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Sunday, January 16, 2005
Islam and Peace
By Stella A. Estremera
WITH the resumption of peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) preluded by a mass arrest of Muslim men and women from an Islamic Center in Metro Manila on the accusation that they were planning to bomb the procession of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, attention is again focused on the Muslims amid rumblings of distrust once more, especially among those who still look at Muslims with distrust.
Tribal custom vs. Islamic teachings
The generations of conflict in Muslim-dominated areas coupled with the international conflict between giant democracies and Muslim countries, and yes, the terrorists who brandish their faith hand in hand with their guns and bombs, Islam has become synonymous with conflict and their believers are clumped together with images of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein whose women are relegated to the background, hidden by hijabs (kumbong) and burkas.
But does Islam really espouse terror and oppression of women, among other evils?
Foremost American academicians on Islamic studies in the country that recent history has forced its people to fear Muslims strongly say no.
But, the problem about how Islam is generally perceived by the uncomprehending is something brought about by a complicated mix of history, culture, and norms all brought forward as Islam.
"If you travel in the Islamic world, to any of the Arab world or even Saudi Arabia or the Gulf, you know it will be different if you've been to Jakarta, Indonesia, basically because in religion is an enormously rich culture because of the influence that came before Islam," Peter Awn, professor of Islamic religion and comparative religion and Dean of General Studies in the Columbia University in New York City, said in an interview last month in his university. Dr. Awn is among the most popular resource person on Islam in New York City having received his PhD in Islamic religion and comparative religion from Harvard University.
"So it is important not to reduce any one religion to a series of intellectual abstraction or worse to think that if you meet one Muslim, you know them all," Dr. Awn said. "What makes the community so rich is not simply a shared religious vision and a celebration of an extraordinary culture that goes back thousands of years but also the real diversity and the model uniqueness that you find in the very cultural religion where you find Islam."
Going into the specifics, Akbar Ahmed Ibn Khaldan, author of several books on Islam and chair of Islamic Studies in the American University in Washington DC, pointed out that women in fact play a very important role in Islam before.
"Who is the first convert to Islam? It is Hadidja. The first person who became a Muslim is not a man, it is Hadidja. The descent of the prophet, which is the most important lineage in Islam, comes from Fatima, who didn't have a son," he said. He went on to name several other women who were in the forefront when Islam was still in its early years.
That women Muslims are being disregarded and in some countries enslaved by men today is but the making of the men themselves and not the teachings of the prophet Mohammed, he said.
In the last 200 to 300 years, however, as countries were colonized, societies changed and politics continued to churn turbulently, "Muslim men have forgotten how important the role of women is in Islam," he said.
At the bottom of all these, he said, is not Islam but tribal customs.
Speaking to the male Muslims in the Southeast Asian delegation who were interviewing him, Ahmed advised, "You have to learn to read again your own Qur'an because it is the men who have translated and interpreted the Qur'an in such a way to keep the women down, it's not the Prophet (Mohammad)."
"For me the example is the Prophet, how did he treat women? Kindness, kindness, kindness," he said.
Both Ahmed and Awn pointed out that the Qur'an is so complex such that no one can ever claim he has mastered it. But what one believer has to strive to do, they said, is to understand its teachings within the context that it is written and not take individual words and phrases for personal gains.
The baggages of the past
Ahmed likened the traditions, culture and norms that has made Islam to be oppressive of women and other religions as the baggages of four millennia.
He then challenged the Muslims of the world to read again their Qur'an and realize that this holy book is a complex one that must be understood in its whole context.
"You see contained in the verses, 'fight the Jews and the Christians'," Ahmed said. "Many Christians will pick that up and say you see, Islam is a religion of extremism. They will not see the next line that says, but make peace with them because God prefers peace."
Which brings the discussion to extremism and one of its major causes: marginalization.
"The issue for me is when you marginalize a minority community, one way in which that community expresses its resentment and rebellion is to return to arch conservative religion as a mobilizing ideology," Dr. Awn said.
"I don't think people are anymore pious than they were 50 years ago, that's a lot of baloney. What I do think is people have discovered religious ideology is an enormously effective political tool to mobilize people to do immensely crazy turns and that's very dangerous," he said.
And this is what is happening in a lot of countries, the Philippines included.
In essence, these men are pointing out what has been repeatedly pointed out by peace advocates and development planners in the Philippines: The conflict is not caused by religion, but by poverty and all its allied effects.
Economic marginalization complicated by cultural marginalization -- manifested by veiled intolerance of the Muslims -- spells unending troubles and a persistent call to separate from which that oppresses them, a situation that remains in Mindanao.
ILM, the no. 2 word in Qur'an
These men of knowledge believe the way out is better understanding and tolerance of each other's religion that can only be achieved through learning -- better knowledge.
"The first thing the Qur'an tells you, after God... the word that God has used most in the Qur'an is ilm, which means knowledge," Ahmed said.
"We as Muslims, we have already a defined idea of the world and this is to acquire knowledge. God is number one, the first and number one word in Qur'an is God. The second is knowledge. Now God could have chosen another word. He could have said just go on fighting, take my name and go kill everyone. He could have done that easily -- he's God. But what did God pick? Knowledge," he added.
With knowledge comes tolerance and understanding.
"I am a firm believer that religious freedom is in the heart of any state national security," said Joseph Grieboski, founder and president of the Washington DC-based Institute of Religion and Public Policy.
"This is because, for one, religious freedom requires a political and a theological understanding and acceptance of the other. That religion is at the heart of democratization because it means that all people are equal under the law irrespective of their religion," he said.
It also the antidote for religion-based terror, he added. Reccent history has shown how disenfranchised people of the same faith can sow discord more violently when bringing forward religious persecution as a cause; the likes of Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and even Indonesia.
"Where the population recognizes the right of the other to believe, you will not have fanaticism grow up with great support. Of course, fanaticism will always take advantage of a free society, but they will never get great support," Grieboski said.
But the seeds of hatred have already been sown as the disenfranchised of the world have found allies in their faith. But the true believers should understand that at the root of all religion is a call for peace. The desire for peace is not the monopoly of the Christian world and the Eastern religions.
It is also in the heart of Islam, the three men insists. But the Islamic world has been typecast, painted an even bloodier color by the fanatics, a situation that makes these scholars shake their heads in frustration.
"To me, Islamic civilization is not at its best when it's throwing bombs of blowing itself up because to me it's very common sense. No one is impressed in this world when you blow yourself up. If you leave something that is a contribution to culture and to knowledge, then that is when any civilization is at its best," Ahmed said, setting as an example the ancient poet Rumi, a Muslim poet of more than 700 years ago whose writings continue to awe and impress people all over the world.
And then the discussion goes full circle for those who know their Qur'an, where the second most often repeated word after God is "Ilm" -- knowledge.
"Education for me is where it all begins," Dr. Awn said. "You can raise questions, you can explore ideas in a nurturing but yet honest context and I tell you, you will end up agreeing that respecting people's right to think and that is to me what education is all about. If we give that up, or worse, if we become frightened of ideas, then I think we are all in bad shape."For Davao bisaya stories. Click here.
(January 16, 2005 issue)
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