartheid

A new series of executions has started in Iran. On 22 July 2007, in the notorious Evin Prison, the Islamic authorities hanged in one day twelve “thugs” accused of homosexuality, drug smuggling, theft, and violation of Islamic morality.

Even if these executed twelve Iranians were thugs, they are the products of the 29- year policies of the Islamic regime.

The word “thug” in Iranian socio-economic terms would refer to a group of people who are socially and economically marginalised. Such “thugs” are mostly derived from poor classes, and they confront all unfair aspects of the society.

Because of the high rate of unemployment, poverty, widespread illiteracy, and a lack of welfare and a social protection system, they are direct victims of such a society and spontaneously revolt against the socio-economic pressures.

Bully thugs with a religious identity can be recruited into IRI’s Security Forces or are systematically used in the organised pro-regime militias called plainclothes (lebas shakhsi) to intimidate the regime’s opponents, or beat anti-regime demonstrators. So, a number of IRI’s Security Forces, who now arrest “thugs”, are in fact the recruited ex-thugs. They now accuse the non-recruited thugs of violence, robbery, drugs, whereas these charges could be applied to them too, if they were not recruited by the regime.

Some young Iranian men have been flogged for taking drugs, drinking alcohol or simply for listening to a personal walkman while walking down the street. They react in their manner to the lack of personal freedoms. The regime calls these people “thugs” too.

Urban youth in particular call for social and political freedom. Youth is always the sector of the population which reacts most fiercely and most violently to their aspirations not being fulfilled.

Young Iranians make up an estimated 70 percent of their country’s population. More than half of the country’s population is under the age of 20. The generation born under the IRI’s reign is increasingly showing frustration with Iran’s lack of social freedoms and ongoing troubled economy.

Iran’s unemployment rate is now 15 percent (11.20 percent in 2006). Youth make up a large proportion of the unemployed. Official figures say youth aged 15 to 19 account for 39 percent of the country’s active work force and the unemployment rate stands at about 34 percent among the age groups of 15 to 19 years old and at about 16 percent among the 25 to 29 years age group.

According to some statistics of 2003, about 20,000 teenagers live on the streets of Iran’s larger cities, but most of them reside in Tehran. The problem has been fuelled by poverty and aggravated by the economic crisis.

A report by the United Nations has found that Iran has the highest drug addiction rate in the world. “According to the U.N. World Drug Report for 2005, Iran has the highest proportion of opiate addicts in the world — 2.8 percent of the population over age 15,” the report said. “With a population of about 70 million and some government agencies putting the number of regular users close to 4 million, Iran has no real competition as world leader in per capita addiction to opiates, including heroin.” The report added that a government poll had shown that almost 80 percent of Iranians believed that there was a direct link between unemployment and drug addiction.

According to the Iranian National Centre for Addiction Studies, 20 percent of Iran’s adult population was “somehow involved in drug abuse”. Many Iranians describe high drug availability as evidence of a plot by the regime. “If they could create enough jobs, enough entertainment, why would people turn to drugs?” economists say.

The IRI dreams of a total Islamic society, but people, especially young ones, do not bow to an Islamic way of life in any standard. Furthermore, social poverty, homeless tramps, high unemployment rates and the lack of social and individual freedom leads to the rise of unsolvable problems for the Iranian youth, described by an incompetent regime as “thugs”. With these current executions, continuous human rights violations in Iran seem to enter a new phase of repression against the whole Iranian society.

Ed Husain is a busy man. He is working on a PhD, and his book The Islamist has generated a huge amount of copy and follow-up work. Earlier this year, going home on the train after a tranche of interviews, he got a call from an old Muslim friend.

‘Salam Alaikum!’ I said. ‘How are you?’ My friend was in no mood for niceties. He was blunt and sharp as he warned me to stay away from a particular London mosque: ‘You won’t escape safely. Do you hear?’

I was perplexed. All week Muslim ‘community leaders’ had been rapping me on the knuckles for attacking, in my book, those who managed the mosque and its various octopus-like arms. ‘They’ve changed, Ed,’ was an argument I heard a lot. ‘They’re not connected to extremism or violence.’ So how was it that peace-loving Islamists at this mosque would want to attack me?

How indeed? After all, Husain was a convinced Islamist for many years. As a teenager he grew bored with his family’s traditional, community-based Islam and became involved with a network of hardcore fundamentalist groups. The first half of the book deals with Husain’s years in Jamat-e-Islami and Hizb ut-Tahrir. The youthful Husain has dozens of aspiring jihadis under him and is practically running his college from the bottom up. He holds rigged debates and disseminates propaganda against women’s rights, gay rights, the Jewish people, nonbelievers, democracy and secularism.

The Islamist is blurbed as ‘what politicians and Muslim ‘community leaders’ do not want you to know’ and indeed it is scary to recognise names from Husain’s past who are now respected voices in the government and media. Inayat Bungawala, a future assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, takes Husain to a ‘family gathering’ where they cheerfully nod along to the mutrabbi’s monologue on ‘destruction of the state of Israel and the return of Muslim control of the Holy Land.’ Azzam Tamimi, a columnist for the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ as well as a supporter of Hamas, also appears, as do several other reactionaries who are now leading members of George Galloway’s pseudo-left Respect Party.

When a young Christian boy is murdered over an argument about whose turn it is to use the college pool table, Husain begins a long, painful process of disengagement. His views become more nuanced and reasonable – so it’s a shock to note that his initial reaction to the September 11 attacks is one of satisfaction. He’s not alone. Many of his Muslim friends are drawn into the fevered swamp of 9/11 conspiracy theories. There is a popular rumour that ‘over 2,000 Jewish people had been tipped off by the Israeli embassy not to attend work on that day.’ Husain could have added that such poisonous thinking is not unique to Muslims; I have met Western ‘leftists’ who believe that same sinister rumour.

In the last third of this brave book, Husain travels to Saudi Arabia and Syria where he works as a teacher for the British Council. This part of his story is striking, because of its spiritual and political insights and because Husain for the first time experiences society in the Islamic state that he once fought for. He concludes that life under theocracy is miserable, and that Muslims have more freedom of religion under decadent, secular Britain than in a faith-based regime. He also discovers that under theocracy, some believers are more equal than others:

The hallmark of a civilisation, I believe, is how it treats its minorities. My day in Karantina, a perversion of the word ‘quarantine’, was one of the worst of my life. Thousands of people who had been living in Saudi Arabia for years, but without passports, had been deemed ‘illegal’ by the government and, quite literally, abandoned under a flyover.

A non-Saudi black student I had met at the British Council accompanied me. ‘Last week a woman gave birth here,’ he said, pointing at a ramshackle cardboard shanty. Disturbed, I now realised that the materials I had seen these women carrying were not always for sale, but for shelter. While rich Saudis zoomed over the flyover in their fast cars, others rotted in the sun below them.

This book is an argument against Islamism but also an argument for Islam. It’s also a great crash course in the history and variants of the religion. Husain makes a convincing case for Islam as a religion of peace, distinct from Islamism the jihadist political ideology. He points out the fanatics’ ignorance of even basic Muslim practices, and quotes parts of the Koran that advocate tolerance and love. Yet Husain’s moderate Islam, while much better than fundamentalism, still has problems. His embrace of Sufi mysticism, with its emphasis on the surrender of the individual self, reflects an unacknowledged totalitarianism in Eastern religions; the soul swallowed up by an abstract nothingness.

In his final chapter Husain succumbs to a nasty purist critique of the West:

Anti-social behaviour in our cities, high rates of abortion, alcohol abuse and drug addiction are abhorrent to all right-thinking people, not just Muslims…When the centre of social life in modern Britain is the local pub, where do Muslims and others fit in? (Emphasis mine).

In these words there is an echo of Sayyid Qutb at the edge of the dance. If religion is to have any relevance at all in the twenty-first century, it has to reach some sort of acceptance of the right to pursue pleasure. Husain quotes the Islamic poet Rumi: ‘the religion of Love transcends all other religions: for lovers, the only religion and belief is God.’ I agree with the first part.

But overall, this is an essential book by an intelligent and courageous writer. Too many people think all Muslims are Islamists, because the only voice that British Muslims have is through reactionary and unelected community leaders. Now, with groups like British Muslims for Secular Democracy and the New Generation Network, the other Muslims are finally getting some representation. They can take comfort from the words of Husain: ‘Talk of execution will not cow me; I will carry on.’