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Speaking Out

Posted December 18th, 2015 by Lesley Hazleton

Sometimes you have the privilege of getting to say the right thing at the right time, as with this nine-minute talk I gave the other night to a hugely supportive audience of Christians and Muslims at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lynnwood, WA.  The event was called “Love in a Time of Fear,” but I wasn’t afraid, I was angry, and I said so:

 

[youtube=https://youtu.be/RhKDsdIeeHo]

Full video of the evening is here, with special thanks to Terry Kyllo of Catacomb Churches and to Jeff Siddiqui for bringing it all together, and to the excellent work of Lutheran Community Services Northwest in support of Syrian refugees.

 

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File under: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, ugliness, US politics | Tagged: Tags: abortion, Black Lives Matter, Colorado Springs, Donald Trump, gay marriage, Hitler, Martin Niemoller, neo-fascism, New York Daily News, Planned Parenthood, Republican party, San Bernardino, Ted Cruz | 3 Comments
  1. Mary Johnson says:
    December 18, 2015 at 2:17 pm

    Thank you, Lesley. This is SO important, and so well said.

    You might be interested in this, from my sister Margaret, who converted to Islam before the birth of her first child and is trying to raise a Muslim family in the US: https://medium.com/@coexistmarge/this-time-it-s-different-c0c70fd2db3f#.yo8zgn6nj

    Hoping you are well. Thankful you are angry.

    Mary

    >

  2. Nuzhat says:
    December 18, 2015 at 8:17 pm

    Every voice raised is a step towards correction. There may be enough laid back listeners, but being a part of the vocal band is being more responsible, and important in awakening the sense of direction the listeners can take.
    You always hit the mark with even few words said, Lesley….
    well spoken!
    Nuzhat.

  3. Frederick Osman says:
    December 19, 2015 at 2:13 pm

    Thank you, Lesley. Wonderful, as usual.

Muhammad’s Tears

Posted January 12th, 2015 by Lesley Hazleton

The cover of this week’s Charlie Hebdo leaves me speechless, in a good way.  And in tears too.  (And yes, it is indeed deeply Islamic in spirit.)

o-CHARLIE-COVER-570

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File under: Islam, light, sanity | Tagged: Tags: Charlie Hebdo, cover, Je Suis Charlie, Muhammad, Paris | 15 Comments
  1. Nuzhat says:
    January 12, 2015 at 7:11 pm

    That’s the fittest reply expected….
    Despite the calumny of depiction, the spirit of its presentation should be into account. Muslims should salute this one….
    Awesome!!

  2. Sohail Kizilbash says:
    January 13, 2015 at 1:49 am

    How many people cried when these sick Taliban shot and burned 124 young students and teachers in Peshawar last month. I think our tears are also selective.

    • severthetwilight says:
      January 17, 2015 at 4:11 am

      Some of us did cry for those students and teachers in Peshawar…and for the café manager and customer who were shot in Sydney…and again for the staff assassinated at Hebdo.

      Some even cried harder when people stood up and said (in essence), ‘This stops now. We will not be cowed by the Taliban, or ISIS or anyone who would use their faith to destroy innocent lives.’

  3. Levent says:
    January 13, 2015 at 2:27 pm

    A strong Light.

    Yesterday I found a video from you on the web about Islam.
    I searched for other video’s.

    I am impressed about your way of thinking.

    it’s not your topic that attracted me but the way you see it, the way you aproche it, and how you phrase it.

    I believe that all beings are part of the Light.
    Th same Light who created the Big Bang, the same Light that created the first atoms in the belly of the stars, the same Light that made life as we know possible on earth.
    As Light is our source, we are attracted by it.
    As there are stars who radiate more light then other stars,
    Some humans radiate more Light then others (as is above so is below)
    And vary rarely there were and are and will be people who shine like a star (Mozes, Jesus, Mohamed, Boedha, Gandi, Marten l King,…)

    Light can bring love, understanding, awareness,…
    Light can ‘open’ eyes.
    As written in the Bible, Jesus’ (Light) made a blindman ‘see’.

    Ms. Hazleton, you are a strong Light. Keep on radiating.
    Thanks to you people can perhabs see better, further, wider, deeper,…

    Regards
    Levent Guney

    Ps. Love your idea of ‘doubt’

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      January 13, 2015 at 4:56 pm

      I can only say Thank you…

  4. Dr B Ravinder Reddy says:
    January 14, 2015 at 2:11 am

    No religion preaches violence. It is the misguided elements who bring a bad name and reputation to their respective religions, due to their misunderstood beliefs!

  5. Lesley Hazleton says:
    January 16, 2015 at 11:49 am

    This comment appears to have been dropped by WordPress — I have no idea why, but it happens, as it does on Facebook — but the writer emailed me about it, so am taking the liberty of printing it here together with my reply:

    Dear Lesley,
    Did you read the comment in Time magazine saying that the
    “Editor-in-chief Gérard Biard, who made their intent clear on a French radio program saying: “It is we who forgive, not Muhammad,” referring to the speculation by some that the cover was a message about the paper being forgiven for publishing an image of the Prophet, an act that many Islamic leaders deem sacrilegious.”
    It was quite a misleading cover, and could harbour unwarranted repercussions. Hope sanity prevails on both sides.

    My reply:
    That’s the thing with art, high or (as in this case) low — the viewer reads into it, and it is (as are words) always open to multiple readings. Perhaps we each choose the reading we want.
    And there are so many ways of reading.
    I never thought the cover meant that the editors were saying that Muhammad was forgiving them — rather that first, forgiveness was central to Islam, and second, that they forgave. How sincere this was on their part is of course another question. But since I believe it to be true that Muhammad would indeed be in tears at all this, I went with that first meaning.
    There are other levels of meaning I can think of. One that occurred to me was that the surviving cartoonists, being a left-wing intellectual crowd despite their affinity for the childishly grotesque, were thinking of the last line of The Myth of Sisyphus (by that French Algerian, Camus) — “Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux” — and from there arrived at “Mahomet malheureux.”

  6. Wahab says:
    January 17, 2015 at 2:45 am

    Professor Hazleton, I have been visiting your blog on and off, but I just want to thank you. I was a little ashamed when I saw your video ‘on reading the quran’ because you appeared to experience the book in a manner that I (as a muslim) had not done. I also read your biography of the prophet (pbuh) in a single day, because it give me a more meaningful connection with his personality.

    I also share your idea of doubt, because I read somewhere (i think in the works of Rumi) that doubt and faith are like two wings that keep the bird in the air and if either one is missing, the bird cannot fly.

    Keeping that in mind, Im not sure if youve heard of the man, but you would find great pleasure in reading books my Imam Al-Ghazzali. He was one of the giants of Islam and his influence on christianity is also tremendous. He also chose the ways of skepticism and doubt. Im sure you would find great pleasure in reading the following books:

    1) Deliverance from error
    2) Niche for lights

    Lastly. Keep up the good work 🙂

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      January 17, 2015 at 8:43 am

      Thank you. I met a dear friend at a coffee shop the other day. I was carrying a novel by Ali Smith; she was carrying al-Ghazzali. We had a wonderful conversation about the difference between artificial light and natural light.

  7. şule says:
    February 13, 2015 at 11:37 am

    mrs hazleten ı am a medical student and ı read your books and watch your videos . ı dont know how should ı say but did you heard anythıng about asa-ı musa book from risaleinur collection.ALso in there there is something about agnostizm .ı thınk thıs is valuable to think in a different side.ı know ıt ıs not my business but just a suggestion and ıam thinking for a months about it

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 2, 2015 at 1:10 pm

      Thank you. I’m currently working on the last chapter of an agnostic manifesto, to be published in early 2016.

  8. hirafaraz says:
    February 26, 2015 at 11:47 pm

    Hello Prof Hazleton,
    I don’t know from where to start. I can’t speak on behalf of the Muslim population here in Pakistan but I’m sure there are quite a number who will agree with me.
    As Wahab said, faith and doubt goes hand in hand with each other. And yes, I do have doubts. And by searching for answers, it leads me to faith, closer with every search.

    Your book, The First Muslim, opened a sacred door inside me. Before reading this, to be honest, I really didn’t knew Muhammad. Here, in our textbooks and our grandmothers` stories, Muhammad is being pictured as an Angel rather than a human. So we cannot relate to him like we do with another fellow human. We couldn’t feel his pain, neither we could see the essence of his life as a man, prophet and a leader. But thanks to your words, I finally met him, as a human above all. 🙂

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 2, 2015 at 1:08 pm

      I am humbled, privileged, and grateful. Thank you.

  9. Aterah Nusrat says:
    May 2, 2015 at 2:30 pm

    Dear Professor Hazleton,

    I have only recently come across your work, and have just ordered your two books (The First Muslim and After the Prophet). As a British born Muslim, I initially retreated from Islam in my youth, and engaged with eastern enlightenment teachings and meditation. I’m now circling back to Islam to review my inherited religion and integrate the different paths of understanding and experience that I’ve now accumulated.

    I am curious to know whether you have explored/engaged with any thinkers that take an ‘integral’ perspective on religion/spirituality. I’m thinking of the likes of integral philosopher, Ken Wilber and Steve McIntosh? McIntosh recently published a paper, entitled “Fostering Evolution in Islamic Culture.”

    I am looking forward to diving into your books.
    Best Regards
    Aterah

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 6, 2015 at 5:47 pm

      Thanks, Aterah — will check them out. — L.

Who ISIS Hates

Posted October 15th, 2014 by Lesley Hazleton

I know Muslims are sick and tired of the Islamophobic refrain of “Why don’t they speak out against ISIS?”  Some refuse to accept the terms of the challenge, seeing it as a demand that they apologize for being Muslim.  Others denounce terrorism, to deaf ears.  But it wasn’t until I read this piece by New Zealanders Khareyah Wahaab and Jason Kennedy, who made news a couple of years back by inviting a racist MP to dinner, that I realized how Muslims in the West are doubly threatened by extremism.

[Tim from Timaru, by the way, is the New Zealand equivalent of Joe Bloggs — or perhaps Joe the Plumber.  And it should be noted that before ISIS took to beheading Western hostages, they beheaded dozens of Syrians in Raqqa. They stuck the heads on the points of railings in the city’s main park. Western media paid no attention.]

This may come as a shock to some, but ISIS hates us, a young Muslim couple in the West, with the same vehemence as Tim from Timaru.  Except, unlike Tim, we have many ties to the Muslim community in New Zealand.  It’s a small community and our family is known to most Muslims here, who in turn still have ties to their countries of origin.  This means that if by some freak chance a terrorist group were to put a bounty on our heads for speaking out against them, they have a much greater chance of finding us than finding Tim from Tumaru.

More than anyone else, terror groups seek to punish those they view as apostates of their own religion.  Radical fundamentalists thus hold all Muslims hostage.  Even in New Zealand, where our freedoms of speech and religion are a given, we still live with the risk of terrorist reprisal for speaking out, precisely because we are Muslim.

Terrorism is not aimed only at Westerners;  it’s a daily experience for those who must live among extremists.  Muslims have immigrated to the West in a conscious decision to escape violence and instability, seeking to build a better life, but many fear that if they speak out loud, they and their families “back home” will suffer.  You may call this cowardly, but first ask yourself if you would be willing to jeopardize your family’s freedom and safety if you legitimately feared reprisal.

Many do so nonetheless.  In public gatherings, demonstrations, formal statements by imams, even teenagers posting their frustrations on YouTube, the message is the same:  “ISIS does not represent us.  ISIS does not represent Islam.  We condemn their actions entirely.”  You don’t hear them because they’re not considered newsworthy, but engage a Muslim in conversation, and you are very apt to find someone who feels exactly the same way about extremists as you do.

How can we, two Kiwis who have never had anything to do with the Middle East, possibly answer for the actions of extremists with whom we have nothing in common other than proclaiming to be Muslim?  Like every other Muslim we know, we choose to follow the progressive, peaceful tenets of Islam, and leave the rest to the annals of a long and tumultuous history.

With biblical literalism still prevalent in many churches, it should be no surprise that Islam also struggles with literalism.  Most Muslims in the West gloss over the violent passages in the Quran in much the same way as Christians disregard the violent passages in the Bible.  Whether consciously or unconsciously, they recognize the need for reform.  But Martin Luther’s reform of Christianity didn’t come until the sixteenth century.  Islam, a faith 600 years younger, is now, in the twenty-first century, grappling with the same need.  Progressive western Muslims will certainly lead the way.

And if you haven’t managed to hear it by now, then hear it this time:  Yes, we are Muslim, and yes, we categorically denounce ISIS and all forms of terror.

 

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File under: fundamentalism, Islam | Tagged: Tags: ISIS, Islamophobia, Jason Kennedy, Khayreyah Wahaab, New Zealand, reprisal, terrorism | 5 Comments
  1. Omer says:
    October 18, 2014 at 11:51 am

    Thanks much for posting Leslie. I just heard Malik Mujahid, a civic leader in Chicago respond to an interview that condemning groups like ISIS has almost become a 6th pillar of Islam which condemnations required 5 x a day. I found that funny but sad.

    Regarding the issue of reform, I think the main issue that traditional Muslims need to confront is that much of the problem is of shackling the Qur’an to the hadith literature. The Prophet never authorized anyone to collect and compile alleged sayings of his and especially not to do so 100 years or more after his death.

    So interpreting the Qur’an through medieval lens is problematic because it institutionalizes a medieval mindset. I am not saying that medieval thought is necessarily bad….but it is not necessarily good either and it is not necessarily really from the Prophet either…at least much of what is said to be from him is likely not from him but from what people thought he would have said or what they mistakened him as saying.

    I think once that lightbulb resonates throughout the Muslim world, then that would be a huge blow to traditional and most especially a huge blow to salafi muslims and catastrophic to extremist muslims.

    I am not against hadith…i believe an indispensible source for interpretation of the Qur’an should be sought in looking at the hadith deemed authentic because some of it is authentic but not to replace reason and not to override the Qur’an as is done much too much by some muslims.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      October 18, 2014 at 2:02 pm

      Love the mordant humor of condemnation of ISIS as the sixth pillar of Islam! Similar vein to the #MuslimApologies meme on Twitter.
      Re hadith, I know I’ve recommended Sadakat Kadri’s ‘Heaven on Earth’ before, but can’t do so too often (the title makes it sound like devotional pap, but would I be recommending it if it were?). Especially the section on Salafism and the reinterpretation of tradition:
      http://www.amazon.com/Heaven-Earth-Journey-Through-Sharia-ebook/dp/B005XMKAGY/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413665807&sr=1-5&keywords=heaven+on+earth

  2. jveeds says:
    October 19, 2014 at 10:51 am

    I liked the insightful comment about unshackling the Qur’an from the hadith — not that I get a say in it, but a minute after reading that it dawned on me that that could be an excellent thing. I’m of mixed minds about it, because a religion’s interpretive literature helps it grow and adjust to later time epochs. Yet, no matter how the hadith is divvied up among greater-to-lesser credibility, the sayings and actions of people as recollected later are notoriously unreliable and must certainly lead to misguided practices which become enshrined and immutable.

  3. SamAh says:
    October 22, 2014 at 4:43 am

    I love your articles! Absolutely admire the way you represent your thoughts.
    But I cannot help myself but to add the following: We Muslims in the Middle East are trying to progress and reform Islam. We condemn ISIS, and we want peace in the region, we want peace and love between the east and west.
    Much respect to the kiwis writers and to you.
    Cannot wait until your next article!

  4. Sam says:
    March 19, 2015 at 4:10 am

    Isis greatest enemy is Islam’s Sufism – “the love within Islam” all Muslims have to do to combatt and destroy ISIS …is bring back Sufism(love) as was expounded by one of the greatest personalities/poet – Rumi.
    Love all,Malice unto none

Shameless Advice

Posted September 17th, 2014 by Lesley Hazleton

The advice-to-young-people racket is utterly shameless. Even William Burroughs gave in to the temptation, proving that the best advice-to-young-people may be to ignore all advice-to-young-people. Unless, of course, it comes from The Stranger, Seattle’s ornery, Pulitzer-prize-winning alternative weekly, whose annual back-to-school issue confronts incoming freshpeople with all manner of weird, ironic, and occasionally even useful advice on life, love, and… oh yes, sex.

This year, they decided to go for broke and include religion, and who else would they turn to but the Accidental Theologist? — who obligingly came up with ten questions for “young people” to ask if they’re trying to choose a religion:

1. How loud do its proponents talk? If they’re shouting, that doesn’t make what they say truer. On the contrary: There’s generally an inverse relationship between decibels and truth. Besides, do you really enjoy being preached at?

2. Do they know what God wants/thinks/intends? If so, either they are God or they think they are God. That’s called heresy if you’re religious, and psychosis if you’re not.

3. Are they obsessed with sex? If they’re threatened by women or are LGBT-phobic, there’s weird sexual stuff going on. If you’re similarly threatened and phobic, Westboro Baptist Church or Mars Hill Church will happily provide a home for your penis.

4. Do they have good music? Christians might have this one beat (Bach’s Mass in B minor, gospel music…), but if you’ve never heard Pakistan’s Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, you have an ecstatic Sufi feast in store.

5. Talking of feasts, do they have good food? Communion wafer, anyone? At least Jews have matzo-ball soup and four glasses of wine at Passover. And Muslims get to dine on fatted lamb at Eid al-Adha—but winelessly.

6. Do they cite chapter and verse at you? This is the primo tactic of fundamentalists: cherry-picked quotes, out of context. Try tossing this one back at them: “The letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” (And since they can’t hear you unless you add numbers, that’s 2 Corinthians 3:6.)

7. Do they have any idea what “metaphor” means? If not, gently suggest they sign up for English Literature 101—no, demand it. Do not put up with literalism.

8. Are they into social justice? That’s the essential subtext of both the Bible and the Quran: social and economic protest against corrupt elites. The Big Three monotheisms began as the Occupy movements of the ancient Middle East. Where do you think Marx got his ideas from?

9. Do they insist on your swearing belief/loyalty/obedience? If they lack a sense of mystery and claim to have all the answers, run like hell. That’s not faith, that’s dogma.

10. Are they into joy? Do they celebrate life—in this world, not a next one? Do they make you want to laugh, cry, hug, dance, stay up all night and watch the sunrise? Do they make you happy and grateful and goddamn humbled by this strange thing we call existence? A++ if they do.

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File under: agnosticism, Christianity, existence, fundamentalism, Islam, Judaism | Tagged: Tags: 2014 Back to School Issue, advice-to-young-people, ten questions, The Stranger | 14 Comments
  1. Chad says:
    September 17, 2014 at 12:14 pm

    Well said. Can’t think of any more questions to add. Of course, by following these wuestions, a person would have excluded the vast majority of religions out there. So we are better off drawing our own path to spirituality. And I am guessing that’s why you put between quotation marks the words “choosing a religion”. Awesome.

    By the way, speaking of great spiritual music, one great Sufi musician who is trying to bring Sufi music into the 21st century and also adding jazz influences is Dhafer Youssef. Check out his album labelled “Electric Sufi”. Would love to hear your feedback about it if you do check it out!

  2. Katherine Sbarbaro says:
    September 17, 2014 at 2:03 pm

    Shoot! Why weren’t you around giving out advice when I was a kid?! I LOVE #10 – the be all and end all of what any religion should be about. Thank you, Lesley Hazleton. You’re my heroine for today.

  3. Nuzhat says:
    September 17, 2014 at 8:56 pm

    Spot on Lesley, as usual. Do call me when the mullahs/ evangelists etc. come for you….you’ve touched the rawest nerves!

  4. Nancy McClelland says:
    September 17, 2014 at 9:44 pm

    Love it. LOVE it. Well done.

  5. jveeds says:
    September 18, 2014 at 11:13 am

    Excellent job Lesley.

    On a side note, I discovered your “First Muslim,” “After the Prophet” and “Mary” books a year ago and highly recommend them to others.

    • amin tan says:
      September 20, 2014 at 5:08 pm

      BRAVO, lesley Hazleton. I too heartily concur with Mr jweeds. It is an excellent book for Muslims as well as non muslims. The book is an intelligent insight into the events that took place more than 1400 years ago, that has so much bearing on our todays lives.

      amin tan

  6. chakaoc says:
    September 22, 2014 at 2:43 am

    Bravo, Lesley…it leaves little room for all those with an agenda other than a spiritual life.

  7. Tea-mahm says:
    September 22, 2014 at 8:48 am

    Yes! to post on every playground fence, How about daycare centers. Come to think of it waterproof-words on every shower stall at school and home, and at the grandparents’ house!

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 22, 2014 at 7:06 pm

      Waterproofed words? Love it, T!

  8. Bernard S. Sadowski says:
    September 24, 2014 at 2:10 pm

    Fantastic! I am a 75 year – old Roman Catholic who needed to read this. Thank you!!!

  9. Omer says:
    October 4, 2014 at 10:29 pm

    Leslie,

    As a theist and a Muslim, I resonate with much of what you say.

    Just now, I saw your interview with Edip Yuksel. I liked your candor and I appreciate your openness to his views. Thanks much for that openness.

    I completely agree that it is indeed sheer arrogance for someone (finite creation) to know the will of God (the transcendent One) in some all encompassing way.

    I feel (and agree) that many of your points you provided to this Seattle paper speak to this snobbish attitude (of some who try to manipulate religion).

    Regarding your last point, I think that if one views this transitory life of ours as a test for the everlasting life ahead, then to me it is wise to prepare for that immortal hereafter.

    However, I empathize that if we don’t appreciate and wonder about this strange thing called existence, then we have not reflected enough. Such reflection should lead us to celebrate life.

    As a theist, I think it should also lead us to celebrate the source of all existence.

    Also, if we don’t strive to make life good in the here and now and to do so for all people, then we are being selfish and I agree that is a shortcoming.

    Thanks for sharing and thanks much for hearing me as well.

  10. Brigitte Lee says:
    October 30, 2014 at 12:45 pm

    I read ‘The First Muslim’, and ‘Zealot:the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth’. Very informative.
    Is there a comparable, factual book on the historical basis of Judaism?
    Thanks for any suggestion.

    Brigitte Lee

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      November 8, 2014 at 10:09 am

      Well of course there’s my own book ‘Jezebel,’ which reaches from Jezebel’s epic confrontation with Elijah in the 9th century BC to the Babylonian exile three hundred years later, when much of the bible as we know it was written. For a more general introduction, you might want to take a look at Simon Schama’s ‘The Story of the Jews,’ which takes the story up to 1492 AD.

      • Brigitte Lee says:
        November 8, 2014 at 2:25 pm

        Thank you very much. I am looking forward to reading your book.

        Brigitte Lee

“Do Arab Men Hate Women?”

Posted February 27th, 2014 by Lesley Hazleton

Two excellent minds — liberal activist and journalist Mona Eltahawy and Huffington Post UK political editor Mehdi Hasan — went head to head at the Oxford Union on whether, per the provocative headline of Eltahawy’s article in Foreign Policy Magazine, Arab men hate women.

Go to it, accidental theologists!  But…

Please view the whole video before you comment.  Let’s get beyond knee-jerk reactions.  It’s true that it’s a long video, but if you don’t consider the whole issue important enough to merit 47 minutes of your time, I hereby suggest you forfeit the right to comment.

–

[youtube=http://youtu.be/T9UqlEmKhnk]

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File under: feminism, Islam, Middle East, women | Tagged: Tags: Egypt, Foreign Policy, Mehdi Hasan, Mona Eltahawy, Oxford Union, Saudi Arabia, sexism, Tunisia, Yemen | 15 Comments
  1. Stephen Victor says:
    February 27, 2014 at 2:27 pm

    I appreciate you for posting this video. Thank you!

    I am heartened with the fact that Mona Eltahawy is providing counterbalancing forces to the forces of misogyny in our world. And I applaud how she is doing this. Her provocative essay title landed her this interview. As a result, more of us have become informed. Well done!

    I see the issues of gender inequality as pandemic. Even though Ms Eltahawy spoke of this, her focus, in the context of this interview, was primarily the Muslim world. Good for her!

    To me misogyny is in our DNA whether we are women or men – girls or boys. Misogyny is in the atmosphere we breath. In the water we drink.

    Most compassionately intelligent aware and caring woman or girls, boy or men would be horrified to know that they behave, in subtle or not so subtle misogynist ways. If we are at all representative of our respective cultures, we cannot not do this. We perpetuate misogyny unwittingly and without intent. I see myself and Mehdi Hasan in this group as well.

    This is why your post, Mona’s work and Mehdi’s interview, and this video are so vitally important. We need to educate ourselves. We can no longer afford our ignorance. We need take on the disciplined personal responsibility and being wholly mindful – open-heartedly mindful:
    • in the reconstruction of our personal worldview – our personal cosmologies
    • of the states of being we embody
    • to consciously choose mental working models that genuinely work – that are just
    • in how and where we deploy our attention
    • of our thoughts, convictions and beliefs;
    • in our communicating and the actions we take.

    If we respect life…if we espouse justice…freedom…if we value gender-based relationships, whatever one’s orientation…if we purport to revere love, human dignity, beauty, and the innocence and lightness of being – we can no longer act in accord with a worldview that hates freedoms for any life-form, let alone girls or women. We must take a stand and change ourselves. This is not about others. This is about each of us individually.

    Those who subjugate others are themselves subjugated by this very act. Misogyny has colonized us all.

    Life cannot hate life. Yet we persist in acting as though we do. The great divide is between those with the capacity to intentionally and willfully injure another, and those who, though they can, and do injure others, do so as a consequence of unhealed injuries – never volitionally! We can change this. This is our responsibility.

    What possibly could be more important in our lives?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 27, 2014 at 2:40 pm

      Thank you, Stephen — beautifully put.

      • Stephen Victor says:
        February 27, 2014 at 2:54 pm

        You are welcome… there is one more bit I believe relevant: Might it be worth considering that those who are reluctant to acknowledge the existence of witting and unwitting misogyny in our world are really reluctant to change themselves? If one allows oneself to see what is – one cannot help but be changed…and as such one must think and act differently…

  2. Lesley Hazleton says:
    February 27, 2014 at 2:37 pm

    And here’s another thoughtful — and more critical — response from my friend Tarek Dawoud here in Seattle.

    On my Facebook page, he suggested this video of a Deen Institute conference called “Can Muslims Escape Misogyny?”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leyJaLCf8ks
    and commented as follows:

    “Much more thoughtful and realistic, a lot less about “provoking” and “grabbing headlines” and a lot more about breaking down the areas where misogyny appears and offering solutions/alternatives.

    “As for this conversation, I watched the full video a few days ago. The main problem with it is of course that it’s completely unscientific and lacking in methodology. So, when one presents an argument “Arab Men hate women” one would need to present evidence based on some social studies that shows that Arab male attitudes towards women are particularly negative compared to others. Or perhaps even (God forbid) survey the women in question. Instead, she opts for the unscientific approaches of tokenization and over-generalization. She picks a bad act that happens in 1% of rural families to depict “an Arab male attitude towards women in this country” and then spreads that across to all other countries too, even those that do not have it. And then, without trying to understand the socio-economic reasons behind the bad act (say rural families marrying their daughters young to rich men from the gulf), she totally explains it away with hate/scorn for women. In addition, as the student cleverly asked her (and she dodged), she is committing the age-old colonialist crime of advocating for freedom, but only freedom she likes. She knows what is best for all Arab women, they don’t.

    “This is not scientific or helpful. She’ll neither get support from scientists, social workers or social leaders. In my opinion, this is 60s style feminist “controversial writing” only done in 2014 when not many like that style any more.

    “I assume she’s good intentioned and wants to bring about true reform, but I feel she copped out… She took the easy route of citing a few studies about the prevalence of female discrimination issues, made an outrageous claim out of it, published it in a high profile paper and thus has “sparked the debate.” I don’t see the solutions to the real issues she raises coming out of circus like debates and half-baked research.”

  3. Lesley Hazleton says:
    February 27, 2014 at 2:39 pm

    And here’s my Facebook reply to Tarek:
    “Thanks (I think — I posted a 47-minute video, and you responded with a five-and-half-hour one!). But the Deen Institute conference looks excellent, and I will watch it — just give me time.
    “Meanwhile, does Mona Eltahawy generalize? Yes. Is she angry? Of course — and she says so. Is she being deliberately provocative? Again, yes. Has she sparked the debate? As she herself acknowledges, citing the work of writers such as Leila Ahmed and Fatima Mernissi, the debate has been going on for some time and has still a long way to go. What then?
    “I think what Eltahawy has done is bring the debate far more into the open. By publishing in Foreign Policy magazine, she’s demanding that both men and women, liberal and conservative, pay attention. And by bringing her well-known energy and passion to bear, she’s helping reframe it not as a ‘Muslim issue,’ nor even (despite the title) as an Arab one, but as a human- and civil-rights issue.
    “My main criticism: that she didn’t widen her argument to what is happening with women in many countries in central Africa, where rape (most notoriously and viciously in Congo) has become a weapon of war.”

  4. Madhav says:
    March 2, 2014 at 12:22 pm

    I do believe that religion in misused by people who seek power and would do by any means to do so. Oppression is the key word.

    Women oppression :- 50 % of the population sorted out… Ticked off.

    Caste system: Another 75% (assuming 4 Castes) of the left over 50% done… Ticked off…

    That leaves just 12.5% of the population to sort out…..

    Then go on to Say above so and so age….. That would cuts say another 50% of the 12.5%… Ticked off……

    That now leaves only 6.5% of the original population to dominate…

    Financial Oppression: Eliminate about 5 numbers… That leaves only .5% against domination……

    It is a Legal system that is needed to prevent Oppression……

    I am indeed lucky to be in a part of the world that represents a much better future for mankind. The UAE.

  5. Hande Harmanci says:
    March 3, 2014 at 3:56 am

    Dear Leslie, thank you for introducing me to Mona. We need more women like her. I will be following her from now on.

  6. Ross says:
    March 5, 2014 at 8:06 am

    I do agree with those perceiving a generalised approach from Ms Eltawahy, but worry about her opening the door to dyed in the wool bigots. For instance I would hesitate to post a link to her lecture on Twitter for fear of the vitriol that I’m sure would ensue.

    Anecdotally, what I see of interpersonal relationships among Muslim men and women in Australia, where they are a minority, is that “generally” speaking they are loving and respectful, which I suspect to be the case in US.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 5, 2014 at 9:12 am

      Ross — Most of the response to this has come on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/lesley.hazleton), where I re-posted this on the same date. Maybe because people feel Facebook is more of a communal venture, instead of something ‘mine.’ If you go there, you’ll find not only a remarkable lack of vitriol, but an in-depth discussion both for and against. I realize this is partly a reflection of whose friend requests I respond to, but I also think that it’s possible to be overly cautious, anticipating negative feedback that doesn’t necessarily happen. Perhaps this is a conversation that the vast majority of Muslim men and women are ready to have.

  7. Niloufer Gupta says:
    March 14, 2014 at 6:27 am

    I watched the debate ,mehdi hassan and mona elthawy- as i listened ,my mind went to the country that is mine- india.her anger is well placed and i feel that ,we in india ,need what she is aspiring for- a n equality in reality and not in abstract- that equality in reality needs grass roots education ,in every way.

  8. Lesley Hazleton says:
    April 17, 2014 at 2:43 pm

    A month later, here’s “Pro-Feminists and Metrosexuals: the New Arab Men of the Millennial Generation,” a counter-argument from Khaleb Diab:
    http://www.juancole.com/2014/04/metrosexuals-millennial-generation.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

  9. Lesley Hazleton says:
    April 18, 2014 at 8:32 am

    And also a month later, Ziad Asali on how men must play their part in the struggle for women’s rights in Arab countries: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ziad-j-asali-md/men-must-play-their-part_b_5172728.html
    Looks like Mona Eltahawy has done what she aimed to do: start a real conversation.

  10. Omer says:
    May 12, 2014 at 5:41 am

    I recommend readers see the website of Professor Asma Barlas.

    Of course much of the discrimination against the female gender has nothing to do with Islam but is of Middle Eastern culture and history.

    Afterall, during Prophet Muhammad’s time, there were some crazy contemporaries who would bury their baby girls alive! So evil to kill innocent babies and moreover in such a painfully cruel way.

    But there is still some discrimination against the female gender that is supported by clerics…usually the subset of clerics that is less educated clerics whose smarter older siblings were sent by their parents to be physicians and engineers but told them to be clerics since they did not do as well in their exams.

    Even with the issue of the clerics which is to some extent across most of the clerics, please see the excellent talks and papers by Professor Barlas…. she shows that it is paternalistic biased reading of Islamic texts that leads to such issues and not a correct reading of the Qur’an itself.

    http://www.asmabarlas.com/talks.html

  11. سالم says:
    July 22, 2014 at 10:56 pm

    “Do Americans Men Hate Women?”
    Every minute American women get murder and rape in the U.S..
    Most killer in the U.S. are choosing women.
    American women are treated like sex objects.

  12. sam says:
    May 20, 2015 at 11:24 pm

    Do arabs hate women ? no, and we don’t care what you think ? and if we do….be it, let’s see what are you gonna do about it

Hajj Distress

Posted October 23rd, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

I am distressed by this news report in today’s Detroit Free Press.  The first four paragraphs:

A group of metro Detroiters visiting Saudi Arabia for the annual Muslim pilgrimage said they were attacked and threatened with death last week by a group of Sunni men from Australia because they are Shias, a minority sect within Islam.

One of the members of the group was strangled until his face turned blue and women in the group were threatened with rape, according to people who witnessed the attack last week. They allege that authorities in Saudi Arabia did not take their complaints seriously and deleted a video one of them had made of the incident.

A U.S. State Department official told the Free Press on Monday: “We are concerned by reports that a group of U.S. citizens was attacked … at a campsite for Hajj pilgrims located outside of Mecca. We take these reports seriously and are committed to the protection of U.S. citizens traveling and residing abroad.”

The Embassy of Saudi Arabia did not return a reporter’s calls or an e-mail seeking comment. The State Department official said the hajj and interior ministries in Saudi Arabia “have confirmed that they are investigating” the incident.

In this instance, my distress is more than a matter of principle.  I have been a guest of Imam Qazwini and the Islamic Center of America (the largest mosque in North America), and admire their openness, their warmth, their calm devotion, and their civic involvement.  I have made dear friends there, people with whom I can talk deeply across all so-called divides of religion/affiliation/belief.

And this distress is only further deepened by the language used in the Detroit Free Press article:  the “say they were” in the headline, and the repeated use of the word “allege” in the body of the piece, as though there were some doubt on the veracity of Imam Qazwini and his group of pilgrims.  Such language only adds insult to the injury of what actually happened.

In principle, the hajj is when all Muslims come together, when all distinctions of class, ethnicity, denomination, and even gender fall away.  But the ultra-conservative and intellectually primitive Salafis — a movement very close to Saudi wahhabism — will have none of this.  It’s their way or no way.  Their Islam or no Islam.  Like all fundamentalist extremists, of all faiths, they see open minds and open hearts as a threat.  And respond with violence.

Expect a far more moderate response from the Islamic Center of North America than I am capable of.  And expect nothing from the Saudi “investigation.”  Year by year, as glitzy multi-million-dollar high-rises go up around the Kaaba itself, the Saudis bear ever greater resemblance to the seventh-century elite who profited from pilgrimage in the pre-Islamic years, charging exorbitant fees for everything from water to access to holy sites.  In fact an essential part of Muhammad’s Quranic message protested exactly this.

But even that pre-Islamic elite insisted on preserving the pilgrimage as a time of absolute non-violence.

What, then, does the Saudi tolerance of Salafi intolerance make them?

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  1. moranpro says:
    October 23, 2013 at 11:21 am

    In defense of the Detroit Free Press, they used the language they did to protect themselves from potential libel allegations. If they had serious doubts as to the veracity of the story, they most likely would not have run it at all.

    There is no defense for the Saudi regime looking the other way, but this should hardly be surprising. While they might be a [political/strategic] ally, they remain an example of religious dogma and intolerance.

    I share your skepticism regarding the potential fruits of a Saudi investigation, but they might make some token arrests as a gesture to U.S.-Saudi relations.

  2. Nasir says:
    October 23, 2013 at 11:44 am

    An ugly incident and totally un Islamic! Muslims (not Islam) are fallen today and a mere shadow of their former glory. The guy Saud (and so Saudi Arabia) patronized the so-called reformer Wahab and installed by the Brits & US (replacing the old Hashemites) and who to date remain their staunch alley and for this reason moderate Muslims dont like them. Mecca is central to Islam/Muslims as perhaps Jerusalem still is to Judeo-Christians. God will deal with them all.

  3. Roxana Arama says:
    October 23, 2013 at 2:12 pm

    I read the news report when you posted it on Facebook, and then I read the comments to your link. I was shocked to see that most people dismissed the report as some sort of conspiracy between the Shia pilgrims and the US Embassy to make Saudi Arabia look bad. Blame the victim before even taking another look! The details in the story look plausible to me, so even if there’re legal concerns when reporting, the leap to denial seemed impossible. But seeing not just one person deny that this story could happen, but many, made me realize – again – how intractable this conflict really is.

  4. Ross says:
    October 23, 2013 at 4:57 pm

    I’m reluctant from a position of lacking real knowledge of these affairs to spread misinformation, but I would say that the Syrian crisis has engendered low level conflicts within the Australian Muslim community which, on the whole, stay within that community.

    There are a substantial number of Muslims of Lebanese and Syrian origin in Australia (few of Saudi origin) and some young men, particularly of Sunni faith, have been inflamed by the Syrian and other situations. The only real act beyond posturing that I am aware of, as an everyday Australian, is the call for boycotts of Shia run businesses.

    That said, the following does not really surprise me:

    http://www.5pillarz.com/2013/10/19/anti-shia-sectarianism-on-hajj-is-a-worrying-trend/

    The ring-leader of the attackers has been identified by witnesses as a notorious thug from Australia who has previous. He has been arrested by the Australian authorities for physically attacking other Muslims (both Sunni and Shia) who refused to support the Syrian rebels in the past. Let us be under no illusion here, these takfeeri thugs disguised as hajjis were intent on murder, they were shouting this as they launched their 200-man strong attack.

  5. Sohail Kizilbash says:
    October 24, 2013 at 8:41 am

    I have just returned from Hajj and I hereby lodge my protest against the behaviour of the Saudi police and religious muttavas, who did NOT let us pray peacefully even in the courtyard of the Prophet’s mosque in Madinah nor in the roof top terrace at the Haram in Makkah. We had to hold our prayer meetings in a room of the hotel. It is disgraceful and a shame that we went all the way to the Holy cities and could not pray at the Mosques as we wanted. Why should the Salafi or Wahabi view be imposed on the rest of the Muslim world?

  6. tonosanchezreig says:
    October 24, 2013 at 4:53 pm

    Reblogged this on Al-Must'arib (the vocational Mossarab) and commented:
    Annd we seat and observe… yeah…. they r on their 15th century, as we were… and fighting religious wars as we did. Hmm…. history keeps rhyming.

A Rainbow Gathering

Posted October 18th, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

If you haven’t yet heard of it, it’s my pleasure to introduce you to the Ravel/Unravel project.  “Unravel your assumptions” is their motto.  And they’re asking you to help them ravel your unraveling into something wonderfully new — “a multimedia exploration of the tapestry of religious and spiritual identities that make up our communities and our world.”  (See the video below.)

Begun a year ago by Project Interfaith in Omaha, Ravel/Unravel is an invitation:  “We’re exploring the tapestry of religious and spiritual identities that make up our communities and the complexities of how we construct and deconstruct identity.  We invite you to view the stories that make up RavelUnravel and add to the movement by sharing your own.”

Close to a thousand people have taken up that invitation so far.  And it’s fun to do.  Just turn on the camera in your phone or your computer, follow the prompts on the website, and upload your answers.  Yes, I’m already there, part of a rainbow gathering of age and gender, ethnicity and nationality, faith and spirituality, including (but not limited to) Christians, Muslims and Jews of all denominations, Hindus and Buddhists and Sikhs, agnostics and atheists and secular humanists, Native Americans and pantheists.

The questions you’re prompted to speak to (reasonably briefly!):

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your religious or spiritual identity and why do you identify as such?

3. What is a stereotype that impacts you based on your religious or spiritual identity?

4. Have you found your community welcoming of your chosen religious or spiritual path? Why or why not?

5. Is there anything else you would like us to know about you and your religion or belief system?

My advice:  don’t overthink it, just do it.  And enjoy it.  As the director of Project Interfaith says here:  “This isn’t about theology;  this is about community.”

–

[youtube=http://youtu.be/PEZ2-otmWdU]

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  1. Reaching Out says:
    October 18, 2013 at 5:01 pm

    Reblogged this on Reaching Out and commented:
    Good interfaith scene – check it out!

Adoring ‘Darling’

Posted October 13th, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

Here’s my review of Richard Rodriguez’ “Persian carpet of a book” in today’s San Francisco Chronicle.

Yes, it’s a rave.

No, I’ve never met him.

Yes, I’d love to:

'darling'On rare occasion, a writer makes a reviewer’s life hard. Richard Rodriguez’s Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography has to be celebrated as one of those occasions.

The deep pleasures of such a book defy the usual capsule account. Instead you want to read sentences and whole passages aloud as I’ve been doing over cafe and dinner tables the past few weeks – “Listen to this!” You want to press “Darling” on others as a gift of friendship, judiciously picking whom to share it with lest you expose Rodriguez to pedants who can’t fathom the way his mind works.

“I did not intend to write a spiritual autobiography,” he writes in the foreword, and I’m glad to say that despite the subtitle (an editorial addition, I suspect), he hasn’t. This is something infinitely more supple – a rich tapestry, a Persian carpet of a book. True, it’s framed as an exploration of his own Catholicism post-9/11, when he realized that “Christianity, like Judaism, like Islam, is a desert religion, an oriental religion, a Semitic religion, born of sinus-clearing glottal consonants, spit, dust, blinding light,” and began to wonder how he and the “cockpit terrorists” could worship the same Abrahamic God.

But Rodriguez’s faith is light-years away from the deadening dogma of “mitered, bearded, fringed holy men.” As he investigates “the ecologies of the holy desert” – specifically the Judean desert – what he creates instead is more like an ecology of the soul. And unlike the desert, it teems with life.

St. Francis, Elvis, Muhammad Ali, Pope John Paul II, Cesar Chavez, Keats, William Randolph Hearst, Moses, Warhol, Herbert Hoover, Dorothy Day, Shelley – a short list of the roster of personalities jostling shoulders as they wander in and out of the virtual salon of Rodriguez’s mind, where San Francisco is “the mystical, witty, sourdough city,” Las Vegas is “disarmingly innocent,” and Jerusalem’s multiple archaeological layers are “vertiginously sunken – resentments and miracles parfaited.”

His writing is suffused with such little epiphanies, words and images springing to fresh life: His Mexican mother’s ojalá, “God willing,” as a Spanish borrowing from the Muslim inshallah; yellow tulips “closed and as thumpable as drumsticks” outside a Vegas hotel as a friend dies of AIDS in a nearby hospice; Picasso’s division of the female face “into competing arrondissements – one tearful, one tyrannical – like the faces of playing-card Queens.”

But at the heart of this book are women. Rodriguez – gay, Catholic Rodriguez – loves women. Not the way many men say they do, with a sexual twinkle in their eye, but deeply and gratefully. The stand-alone masterpiece of the title chapter starts with that “voluble endearment exchanged between lovers on stage and screen” (Noël Coward‘s “sequined grace notes flying up” like “starlings in a summer sky”), touches among other things on the use of habeebee among Arab men (“In a region of mind without coed irony, where women are draped like Ash Wednesday statues … men, among themselves, have achieved an elegant ease of confraternity and sentimentality”), and builds to the central take on how much the three “desert religions” need women to survive (“Somewhere in its canny old mind, the Church knows this. Every bishop has a mother.”).

Rodriguez depends on women “to protect the Church from its impulse to cleanse itself of me.” It was women who stood against the arid maleness he sensed as a child: “Outside the Rodriguez home, God made covenants with men. Covenants were cut out of the male organ. A miasma of psychological fear – fear of smite, fear of flinty tools, fear of lightning – crackled in God’s wake. Scripture began to smell of anger – a civet smell. Scripture began to smell of blood – of iron, of salt.”

He writes movingly of his schoolteachers, the Sisters of Mercy – movingly, yet with a wry, clear eye. A single sentence evokes a whole Irish immigrant world: “Most of the women who swelled the ranks of missionary orders had left peat-fumed, sour-stomached, skinny-cat childhoods behind.” That wry eye notes their “burqa-like habits” – perfect! – which “lent them protection in the roustabout world, also a bit of romance.” These women in teaching and hospital orders, he writes, were the forerunners of feminism, “the least sequestered women imaginable.”

The specific “darling” here is a newly divorced friend, and the whole chapter is in a way a conversation with her – an extended love letter, really – leading up to this stunning conclusion: “I cannot imagine my freedom as a homosexual man without women in veils. Women in red Chanel. Women in flannel nightgowns. Women in their mirrors. Women saying, Honey-bunny. Women saying, We’ll see. Women saying, If you lay one hand on that child, I swear to God I will kill you. Women in curlers. Women in high heels. Younger sisters, older sisters; women and girls. Without women. Without you.”

Even the most flinty-hearted reviewer could only melt at that.

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Canceled in Turkey

Posted September 20th, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

Under the heading Disappointing But Not Exactly Surprising:

taksimThere will no Turkish edition of The First Muslim.  My Turkish publisher received a reader’s report on the book from an un-named “academic member of Islamic history” at the Faculty of Theology at Marmara University, and today emailed to say that “The report showed more than a few aspects about your book which, considering the current political situation, might not be desirable and welcomed in Turkey.  I am apologetic to tell you that our company has decided not to proceed with your book.”

Since the book had already been translated and was ready for publication next month, this is a decision that comes at some cost to the publisher.

Here’s the upshot of the report:

The work seems successful in general.  However it has some lack of knowledge and misinformation.  Besides, it has an attitude imputing the prophet Mohamed and Muslims especially when it comes to Jews… The book is the product of a serious labor.  Nonetheless it is concluded that the translation of the book to Turkish is not appropriate when it is considered lack of information mentioned above and negative comments which are sometimes beyond the purpose and sometimes understood to be made consciously.”

The full report is here.  It seems I should have simply skipped over the tension between the early Muslims and the Jewish tribes of Medina, which culminated in the massacre of the men of the small Qureyz (Qurayza) tribe, and was, the academic reader argues, the fault of the Jews themselves.  (This argument is very familiar to me, since I’ve debated it many times with fundamentalist-leaning Muslims, both in public and in private.  I am equally familiar with most of the other points raised by “the academic member” — though the one about Jesus having or not having a father struck me as particularly picayune.)  The real complaint, of course, is that the book is not a hagiography, and does not conform to the requirements of piety.

As the publisher wrote, this is a political decision.  These are edgy times in Turkey, where Prime Minister Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party seem intent on deepening the instititutionalization of Islam despite strong secular resistance.  Three months ago, Taksim Square was the epicenter of the secular/religious clash.    Inevitably, my book falls into that same volatile intersection of religion and politics.  That’s the realm I’ve been exploring for years now, and will continue to explore.

Just not, it seems, in Turkish.

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  1. Chad says:
    September 20, 2013 at 1:55 pm

    It may still be explored in Turkish. Classic scenario: some book or newspaper or person is banned (for any reason). This gains some media attention. A translation makes its way online and cant be blocked by authorities, or banned person gets international media attention, shedding more light and giving more interest in it than if things were allowed naturally. My only other comment on this is that we have to keep in mind that lots of people in that part of the world WANT this institutionalization of religion believing that it will solve their problems. Hard to say whether they are a majority or minority. We’d like to think they are a minority but Im not so sure. Religion preys on the ignorant like a lion attacking the baby deer. And they dont know better.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 20, 2013 at 4:48 pm

      Just to clarify: the book has not been banned in Turkey. Rather, the publisher was apparently given to understand that it might be wiser not to publish a Turkish translation. Whether this would be so or not remains an open question.

      • Ross says:
        September 20, 2013 at 5:19 pm

        With my limited knowledge I find some difficulty in figuring out whether the authorities are being repressive or cautious: this brings to mind the conflicts when the vernacular Bible was undertaken: knowledge and perceived truth to be controlled by the elect.

        The caution angle springs to mind after the Turkish Government’s reaction to our ridiculous NSW State Government recent recognition of the “Armenian Genocide” recently. It seems to me that the Turks would rather deal with this matter–as they are slowly doing–on their own terms and with their perceived social cohesion preserved. Perhaps this applies to your book?

        Was “After the Prophet” translated into Turkish and published there?

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          September 21, 2013 at 11:18 am

          To be clear, this is not a matter of the authorities clamping down on the book. It’s a cautious decision on the part of the publisher, taking account of a political climate that he fears may rebound against him. He may well be right.

    • Gozde says:
      December 8, 2013 at 3:57 pm

      It is a pity that the book’s publication encountered such an impediment in my country. Well, I would like to say that I’ve just finished reading the book and I truly enjoyed it. As I believe that there can be no “one, true” biography or historical account of Muhammad’s life, there is no meaning in criticizing the author for shaping the book as she wished or adopting the viewpoint that she had. As far as I know this is the first book about the Prophet’s life written by a woman, so for that alone it’s hugely important.

      Lesley Hazelton, from the moment I started reading the first few words to the very last chapter, your prose, your historical narrative, mesmerized me. The events and the characters are so openly and candidly described. Muhammad is portrayed as a (fallible) human being–which was exactly what was needed compared to the languid bibliographies penned by such authors like Martin Lings.

      Although I currently live and study outside Turkey, the book will definitely find its way to the hands of several friends. Maybe not in a Turkish translation, but in English.

      • Lesley Hazleton says:
        December 8, 2013 at 4:40 pm

        Warming words on a freezing day in Seattle. Thank you so much!

  2. Rashid says:
    September 20, 2013 at 3:16 pm

    Dear Lesley,

    I am quite a big fan of your work but just a side note you mention the “massacre” of the Qurayza tribe now I (from my humble understanding) read that the actual incident may not have even taken place as scholars such as Imam Malik and Ibn Hajar saw that this particular “report” (I’m guessing you mostly relied on Ibn Ishaq’s work) was lacking in authenticity and that as such cannot be taken as an actual historical incident but in fact it is related in the Bukhari and Muslim collections of hadith (which if I may note are the most authentic Hadith collections bearing also in mind that they contain some weak hadith but as whole entire work they are the most authentic out of the collections of Hadith) that the ruling was that only on the warriors or those who betrayed the pact during battle (basically committing high treason) and the numbers of 960 or so are not mentioned it is simply mentioned that those who committed the treason be executed.

    I recommend reading this webpage its a very accurate analysis about this particular subject by W.N. Arafat :

    http://www.haqq.com.au/~salam/misc/qurayza.html

    I just wanted to re-etirate that I deeply enjoy your work and had I not respected your sincerity and academic scholarship I wouldn’t have brought this matter to light I hope I didn’t offend you in anyway or come of as a pomps know it all .

    Wish you the very best,

    Rashid

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 20, 2013 at 4:58 pm

      No offense taken, Rashid. There have indeed been many reinterpretations of the early accounts in ibn-Ishaq and al-Tabari, and the argument as to which traditions are ‘authentic’ and which ‘inauthentic’ continues within Islamic theology. This is clearly a deeply disturbing episode in Muhammad’s life, especially for believing Muslims. My decision not to gloss over it, as many other modern biographers have done, was not taken lightly. It is, as I see it, a matter of according Muhammad the integrity of reality — of being human, rather than of being inhumanly perfect. (The same applies, of course, to my exploration of the ‘Satanic verses,’ an episode in which I admire Muhammad’s courage in openly acknowledging that he had been wrong.)

      • Rashid says:
        September 21, 2013 at 11:33 am

        May I say that I am deeply honored that you have replied to my message !

        I have to agree with you (as a Muslim) in that the Prophet Mohammed was human when it came to emotions, reactions and tendencies and thats why I have a deep respect for his character and connect with him as a person. I find the words of Thomas Carlyle to be very fitting “Faults? The greatest fault I should say, is to be conscious of none.” Truly as the Originator of the universe said in the Quran (( A man among you))

        I hate to sound so patronizing and obnoxious please bare with my poor tactfulness.

        The crux of the matter is that the majority of historians did not “re-interpret” the matter of the execution but found other separate reports which according to the requirements of verifying narrations or”Hadith” where far more authentic than Ibn Ishaq’s narrations.

        Ibn Ishaq’s and Al Tabari’s methodology of gathering reports was very shall we say poor and considered not on par with the very stringent requirements of gathering narrations (you may want to check out the book “Usool Al Hadith” or the Methodology of Hadith) that was used by many of their contemporaries thus the majority of Muslim scholar and historians today and previously take some acceptation on details in Al Tabari and Ibn Ishaq’s works.

        What my ramble is on about is that the details of this incident as related in Ibn Ishaq’s biography is academically and historically not proven.

        On a less bothersome note I really feel very exited and inthralled to be exchanging thoughts with a person as your self. I find sincerity a very rare thing today among academics (muslims as well as none muslims) but in you madam I find it and it is that very quality in you that made me love your books and talks (I’m ever the flatterer aren’t I).

        With outmost respect,

        Rashid

  3. Rashid says:
    September 20, 2013 at 3:21 pm

    P.S I forgot to mention that in another authentic Hadith it is mentioned that the actual number of those executed where 40.

  4. fatmakalkan says:
    September 20, 2013 at 6:23 pm

    I am very sorry. I was VP of my region for Prime Minester Erdogan. What this people are claiming totally none sense. And Erdogans party was build as a reaction to 85 years of harsh ruling of anti- Islamic anti any religion communists. I couldn’t teach at Turkish university because I cover my hair. I couldn’t run for parliament because I was covered. I can not enter any court even if i were a lowyer. i couldnt work in any goverment job because i was covered. i coulnt go to any school public or private with my scarve. There fore we builded AKP. And what happened at Istanbul Taksim was a similar game that removed Mursi from Eygpt. AKP or Erdogan is not fanatics. I know prime minister well personally and I was elected official of AKP. This is a sorry excuse of the person who wrote this letter to you. It does not represent truth. AKP has no goal of institutionalizing Islam in Turkey. As Muslim Turks we want to same freedoms secularist enjoying since years. Secularism means in their mind oppressing believers. it is not the same secularism we enjoy at USA. I have more rights at USA as a Muslim women than in Turkey. Isn’t this wrong? I am reading first Muslim and wrote comment last night to your blog. I loved the book. It is unique and filling very important gap about Prophet Mohammad’s biography . I didn’t see anything about you siding with Jews . As I said who ever wrote this letter to you did not even understood what you are writing at First Muslim.

    • Chad says:
      September 21, 2013 at 3:25 am

      Ms. Fatma, I do agree that there should be freedom of religion and freedom to dress or cover your hair in any supposedly free society. So secularism shouldnt mean banning you from wearing a head scarf. For a while, Turkey had gone a little overboard there.

      BUT, I think everyone should agree that an important aspect of Secularism is the separation of religion and state, which as it stands should not allow parties based on religion to be in the political arena. Thats the lesson that was learned in Egypt (the hard way). Even in the USA, the political party which doesnt separate church and state (guess which one, LOL) is the party holding us back from growth as a nation and people.

      • fatmakalkan says:
        September 21, 2013 at 8:50 am

        Chad, thank you for replying.
        Yes absolutely you are right. AKP ruling party doesn’t want to change regime . It has no agenda to replace secularism with Sharia law. In Democracy every group of citizens must be represented at political arena. Devout Muslims were always band out from elections. Their parties closed one after another. And their human rights were taken away. At AKP we respect all citizens of Turkey, from any religion or background. Secularism is assurance of that. But CHP leftist party wants to show AKP as if it is Islamist party. Which is not! Inside of the our party there are liberals, ex- leftist people, democrats, nationalists, and devout Muslims, and cultural Muslims, conservatives . Basically AKP is mainstream party sits on the middle. Neither left or right. Proof of this we got % 50 of the vote at general elections. Turkey will never become another Iran! But on the other hand we want to be independent. We can not be Saudi Arabia either. We want equality in the Turkey, equality in the Middle East, equality in the world for every human being.

        • Nasir Khanzada says:
          September 21, 2013 at 10:18 am

          Turkey was the last of the Islamists that singly ruled Asia, Africa and Europe for centuries and finally decayed. They lost to rising, fresh and superior Europeans who had come out (14th-17th CE) of the centuries of ‘Dark Age’ and burst out of their shell in all directions, as to this day. The non Arabs, especially Muslims of the Indian sub-continent and now Pakistan still value Turkey greatly. Turkey is again on rapid rise more than other Muslim states and we wish them well ahead -secular, Islam or headscarf aside for a while…

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          September 21, 2013 at 11:45 am

          Well said, Fatma. Turkey has indeed been admired these past several years for its leadership as a modern Muslim-majority country, a bright antithesis of repressive regimes such as that of Saudi Arabia. That’s precisely why I was so delighted when ‘The First Muslim’ was due to come out in Turkish, and why I’m disappointed now that it won’t. I don’t see this as a reflection on the AKP — I see it as over-cautiousness in what seems, post-Taksim, to be an uneasy political climate. Please correct me if I’m wrong here.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 21, 2013 at 11:28 am

      Thank you, Fatma. Again, this was not a result of any government action. It was a reaction to a pedantically fundamentalist reading of the book, which is still available in English.
      The principle of freedom of religion, of course, is not freedom “from” religion, as extremist atheists seem to imagine, but freedom to choose and practice any religion or none. To be secular or to be religious is a personal choice, and as you note, a free government ensures that this choice is available to all, without discrimination.

  5. Nasir Khanzada says:
    September 21, 2013 at 12:04 am

    I must say that the Turkish authorites of the Unversity of Marmara have rightly pointed out many weaknesses in your work. At the same time, your publishing their comments is apprecaited. The Quran & Muhammad are told many times in your Scriptures and all evidence of truth have come to you and yet you remain ‘agnostic and accidental theologist’ and a sceptic clash with upright reasoning!

  6. Ali says:
    September 21, 2013 at 3:41 am

    Dear Lesley,

    There is a smear campaign is being executed against the AKP of Turkey by some of the illegal groups and secessionist organizations. It is unacceptable that any kind of idea or opinion against the governance should be under control or be banned by the government. I mean, there is a huge disinformation campaign is in action all around the globe by the individuals or the organizations who does not want the development of the country and the government of Turkey. In a world that people can criticize even the prophets because of their messages or sayings that right or wrong, it is so natural that you can make mistakes because of wrong information or lack of sources with a few viewpoints. By saying that I do not want to criticize or blame you as I am not a person like that. I’d rather prefer that the readers should judge you or make comments after reading your book. For this reason, please stop being a part of this campaign against the government in Turkey and approach the situation with a neutral attitude as I know your personality as an Agnostic 🙂

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 21, 2013 at 11:36 am

      Ali, I think you may be jumping to conclusions here. Once more, this was not, repeat not, the result of direct government interference, but a reaction to a general political climate. No matter what you think of ‘The First Muslim’ and no matter where you stand in the Turkish political spectrum, it seems to me that people should be free to read it in their own language and decide for themselves.

      • Chad says:
        September 21, 2013 at 12:05 pm

        Yes, I think people are jumping to conclusions. Lesley stated the facts of what happened and that it was not a government ban but rather a publisher who felt the sensitive political climate now made it not the right time fir the book.

        However, I must say I just feel this is an excuse. I’d like to see what other books this publisher didnt take. Did he skip pro-religious books too? I’m doubtful.

        You see, as a person from the middle east, I know how this works. Sure, Turkey may be different. But generally in that part of the world, books may be banned from the government, but a publisher may decide to skip on a book for fear of government retribution. A friend of mine was a journalist in another mid east country, published a newspaper article talking about some of the stories of Aisha and how Islam split. He was put in prison for a while along with the paper’s editors for “blasphemy”.

        • Chad says:
          September 21, 2013 at 12:07 pm

          Not saying that Turkish government would have put the publisher in prison, just saying its complicated and im not buying your publisher’s excuses…

          • Lesley Hazleton says:
            September 21, 2013 at 4:03 pm

            I get it, but he lives and works in Turkey and I don’t. Further, there’s no sign that he anticipated any government backlash. I think it’s more that, having sought out a conservative opinion, he feared he had then invited a fundamentalist backlash which otherwise may not have occurred. Obviously I am disappointed in his decision, but under the circumstances, I can understand it.

      • Ali says:
        September 21, 2013 at 2:56 pm

        At the 10th line of my comment I wrote that “the readers of the book should review, criticize and comment”. Maybe I couldn’t express my thoughts clearly before. I want to say that, your book or any other books of others, have to be published unless it is directly against to sensitive values. I was asking for your book always in the bookstores (After the Prophet) for more than nearly a year. I watched your videos and talks… The only thing here I question is, why your book is not accepted by the publisher with the given reason of “political situation” ???

        Please explain me what is the meaning of this paragraph taken from your article;

        “The report showed more than a few aspects about your book which, considering the current political situation, might not be desirable and welcomed in Turkey. I am apologetic to tell you that our company has decided not to proceed with your book.”

        and this also;

        “As the publisher wrote, this is a political decision. These are edgy times in Turkey, where Prime Minister Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party seem intent on deepening the instititutionalization of Islam despite strong secular resistance. Three months ago, Taksim Square was the epicenter of the secular/religious clash.”

        Frankly speaking, I am asking these questions because I want to make sure what was the “true” reason that your book not published here in Turkey. I want to read your books in my native language if possible. I watched your several videos and impressed too much about one on the TED talks, “A tourist reading Koran”, and telling about you to all my friends 🙂

        I am not agree with the publisher about the “edgy times in Turkey” when it comes to publishing a book or knowledge.

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          September 21, 2013 at 3:57 pm

          Ali, I won’t try to explain what was not my decision. If you click on the link in the post, you can read the reader’s report for yourself. If you then read the book, you can judge to what degree it has merit.

          • Ali says:
            September 21, 2013 at 5:30 pm

            Lesley, I have read both your article and the reader’s report and I am still not satisfied with your replies. I do not want to be offensive but to be frank with you, I can not understand your post’s aim. I mean, you are gracefully complain about the situation with a heading “Disappointing But Not Exactly Surprising” and highlight the loss of the publisher with the statement “Since the book had already been translated and was ready for publication next month, this is a decision that comes at some cost to the publisher” but still telling me about the reader’s report. Reader’s report is not important for me at the moment because I will be the one who to judge the “degree it has merit” after reading the book as you stated (I am not a critic just for my own account).

            Again, as I mentioned before, I respect your work and studies and want to read your books in my native language.

            In this instance, I can not find your publisher’s explanation sincere…
            There are hundreds of publishings, more inconvenient than yours in the country.

            Hope I didn’t displease you with my messages but believe me I want everything to be crystal clear in the light of the facts and you will find another publisher who can be more efficient.

            Have a good day.

  7. Chad says:
    September 21, 2013 at 6:47 pm

    I would like to broaden this discussion somewhat if you allow me, just to wonder. Going back to the book, which I have already read and immensely enjoyed, I see Lesley really writing beautifully about the main character, generally in a positive light as a good husband and father, a teacher and inspiration, and most importantly a human. I think there is definitely a problem in anyone who will focus on specific sentences or words or events to initiate violence or problems in their country (be it Turkey or elsewhere).

    As children growing up, we learn about many myths and imaginary people (Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Sandman, Boogie man, Superman, monsters in the closet, etc.). These mythical characters are always classified as either good or bad. For the simple mind of a child, these tools help guide them to understand what is right and wrong. But as adults we know (or should know) that life is more complicated than that. Humans are capable of good and evil.

    What saddens me is that religions have used the stories and biographies of their leaders/ prophets and have had to inevitably edit some stories to cast them as pure good men that never make a mistake. Or glorify them to god-equivalent. Now we have grown adult men who still look at the world through the lens of a child and good vs evil as if people are an extension of the cartoon characters they watch on TV. and of course what THEY believe in is “good” and everyone else (including the person pointing out a different side to their prophet) is “evil”. Such a childish rhetoric and idea that only increases the amount of hate in the world and totally ignored the whole idea behind “the invention of religions” which is raising humanity to a higher level of love and understanding. When we view these prophets or leaders for what they are: people just like all of us who saw a way to make people better and life better and took it, regardless whether they made mistakes in their life too, I believe it makes us respect them more.

    I think it is pointless to pull up other sources of history to argue against Lesley’s ideas in the book and try to say anything in the book is not accurate. This is not the point, it’s not a history book to be taught in schools. It is a book that presents a viewpoint with which you may or may not agree. The point is to humanize a prophet who was before everything else human, before being a Muslim, Jew, Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic. Gnostic Agnostic or whatever. and reflecting off of that, that we are all HUMAN FIRST.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 22, 2013 at 1:31 pm

      Well put, Chad. And totally agree re this idea of perfection — and perfectability — which seems to me inhuman. That is, it denies humanity. And thus dehumanizes both ourselves and others.

  8. Ross says:
    September 21, 2013 at 6:59 pm

    That last sentence in the Marmara report must have hurt: We have plenty of approved books on the subject already, we don’t need another one (if I interpret it correctly)

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 22, 2013 at 1:18 pm

      Not hurtful, more kind of exasperating. Note the phrase “approved books,” the question of course being by whom.

  9. HUGH MCCAULEY says:
    September 21, 2013 at 8:05 pm

    I’m not surprised but really sad about your post. As an old grad. student of Oriental Studies at U of P from the 1960s & ’70s it makes me weep to realize how things have gone so wrong, from bad to worse. Islam has become combative all over the world, not submissive to their Allah. Peace and reason seems out of reach when stubborn Holy War is preached by influential Imams and the ignorant faithful believe that the West is the Devil, worthy only to be killed and killed. Mohamed (BPUH), they say, was arguably just a simple man.

    Unlike Jesus, who sacrificed himself, Mohamed was not executed on a cross. The Prophet, died peacefully in his own bed and was buried under it. Who are now, since the 1970s, mounting Jihad everywhere? Fearful times, eh? Muslims, by and large, see you as a Jew and a Western Atheist, hated. Be brave, tell your story — until they come to get you.

    ________________________________

    • fatmakalkan says:
      September 22, 2013 at 8:46 am

      Hugh, certainly there are extremist that very ignorant about Islam yet can attract group of ignorant people and send them to kill. But view of Islam : if anybody kills one innocent person he will be punished as if He killed all human beings on the face of the earth! This is from Quran. Terrorist can NOT BE MUSLIM , Muslim Can NOT BE TERRORIST!
      But west ignite this terrible problem and fueled many many years by unfair foreign policies agains Muslims under occupation by non- Muslims commited atrocities in those lands. Than this sick mined persons became enemy of west and prayed on ignorant young adults turn them in to killing machines. We are in this mess as whole world. I hate to be in this situation as a devout Muslim. For many years western media saw this as a opportunity to mock Islam. They always said ‘Muslim terrorist” . They brain wash people putting Muslim term by Terrorsist. Why they did not call IRA As A Christian Terrorist for example? Muslims all over the world are very very sad about whole stuaition.

      • Chad says:
        September 22, 2013 at 9:41 am

        Fatma, i’ve got to agree with Hugh’s assessment. While the killing and terrorism happening seems to go against your interpretation of Islam, please DO NOT blame the west and/or other religions for this. The evolution of Islam over time, unfortunately has taken a more violent turn with ignorant religious teachers. As we speak, messages of hatred and classifying the other as evil are happening everywhere from ultra-religious people of all religions.

        A truly perfect religion from a perfect godly figure would be perfect enough not to allow these atrocities to be done in its name. It wouldnt allow god’s words to be twisted and misinterpreted in 1000 different ways. That goes for Islam and Christianity too. Alas, we reach a conclusion that just like everything humans make, just like humans themselves, these (man made) religions are far from perfect. I feel that Fatma’s defensive stance only proves my point of how religion makes us cast ourselves as good and the other as evil.

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          September 22, 2013 at 1:35 pm

          Oh Chad — “a truly perfect religion”? But what did you just say (and I agree with) in your previous comment?! Religions, as you say, are human constructs, and while intended to bring out the best in us, they can also bring out the worst. Should we then blame the religion itself? Or should we acknowledge the multiple factors that go into religiously inspired extremism, as Fatma argues?

          • Chad says:
            September 22, 2013 at 2:54 pm

            I stand by the previous idea of religions being imperfect but intended to bring out the best in us, which you agree with. And I acknowledge the wide variety of factors leading to extremism. Thats exactly why I dont’ accept Fatma’s blaming “the West” for what we are seeing. My argument with Fatma is that I would have preferred to see acknowledgement of these imperfections in our Islam before we blame the West and other religions and people for our struggles. But if someone views their religion as perfect and ignores the issues, they start blaming the others. But they cant accept that there are imperfections when they believe it is all from god. I wonder if Fatma could accept viewing Islam as anything but perfect.

            Herein lies the problem, Lesley. Sure, like you replied to Fatma, the vast majority of Muslims refuse terrorists and their acts. But the vast majority will refuse to accept that what they believe in is something imperfect and that religion did plant seeds of hatred. That’s why you being non-devout Jewish makes you able to look at things in perspective. While a devout Muslim, Christian or Jew will be stuck in the mindset of “We are the good true believers and the rest of the people are evil doers out to hurt us”. And as a cause for that, there is some blame to go towards the religions themselves who present themselves in this light of perfection and plant seeds of hatred towards others. and these seeds of hatred grow in different directions, and one will be extremism and terror. It’s complicated…..

          • Lesley Hazleton says:
            September 23, 2013 at 9:28 am

            I think we’re in danger of over-generalizing when we talk about religion in the singular. No religion is monolithic. There is no single Islam, no single Judaism, no Christianity. Each is made up of many streams/denominations/traditions/sects, so that it would really be more appropriate to think in plural terms — that is, to talk about Islams, Judaisms, Christianities. For instance, contemplative Jews, Muslims, and Christians have far more in common with each other than with the hard-core dogmatists of their “own” faiths.
            The larger questions here are deep and fascinating:
            — Why do we need to be convinced of perfection?
            — Why do we insist on rationalizing faith?
            — Why are we so intolerant of our own doubts and our own imperfectability?
            I find it fascinating that the image of the perfect world — Eden — is one that depends on NOT eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. And I’d argue that in that foundational story, humanity began not with the creation of Adam and Eve’s physical being, but with that first bite of the apple, which was the birth of consciousness.

      • Lesley Hazleton says:
        September 22, 2013 at 1:42 pm

        Fatma, you express in that one sentence — “I hate to be in this situation as a devout Muslim” — what I know the vast majority of Muslims the world over feel. (And that one sentence also expresses how I feel, as a non-devout Jew, about Israel.)
        As for the role of the West, yes, I think we’re still stuck in the backlash of 19th and 20th century colonialism, all of us still paying for that mind-numbing arrogance.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 22, 2013 at 1:23 pm

      Perhaps something of an over-reaction, Hugh? I assure you nobody’s coming to “get me”.

      • fatmakalkan says:
        September 22, 2013 at 4:02 pm

        Thank you Lesley. You do understand me.
        Dear Chad,
        We are human being and we are not perfect just opposite we have many imperfections. Islam is perfect but Muslims are not perfect. Every Human being has given intelligence to chose right or wrong. Belief or disbelief. No one has a right to judge each other. We can not say all believers are good non believers bad or opposite. I do not know you how can I say that you are a bad person because you don’t believe in God. Being Bad or Being Good has nothing to do with our religions or nationality or race. It has everything to do how we choose to behave towards other people or animals. One can be an atheist and yet very good person. Or one can be Muslim yet very bad person. I don’t have a right to judge others how can I while I have many shortcomings .
        When we oppress people and make them suffer treat them unjustly they will start rebelling if this continuous decades some of the people who are oppressed goes over the board and transgresses the limits becomes Terrorist. I am not blaming just western politicians I am also blaming terrorist for being ignorant and violent people. Education is the key issue. If we educate people more they will not transgress the limits. Biggest problem we are facing at Muslim world is ignorance. First of all about our own religion Islam.

        • fatmakalkan says:
          September 22, 2013 at 4:14 pm

          instead of Bushes being President if Al Gore was president I believe we were not going to have terrorism for example. Clinton and Obama as Presidents handled Middle East much better in my opinion.

  10. Chad says:
    September 22, 2013 at 6:16 pm

    Mrs. Fatma,

    I agree of course with what you say that someone’s religious beliefs don’t tell u whether they are “good” or “bad” people. But again, when someone says “Islam is perfect” or “Christianity is perfect” etc. that is automatically judging other’s people’s beliefs right off the bat. And again, if it was perfect, it would not have allowed this misinterpretation of religious texts to allow even this small percentage of people to become killers. You’ve blamed the West and blamed the terrorists too, but you absolve religion from any responsibility and that is where we disagree.

    Do you hear of the prophecies about the “end of days” on earth that different religions have? Do you know that most devout religious people believe in them? And that they involve people killing people of other religions to prove “righteousness” in the end? How ironic. Do you not see that killings and crimes that take place in the name of religion scar the religion itself? And what are current muslim scholars doing to counteract these acts of crime and terror that occur in religion’s name? Are they trying to spread the word of love and forgiveness towards all mankind and religions? I don’t think so. They continue to talk negatively about people of other religions in their sermons every week in every small and big town. I understand the way you have reconciled the ugliness out there with your belief that religion is perfect by finding other things to blame the ugliness on, I used to do that too when I was young. But, humanizing the religion and its source can be very liberating and allows a better perspective on life and the world.

    Your thoughts about Turkish governments in the past being anti-religion may be accurate. And the current Turkish government may be truly “secular” in the true sense of the word through separation of mosque and state, WITHOUT becoming anti-religion. But, I think it is generally agreed upon among most muslims and muslim scholars that they believe Islam is a way of life for them that governs everything they do including politics and government. Which goes against separation of religion and state. And that is not necessarily a knock on Islam. Devout Christians and Jews probably also believe that religion should be a big part of the political system that rules them.

    Interested to hear Fatma and Lesley’s thoughts on these points….

    • fatmakalkan says:
      September 22, 2013 at 9:33 pm

      Dear Chad, at Quran God says that: “today I perfected your religion for you. ” since I am a Muslim I believe my creator perfected my religion for me. That’s all I am saying. I am not saying any other thing. I can not choose some verses to believe some verses not to believe, in Quran. I have to believe all the verses in the Quran. That does not mean I am blaming you anyway.
      In my country you can not find any imam perching in their sermons hate against any other religion they concentrate about on muslim behavior and essentials of faith and worship and they condemn terrorist in every occasion. Have you heard Fethullah Gulan ? He is Turkish scholar lives at US and he always teaches tolerance, harmony and dialog and tries everything to stop terrorist.
      Yes religion encompasses all aspects of our lives but Islam is not against democracy. Quran teaches us to consult before giving decision at the family or at the government. In Turkey we have lived side by side since thousands years Jews, Christians and Muslims in peace and respect. We still do. Under the Ottoman Muslim Empire non Muslims were protected on religious rights and any other human rights issues. Today we have secular republic and nothing chanced. We live in harmony. We are building at Houston a synagog, a church and a mosque in the same “Peace Garden” to show everyone how Turkish citizens lives at Turkey.
      At you tube there is a song by Mahsun kirmizigül demonstrates this harmony. Please check it out. Name of the song “Bizden degildir” it means “who ever discriminates, tyrants, liars are not from us” as I said at the past for 600 years we had Islamic law now secularism we are equals as citizens of Turkey.

      • fatmakalkan says:
        September 22, 2013 at 9:49 pm

        I am not blaming Gods religion for any violence because 10 commandments are same in all Abrahamic religions: it says “Do Not Kill!” Murderers are humans against God will. They dis obey God and they will be punish greatly by God in this world and hereafter.

      • Chad says:
        September 23, 2013 at 12:16 am

        Fatma,
        As someone whose native tongue is Arabic, I have to say that the verse you refer to translates differently.

        اليوم اتممت لكم دينكم

        It means: today i’ve completed/concluded your religion for you. Shouldnt translate to perfected. It was one of the last if not the last verse to come in before muhammad’s death.

        But you do not need to turn defensive. Regardless how this translates, if u believe it is directly from god then u surely think its perfect. Thats your choice. But then I threw several questions your way pointing to religious imperfections and hate that you chose not to address.

        You claim that in Turkey, no preachers preach hate. I cant claim to know preachers in Turkey. But I am sure the secular government is involved in controlling the preached message. I assure you that even if your claim is true, this is not the case in the vast majority of muslim countries. In most places, sermon carries quite sone hate. About as much hate as in a Pat Robertson talk. Problem is you wouldnt even know because in most places, women dont go to the Friday prayer and sermon with the men. So sure, maybe you are right about Turkey, I have not witnessed this directly, but Turkey is not the norm.

        In terms of government, please do not try to convince me that islamic rule and government is democracy. Consulting people about big decisions or gaving a shura council is not the same as true democracy. Please check back with Saudi and Iran for the latest ideas of how political Islam is. Turkish democracy that you so enjoy is not islam based.

        You also defend islam using examples from Turkey. I think you are still in the mode of trying to defend both based on the original discussion about Turkey’s ruling party. My critique is towards Islam as the average person and country lives it. Turkey is definitely more progressive and may have less hate preaching but only because the secular government has historically controlled it. Funny that the scholar you named who has inclusive and humane ideals actually lives in USA not Turkey. And the mosque/church/synagogue combo is in USA too. I dont think such an inclusive building of worship would be accepted in any muslim country.

        Again, you did not address my specific questions about hate in religion, you only went back to saying religion shouldnt be blamed. Bringing up that the 10 commandments said not to kill. But killing in the name of god and religion has been going on for centuries. The best reason not to kill, or steal, or lie, is because its wrong from a humane standpoint. Not because religion told us so.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 23, 2013 at 9:53 am

      I think perhaps the basic principle here is that real freedom of religion entails the freedom to choose, which in turn entails not curtailing other people’s freedom of religion (or non-religion).
      The thing is that we tend to think of religion solely as a matter of belief. But I think it’s far more than that. It’s also a matter of identity, of loyalty to tradition and family, a framework within which one lives one’s life. It provides the narrative of one’s life, as it were. Which means that religious difference is all too easily seen as an attack not only on belief, but on one’s very identity.
      At its most simplistic, and thus its most ugly, religious righteousness (I am right/you are wrong) can be manipulated for political purposes, especially when civic government is weak. Thus the ongoing carnage in Iraq and Syria and Pakistan, in Nigeria and Somalia, where the sense of citizenship is fragile, fractured into sectarian affiliation.

  11. Nasir Khanzada says:
    September 23, 2013 at 1:49 am

    ‘The Marmara University comments’ must have come as a surprise to many liberals, seculars, agnostics and accidental theologists, gays and atheists who thougth that Turley is secular, anti Arabs, pro western, Latin script, etc. where headscarf, beards, Adan and all things Islamic are banned. Lo and behold! Turkey is still Islamic to the core as its people always were and opposed to the Anatolian ‘Young Turks’ who are today fading away.

    • Chad says:
      September 23, 2013 at 3:07 pm

      Mr. Nasir, it seems you didnt read all the interesting comments. Turkey is still secular. Its just not anti-islam anymore.

  12. Seabell says:
    September 25, 2013 at 9:39 am

    Lesley,
    I find the political climate a bit edgy too but this is not a necessarily bad thing. I am happy with the more tolerant climate that Turkey has nowadays and most anti-whatever voices are not as loud as they used to be. I consider the last outburst in Gezi as growing pains. Protestors were anti – goverment without any specific subject but simply because they were tired of Erdogan and didnt have a political outlet to be represented. Erdogal really doesnt have his match in the political arena yet.
    I wish they had translated the book in Turkish. I have read “Muhammad” by Martin Lings in Turkish maybe 20 years ago and it is still to this day my favourite among all of the same subject.( I havent read “The First Muslim” yet but ordered online, so this may change :). That book did depict Mohammad as a human as one of us and it was that aspect of it that I liked most about the book and my religion as well. I remember some of my friends liking it and some not.

    I am afraid the report is the product of a very coutious publisher. Is it possible to try another?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 25, 2013 at 4:00 pm

      That’s up to the American publishers, who own world rights, but we’ll see what happens.

  13. TURKEY ELECTIONS JUNE 2014 says:
    September 25, 2013 at 11:41 am

    […] Canceled in Turkey | The Accidental Theologist […]

  14. 2014 TURKEY ELECTIONS DATE says:
    September 26, 2013 at 3:39 am

    […] Canceled in Turkey | The Accidental Theologist […]

  15. milons says:
    September 26, 2013 at 1:02 pm

    The conversations on this thread are starting to sound like this:
    http://youtu.be/gb_qHP7VaZE

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      September 30, 2013 at 11:12 am

      My favorite Python movie!

“Why would you write a book?”

Posted August 2nd, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

“You’re a Muslim, so why would you write a book about the founder of Christianity?”

That’s how Fox News’ Lauren Green began her challenge to Reza Aslan’s right to write about Jesus.  The video of her interview with him instantly went viral (in fact, several accidental theologists sent it on to me — thank you!).  It inspired several spoofs, including this one here.  Aslan’s book, Zealot (my San Francisco Chronicle review of it here) was already #2 on the Amazon bestseller list;  by the next morning, it was #1.

“Gotcha, J. K. Rowling!” Aslan responded.

But aside from the small detail that Christianity was founded by Paul, not Jesus, Green’s question may not be such a terrible one after all.

'Zealot'The First Muslim - CoverI’ve been there, and often still am — from the other side, as it were.  The first time conservative Muslims asked why I’d decided to write a biography of Muhammad, I spluttered in amazement: “But you don’t think he’s worth writing about?  This man who carved such a huge profile in history?  He’s your prophet, how can you even ask?”

It quickly became clear that this was not a sufficient answer, and that the question was not about my decision as a writer.  It was about my decision as a Jew.  Just as Green focused on Aslan’s Muslimness and assumed that his real agenda was to attack Christianity, so certain conservative Muslims focused on my Jewishness and assumed that my real agenda must have been to attack Islam.

Let’s get one thing straight right away:  just as many mainstream Christians have welcomed Aslan’s book, so many mainstream Muslims have welcomed mine.  It’s the conservatives we’re talking about here, those who cannot tolerate any deviance from received orthodoxy.

In the context of Fox’s Islamophobic politics on the one hand, and of the Israel-Palestine conflict on the other, perhaps such suspicion is inevitable.  But since Aslan’s book and mine both draw on scholarly resources but were written for general audiences, there’s another less obvious factor.  Most devout believers are unaware of the vast body of academic research on the early history of Christianity and Islam.  Used to hagiographic or devotional literature, they see any more dispassionate view of their revered figures as an assault on their belief.  Demanding perfection, they refuse to tolerate human imperfection.

But what if Green had interviewed Aslan not with the desire to criticize, but with the desire to know?  What if my conservative Muslim questioners had been more curious than judgmental?  Without such knee-jerk defensiveness, the question of what a non-Christian brings to the study of Jesus or a non-Muslim to that of Muhammad becomes an interesting one – a question, that is, about the value of the ‘outsider’ point of view.

Precisely because he or she does not come from a place of belief, what seems obvious to the insider is not at all so to the outsider.  It demands to be explored, to be understood on the multiple psychological, cultural, and political levels on which history takes place.  Done well, this process can create important new insights into otherwise received versions of history, opening up fresh ways of seeing and understanding, and finding new relevance in old stories.

As with Jesus, so with Muhammad:  by placing him in the world he experienced, in the full context of place and time, politics and culture – the ‘outsider’ biographer honors the man by honoring his lived experience.

Historical reality doesn’t detract from faith;  it humanizes it.  And when gross inhumanities are committed every day in the name of one faith or another, that alone should surely be more than enough reason to write.

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File under: agnosticism, Christianity, fundamentalism, Islam, Judaism | Tagged: Tags: 'Zealot', biography, Fox News, Islamophobia, outsider, Reza Aslan, The First Muslim, writing | 14 Comments
  1. mary scriver says:
    August 2, 2013 at 11:03 am

    The relevant term here is “fencing the Communion.” You know the little fence at the front of the church where you lean your elbows while waiting for the Elements to reach you? (Maybe not — ask a Catholic.) There was a huge early battle about who had to stay outside that railing and who was entitled to enter. Territoriality. Tribal. Strongest when the group is uneasy about its identity and afraid of dilution by outsiders. (Check the Mexican border. Heck, even the Canadian border.) Writing about American Indians without BEING American Indian is a mortal crime because it becomes harder and harder to define an American Indian.

    Prairie mary

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      August 2, 2013 at 11:13 am

      Great comment: territoriality is exactly the right word.

    • Mary Johnson (@_MaryJohnson) says:
      August 2, 2013 at 11:34 am

      Yes, Lesley you are SO right on here! And even if you’re a former believer, believers still automatically assume that a writer is out to, at best, criticize, at worst, completely demolish all they hold dear. People become so defensive that they can’t see that what a writer might really want to do is to explore, to understand, to express…..

      • Lesley Hazleton says:
        August 2, 2013 at 12:12 pm

        Yes, I saw it happening with you too, Mary. (For those who don’t know, Mary is a former nun who wrote a deeply moving memoir about her years with Mother Teresa and her decision to become secular: http://www.amazon.com/Unquenchable-Thirst-Memoir-Mary-Johnson/dp/0385527470/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375470558&sr=1-1&keywords=mary+johnson)

  2. sharmin banu says:
    August 2, 2013 at 11:14 am

    Very well said:).
    Most devout believers are unaware of the vast body of academic research on the early history of Christianity and Islam. Used to hagiographic or devotional literature, they see any more dispassionate view of their revered figures as an assault on their belief. Demanding perfection, they refuse to tolerate human imperfection.

  3. Fakhra says:
    August 2, 2013 at 4:52 pm

    Reblogged this on TOAL.

  4. saheemwani says:
    August 2, 2013 at 6:57 pm

    The advantage of a writer who doesn’t share the ideas/beliefs of the subject, in your case a prophet whose life was centered exactly on those ideas/beliefs, is a much-needed unbiased perspective of what that man did.

    The disadvantage could be not understanding the subject himself and missing out on the essence of why he did what he did.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      August 2, 2013 at 7:29 pm

      True, but understanding is on whose terms? Part of what I mean by “an agnostic eye” (in the banner of this blog) is an independent one.

  5. fatmakalkan says:
    August 3, 2013 at 11:37 pm

    I agree with you as a devout Muslim. In many verses in Quran Allah wants human-beings to contemplate but human- beings are afraid to contemplate about their faith. Or they are lazy or they simply doesn’t care about religion. They are culturally Jew , Christian or Muslim. They prefer to follow their forefathers religion not their own. When they pickup Revised addition of Bible how come they don’t ask this question: who has a right to revise God’s word? They are def, they are blind and impaired to think. My ten year old daughter was asking me about popular Belief about Jesus being son of God or being God. She asked me: don’t Christians think that Jesus died 2000 years ago if God died 2000 years ago who is running universe?and If Jesus couldn’t save himself how he is going to save them ? Or don’t they think how come eternal God dies?
    Bible says God is one! Why they made him 3? She is also asking about Islam and She is developing her faith. Contemplating is the key. Who doesn’t contemplate doesn’t have real faith they copy others faith.

  6. Tea-mahm says:
    August 6, 2013 at 11:28 am

    Yes! Keep the word bridges safe to pass over… thank you, Lesley and Reza. T’m

  7. anon says:
    August 11, 2013 at 10:34 pm

    I don’t think Aslan was writing as a “Muslim”—though it may have effected his perspective. I havn’t read the book but from watching various interviews, Aslan, apparently, puts the illiterate Jewish carpenter from Nazareth into a historical context/time-period.
    However,the picture of Jesus (pbuh) in the Quran is a Jewish man who is intelligent, literate, a good communicator, exceptionally skilled, and highly spiritual.

  8. Luis Alexis Rodríguez Cruz says:
    August 24, 2013 at 8:30 pm

    Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the matter. I think that the reporter did not use an intellectual point of view to question Aslan. Anyways, conservatism and closed minds always try to overlap what it is true. Also I think that his book is an academic book such as yours, books for academics, for open minded people, for intellectual people who think critically. Negative comments will always exist…

  9. Farrukh says:
    August 25, 2013 at 7:20 am

    Hello Lesley,

    I just wanted to appreciate your statement:

    Historical reality doesn’t detract from faith; it humanizes it. And when gross inhumanities are committed every day in the name of one faith or another, that alone should surely be more than enough reason to write.

    I’ve just placed the order of your book, The First Muslim in India, it was very expensive, however, they have now priced it correctly. This shall be my third biography on Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be on him, which I’m going two read. The other two by Karen Armstrong and Safiur Rehman Mubarakpuri.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      August 25, 2013 at 8:31 pm

      Thank you, Farrukh. And re The First Muslim, the UK edition is due out November 7. Since India is part of the ‘UK and Commonwealth’ distribution system, it should then be easily available in bookstores.

7 Years, 600 Lashes

Posted July 31st, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

Raif BadawiDon’t dare think in Saudi Arabia.

And don’t even dream of having an opinion.

This AP report is a pretty good indication of what would happen there to The Accidental Theologist:

The founder of a liberal Web site has been sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes after angering Islamic authorities in Saudi Arabia, the newspaper Al Wattan reported Tuesday. The site created by Raif Badawi urged Saudis to share opinions about the role of religion in the country, which follows a strict form of Islam. According to Al Wattan, a judge in the Red Sea port of Jidda imposed the sentences but dropped charges of apostasy, which could have brought a death sentence.

Here’s an earlier report from Amnesty International on  his case:

Raif Badawi, founder of a website for political and social debate, “Saudi Arabian Liberals”, has been detained since 17 June 2012 in a prison in Briman, in Jeddah. He was charged with “setting up a website that undermines public security” and ridiculing Islamic religious figures. His trial began in June 2012 in the District Court in Jeddah, and was marred by irregularities. According to his lawyer, the original trial judge was replaced by a judge who had advocated that Raif Badawi be punished for “apostasy”. His lawyer contested the judge’s impartiality in the case.

The charges against Raif Badawi relate to a number of articles he has written, including one about Valentine’s Day – the celebration of which is prohibited in Saudi Arabia. He was accused of ridiculing Saudi Arabia’s Commission on the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (also known as the religious police) in the conclusion of his article. The charges against him also mention his failure to remove articles by other people on his website, including one insinuating that the al-Imam Mohamed ibn Saud University had become “a den for terrorists”. On 17 December, the District Court in Jeddah referred the case to the General Court in Jeddah, recommending that he should be tried for “apostasy”. On 22 December the General Court in Jeddah had Raif Badawi sign documents to enable his trial for “apostasy” to proceed.

On 21 January the General Court sent the case back to the District Court stating that they did not have jurisdiction to review his case and that they had found that he had not insulted Islam and therefore it did not amount to an “apostasy” charge. The general prosecutor however is still insisting that Raif Badawi be tried for apostasy. The case is currently before an appeal court to determine whether the case should be heard by the District Court in Jeddah or another tribunal, in particular the General Court in Jeddah, to which it was previously referred.

Amnesty International considers Raif Badawi to be a prisoner of conscience. Act now to call on the authorities for his immediate and unconditional release.

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File under: fundamentalism, Islam, Middle East | Tagged: Tags: 'Saudi Arabian Liberals' website, Amnesty International, Raif Badawi, Saudi Arabia | 7 Comments
  1. mary scriver says:
    July 31, 2013 at 9:14 am

    It is likely that 600 lashes WILL amount to a death sentence. The damage is equivalent to a third degree burn.

    Prairie Mary

    • zummard. says:
      July 31, 2013 at 9:45 am

      I would phrase it differently as to your words ‘ follow strict form of Islam’ to a ‘twisted’ form of Islam. I believe one would find even more ridiculous reasons for having put people in prisons if one did some investigation about Saudi jails.
      I am not sure what makes me more mad; the hypocrisy of western democracies for their tacit approval of their puppets’ disregard of human rights, or people not standing up for themselves in those countries. Something’s got to change in the world. It is coming……albeit slowly.

      • Lesley Hazleton says:
        July 31, 2013 at 10:03 am

        Not my words, by the way — the AP’s words.

  2. danielabdalhayymoore says:
    July 31, 2013 at 10:31 am

    Re: “follow strict form of Islam”: Thank you, Lesley, for clarifying the source (with which you introduce the excerpt). Sad, though, the AP would continue to make this mistake… like saying that the Snake Handler Cult is mainstream Christianity, or any other extreme and really idealogue versions of that revelatory Way.

    As for Saudis… well, they’re bent on destroying Islam really, tearing Mecca apart, erecting an obscene clock tower to diminish the Holy Kaaba, exporting a fearful religion narrowed to an astonishing degree (that sadly too many accept as almost papal), and hollowing out the Prophet’s message and example, peace be upon him, though it in no way impinges on his blessed reality… and yes, those of us who express hearts and intellects freely are always endangered by totalitarianism.

    Please check out
    http://www.ecstaticxchange.com

  3. Professor Do Right says:
    July 31, 2013 at 10:46 am

    generalizing statement such as

    “what happens when you want to think in #SaudiArabia” are not helpful

    as just as this mans blog may of been taken out of context, so can a statement like this.

    im not sure to what the extent of the other articles,
    but valentines day and saudi arabia?

    its almost like Mars and Oxygen

    maybe but be rational.

    im neither agreeing or disagreeing with the punishment on that matter but just yesterday i read this transcript about justice and judgementfrom the Qu’ran,
    a problem even Prophet David or King David was confronted with

    “But in this story, Dawūd ( عليه السلام rushed to judgment because he was taken by surprise. He rushed to judgment and passed a judgment immediately saying you’ve wronged your brother by asking him for that one sheep and immediately they disappeared and he realized, ‘I should not have rushed the judgment’. I should have calmed down first, understood the situation fully, asked both sides their opinion then I should’ve passed my verdict. The lesson I’m learning here is don’t rush to judgment. That’s what he made repentance for”

  4. anon says:
    July 31, 2013 at 9:51 pm

    It is true that in todays islamophobic climate, simplyfying Islam in order to scapegoat is not a good idea—Yet, what is wrong IS WRONG and there is nothing complicated about that……….Whether it is Assange, Manning , Snowden or Badawi—–Using false justifications (of whatever kind) to criminalize just intentions/actions is wrong.

  5. Casey says:
    August 5, 2013 at 3:57 pm

    Isn’t 600 lashes pretty much a death sentence? Can he really survive that? Very sad….

Mehdi Hasan — Pow!

Posted July 8th, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

If you haven’t already heard of Mehdi Hasan, he’s the political editor of Huffington Post UK,  the former political editor of The New Statesman, and stunningly eloquent.  Plus he thinks even faster than he speaks.  Here he is carrying the day at the Oxford Union in the debate on whether Islam is a peaceful religion (to my mind a false premise from the start, since no religion is either “a religion of peace” or “a religion of war” unless the majority of its followers make it so — and yes, I include atheism in this):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy9tNyp03M0&w=560&h=315]

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File under: Islam, sanity | Tagged: Tags: 'religion of peace', 'religion of war', Islamophobia, Mehdi Hasan, Oxford Union | 3 Comments
  1. iobserveall says:
    July 8, 2013 at 11:29 am

    This is a very interesting speech. Whenever there is a mention of terrorists, it is always the Muslims or Hitler who are mentioned. Memories are short, the IRA used to be bombing a lot more regularly. They were political but also used the church to hide their weapons and maybe they were boy scouts in comparison to some terrorist organisations but people who are killed are dead whoever the culprit.

    I do not agree with the use of any religion for violent ends but I also do not believe anyone who says this. It is all political or for their own ends, whether monetary or revenge.

    Muslims may be accused of bigotry but there is plenty on all sides.

  2. Akifar Momin says:
    July 9, 2013 at 9:03 pm

    What a breath of fresh air after hearing Mehdi Hasan’s speech. I feel I’v been suffocating by listening to the wretched, dilapidated news outlets that is preached and spoonfed to us by mainstream media. There needs to be more people who have the audacity to speak, recognize truth, pursue knowledge instead of sitting there and taking the easy route by merely being goose-stepped into false assertions. Lesley Hazleton and Mehdi Hasan are emblematic to this approach.

  3. NHK says:
    July 10, 2013 at 5:25 am

    As an ‘accidendat theologist’ and perhaps s
    till sceptical you may not have percieved the ‘Peace’ concept in Islam.

Beyond Tarzan and Jane

Posted June 28th, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

I just came across these four short clips from an interview I gave a few months ago — so impromptu and off the cuff that I’d forgotten I did it. Tarzan and Jane come up in the first one, when I’m asked about interfaith gatherings, which I generally find kind of stilted. “We tend to get together as me-Tarzan-you-Jane-we-friends,” I said. “That is, me-Jew-you-Muslim-we-friends. We need to get beyond that. We need to see each other first as people…. talk about anything but religion… eat together, two or three or four at a time, over our own dining tables…”

On the other hand, swinging around on those vines could be fun.

It seems I also had a thing or two to say about responding to Islamophobia, and about women in Islam:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC0TEgv8wJg&feature=share&list=PL2GledsAJtlnCZQD1DTLSadb395gWqnDz]

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  1. sarabressler says:
    June 28, 2013 at 5:01 pm

    That’s a beautiful sentiment. I strive to have a way with words as you certainly do.

  2. Gary Rizzo says:
    June 28, 2013 at 7:58 pm

    Lesley…..is not faith the meaning of your life ?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 28, 2013 at 8:17 pm

      Repeat: agnostic. I have no idea what “the meaning of my life” may be. Or indeed if there is any. I do my best to live it, that’s all.

  3. Reaching Out says:
    June 28, 2013 at 9:34 pm

    I love your mind… I love work, and by extension, love the person behind the work. May Allah bless you! 🙂

    • Reaching Out says:
      June 28, 2013 at 9:35 pm

      Correction: love your work

  4. Robert Corbett says:
    June 29, 2013 at 7:19 pm

    I think it got taken down, Lesley. At least the link is not showing up.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 30, 2013 at 9:04 am

      Just tried it on both my computer and my iPad, and it seems okay. Your glitch or mine, Roberto? Anyone else having trouble?

  5. Robert Corbett says:
    June 30, 2013 at 1:14 pm

    It’s back. Maybe it was a gremlin in my computer.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 30, 2013 at 2:19 pm

      A djinn!

New: My TEDGlobal Talk — Video

Posted June 24th, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

The talk I gave at TEDGlobal twelve days ago just went live!

Here it is — on Muhammad, the relationship between faith and doubt, and the travesty of fundamentalism:

Anything you can do to forward/repost/facebook/tweet/email/tumble/reddit/generally-spread-the-word will be wonderful.  Let’s stop being the far-too-silent majority!

Shortcut url is http://on.ted.com/Hazleton

————————————————–

[In case you missed it, my earlier TEDx talk on reading the Quran is here.]

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File under: agnosticism, Christianity, existence, fundamentalism, Islam, Judaism, Middle East, TED TALKS | Tagged: Tags: doubt, faith, Hazleton talk, Muhammad, TEDGlobal 2013, The First Muslim | 26 Comments
  1. Meezan says:
    June 24, 2013 at 10:35 pm

    Arguably the most emotional speech of yours. I am not afraid to admit that some man-tears were shed here (“blood – — – brothers, steeped in other people’s blood”, goosebumps). Brilliant as always. I must admit I always thought of faith as a non-questioning, always believing blindly and following orders kind of attitude. This has brought a new perspective on things; I am thankful to you for that.

    I have taken up the task of translating all of your ted speeches into Urdu. Time to wipe the dust off of my dictionaries. Fecundity. . . . . hmmmm.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 25, 2013 at 7:20 am

      Those man-tears especially appreciated, Meezan. Am both delighted and grateful that you’ve taken on the task of Urdu translation. Deep thanks. — L. (and feel free to email me if you have any questions re translation)

  2. Saheem says:
    June 25, 2013 at 4:01 pm

    Dear Lesley

    Thank you for your words. You never fail to impress by what you say and how you say it. Like its predecessors, this talk was deeply inspiring and informative. And it made perfect sense.

    It totally resonated with me – a Muslim believer. Till sometime back I used to think ‘I know’, then one day I dared to doubt. I started asking questions. From – ‘Is there a God?’ to ‘What is the whole purpose of this life?’

    After many sleeplesss nights, I got a few answers, all pointing in one direction. That there is so much to learn and a long way to go. And I would never have started on this journey towards truth had I not doubted.

    I’m no longer afraid to doubt. The basis of true belief lies in true doubt.

    Saheem

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 25, 2013 at 5:48 pm

      Reminds me of this from Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep.”

  3. ZubinNur says:
    June 26, 2013 at 12:29 am

    Thank you so much Lesley for your work, for the inspiration you share. I hope and trust many will watch your video and feel more hope, more peace… or basically just be able to hold the space. We all do our thing. THANK YOU.

  4. annie minton says:
    June 26, 2013 at 2:28 am

    fabulous and thought provoking. Many thanks

  5. Joseph L. Puente says:
    June 26, 2013 at 12:54 pm

    Thank you for a wonderful talk. I found that it gelled quite well with an essay I wrote on my own blog and I would like to share it here: http://flippinutahmormons.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-doubt-skepticism-and-faith.html

  6. jeancallioux says:
    June 27, 2013 at 7:02 am

    I was both impressed and enlighted by your TED talk. Which brought me on the idea to translate it in Dutch (I am from the Netherlands), because it would make me understand your well-chosen words better. Also the video on Ted.com could/might be subtitled for Dutch viewers. Would you mind? And if not, do you have a text-version of your talk I could obtain?

    Yours sincerely, Jurgen

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 27, 2013 at 8:54 am

      Hi Jurgen, and thank you! Translations are done through TED’s all-volunteer Open Translation Project (http://www.ted.com/OpenTranslationProject). I know someone is already at work translating this talk into Dutch, but with so many talks coming out all the time, am sure TED would love to have you on board. — L.
      (A link to the English transcription of this talk is already online on the video page.)

  7. Guy de la Rupelle says:
    June 28, 2013 at 5:10 am

    P.S. I forgot to add what one person wisely said, that faith and doubt are the two sides of the same religious experience.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 28, 2013 at 11:16 am

      Ah, but you did say it — in your own way.

  8. irfan says:
    June 28, 2013 at 9:56 pm

    Thanks Lesley for such a beautiful speech, whenever I am watching your videos there is an experience of new learning…I know everything mentality is an arrogant mentality which closes the doors of new learning experiences in the life.

  9. nuzhat fakih says:
    June 29, 2013 at 8:11 am

    hi lesley,
    after hearing you on Ted, I stand by my verdict in the reply to your previous post, that you deserve to remain in the cloud……
    ‘doubt’ vis a vis ‘faith’ may be open to a subjective response, but the last part of the talk, as per Muhammad’s reaction to the present day scenario in the Islamic world, and the attitude of his followers is spot on…i have been trying to convince this viewpoint to whoever is ready to talk on this topic in the circle I interact with.
    thanks for reafffirming my faith in this context.
    nuzhat.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 29, 2013 at 8:48 am

      Thank you Nuzhat! “We love you in any state of gravity,” you wrote as I wondered how I was going to get my feet back to earth again, and I broke into a huge smile at that. It’s my privilege to help open up the conversation. — L.

  10. Nuzhat fakih says:
    June 30, 2013 at 3:59 am

    One more thought….for people who took offence to your word on the prophet’s “doubt” at the first instant of revelation…. I would say that this reaction conformed to his inbuilt nature of being humble. He did not take pride in being the chosen one, (and never did all his life),
    but in all humility needed reassurance at that point, of having been given that responsibility. Can anyone just accept prophethood one fine day, even when it was thrust upon him and that too without any aspiration for the same?
    I could plead with my community on so many issues to be understood in their right spirit, Lesley. People like you and me can scream ourselves hoarse. Thanks for your commitment though.
    Nuzhat.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 30, 2013 at 9:07 am

      Thanks, Nuzhat, but let’s not go hoarse! Isn’t it the gentleness of doubt that we value, as opposed to the violence of conviction?

  11. Nuzhat fakih says:
    June 30, 2013 at 7:37 pm

    True…..wish others could understand the human aspect of the prophet. Reverance would be more natural than ingrained.
    At this point I will share a secret…..a few years ago, standing at his tomb in Medina, prayers eluded me for a while, as his entire life story played in my mind. I could only have a silent conversation with him, telling him I wished I could have been present then, to have helped him in whatever way,etc…..that was my way of connection!

    Sorry, I think I’m beginning a Tarzan/Jane-Jew! relation with you….
    Love it and you….
    Nuzhat.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 1, 2013 at 1:21 pm

      Beyond prayer… Yes. Thank you, Nuzhat.

  12. Yusra Zainab says:
    July 6, 2013 at 5:04 am

    Hi Lesley,

    I am a muslim business student from Pakistan and your talk is very impressive. There is a lot that I agree with you on especially on the point that how one can never claim to be all-knowing and righteous. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him) always displayed humility and modesty. However, what seems questionable to me is the idea that Prophet Muhammad’s complete life and struggle in Islam was based on doubt. At the time of revelation, it was indeed fear and maybe doubt also that overwhelmed him. But later, with more revelations from God and at the point when he had to take major decisions, reform society, act as advocate of social and economic justice, propagate the message of Islam, he had complete conviction on the existence of God and on the revelations being the truth. There couldnt be any room for doubt or else, he might not even have taken those steps which he actually did. However,I also agree that faith is incomplete without doubt. For the courageous steps that he took, faith and doubt had to go hand in hand. But the doubt that remained with the prophet for his life which made him humble in his ways and for which Quran tells him not to despair was not the the doubt on the existence of the God but was doubt with regards to his own and his follower’s abilities, and if he had done his best in reforming the society, and if he had conveyed the message in rightful way. This was the doubt that made him alive, made him to give his best, be humble, continue his struggle, and ultimately have faith. This is according to my understanding of the religion but Allah knows best. It would be nice to hear your views on it. Thank you.

    Yusra Zainab.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 6, 2013 at 10:09 am

      I can only speak for my understanding of Muhammad — not as a believer, but as a human being. You’ve expressed the believer’s understanding very well — indeed, beautifully — and I thank you for what I read as a bridge between where I am and where you are. (I love the phrase “Allah knows best,” which comes up repeatedly in the early Islamic sources, because it acknowledges that humans beings often disagree, that there are limits to our knowledge, and that none of us can justifiably claim absolute “right.”)

  13. Nuzhat fakih says:
    July 7, 2013 at 3:58 am

    Yusra…..I suggest you read Muhammad Asad’s views on doubt being integral to ‘enhance’ and reiterate faith, in his interpretation of Sahih Bukhari, section 2, (the book of faith).
    He confirms that it (having doubts) held true for the prophet too, from the very word go…… As fellow Muslims we understand the prophetic mission carried out with sincerity and integrity, in its own religious context. As you also pointed out, his doubts were in true humility.

    But this talk, actually awakens us to the very Islamic philosophy of ‘exerting’ ourselves to the utmost, by questioning, to enable our spiritual upliftment.
    Faith (iman) need never be shaken by right enquiry, nor can it make you a lesser believer. Or else itjtihad would not be permitted to us.
    sharing my viewpoint, is the intention here.
    Nuzhat.

  14. Yusra Zainab says:
    July 7, 2013 at 12:38 pm

    Thanks Lesley for your views.

    Thank you Nuzhat for the reading suggestion. I will InshaaAllah try my best to go through them. I completely understand the importance of doubt in enhancing one’s faith and do not deny to that fact. My own journey to understand and then form belief on the teachings of Islam, Allah Almighty and Prophet Muhammad has been driven by continuous questioning, pondering and going through the scriptures and various articles that I could get hold of. Also, in my opinion, I don’t think one can be called a true believer until one has at least once questioned one’s beliefs, driven into details, tried to find more, and undergone the struggle to find the answers to the important questions. Or else, it would have been too easy to call oneself a believer. But from my experience and understanding, constant questioning often leads one to become more firm on what one holds as his/her beliefs as they (the beliefs) are now tested, and then accepted. It is at this stage when what one believes begins to impact his/her behaviour, actions, and objectives. The prophet too, I believed, reached that stage during his prophet hood and that is when, acting on his firm belief on the existence of God, he reformed the society. We know from the Islamic history about the incidence of Miraaj, and how prophet asked his followers and people to believe on it. How could one preach a message with extreme determination, bearing all atrocities and hard times, when one himself is in doubt about it? Especially, if we observe how specific Islamic teachings are about the basic tenants of belief. Thus, he believed with certainty that which he preached. However, it is not that his struggle was free from all doubts, fear and uncertainties. He often used to be concerned about his Ummah and faced doubts and Allah tells him not to despair. This is when he displays faith on Allah. He also indicated uncertainty over the fulfilment of his duty of conveying the message when Allah in the Quran assures him. Thus, I agree with you that having doubts held true for the prophet too but this wasn’t doubt on the belief of the existence of God or the message of the revelations but rather of a little different nature as elaborated above.

    The Quran also takes both the sides. At one point in Quran, Allah asks people to reflect upon and ponder over the Quran. In another Surah, Surah Hujjurat, chapter 49, verse 15, Allah says, ” The believers are only the ones who have believed in Allah and His Messenger and then doubt not but strive with their properties and their lives in the cause of Allah . It is those who are the truthful.”

    I will InshaaAllah try to go through the readings you have recommended and it maybe that my views are not right and there may be much more to it. But, I have only shared what my understanding has been till now from what I have read and experienced. May Allah guide us. I completely agree with what Lesley has pointed that there could be different understandings and interpretation from the life of the prophet(peace be upon him) himself. I appreciate her intense research and the talk. It has definitely given me some food for thought.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 7, 2013 at 1:51 pm

      Yusra — to me it’s not a matter of “being right” or “correct” (or “wrong” or “incorrect”). To me it’s an exploration — an attempt to see things in more depth and complexity, and thus in more richness, which I know you’ll agree is one of the great privileges of thought.

  15. ramio1983 says:
    July 27, 2013 at 7:44 am

    Lesley so well presented, you are wonderful at what you do. Yes indeed, Mohammed is one who is far more relatable than any other Prophet of the past and i feel the main reason for that was his human reaction to Prophethood. The fear, the doubt and the burden of which rested on his shoulders showed on his face, from the time he cried to his wife Khadija “Cover me” to the time he wept as he walked away bloodied from being stoned at Ta’if. We come to see a man who did what he could to change and shape his society, for the better- at least from the perspective of an upcoming and final messenger and the bitter reality of the world around us is still witnessed today to the ever so resentful responses to Mohammed and his prophethood, his test of faith came knowing that he completed his message and died at rest, releasing this burden and sighing in relief to meet his planner.

    Peace Lesley, i love what you do. From a fellow author, poet and Muslim/Human, Ramey.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 27, 2013 at 8:44 am

      Thank you Ramey. A poet indeed.
      Peace be upon us all. — L.

  16. Why Go Public With Your [Dis] Belief | halalrepublic says:
    October 2, 2013 at 10:59 am

    […] classifying one as either (theist or atheist) is rather childish and we should be committed to doubt by falling on neither side. But in my country, you do not have the luxury to sit on the fence: everything you do, how you live […]

Bloody-Minded, Bloody-Handed

Posted May 22nd, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

I just now saw the cellphone video of one of the killers in Woolwich. It is pure barbarism. And all the more weirdly so for taking place on a busy London street, in front of passers-by, just a few yards from a school.

woolwichBlood all over his hands, and all over the cleaver and the knife he’s so casually brandishing. None of the distance of guns here, let alone drones. No attempt to hide, or to flee. Instead, a rant into the camera “justifying” what he and his friend have just done: run down a man and then hacked him to death. In the name, good god, of God.

I’ll get to that in a moment, but first, what strikes me is the way this man exults over what he’s done. He’s pacing back and forth like an animal after a kill, like a predator — a lion, say, or even a “domestic” cat when it catches a bat — proud of what he’s done, showing off, all but beating his chest.

And guarding his kill, keeping everyone away from “it.”  “No man comes near this body,” witnesses report his friend saying, but you can see a woman calling them on that, then bending down to try to help the victim, then standing up to challenge them over what they’ve done.  That’s courage.

As for the so-called quote from the Quran, he’s in fact in direct opposition to it.  Sura 5, verse 45, specifically states that an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth no longer applies. It says that “previously” — in the Torah — “we ordained an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (see Exodus 21:24) but now, it continues, “if anyone freely forgoes this right, it shall count as an act of expiation for him.”

No expiation for these two men. They are vicious murderers, pure and simple. Nothing more, and nothing less.

And that terrifying ignorance, that self-justifying righteousness, that pure bloody-minded and bloody-handed inhumanity, is the enemy of us all.

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File under: fundamentalism, Islam | Tagged: Tags: London, Quran, terrorism, video, Woolwich | 5 Comments
  1. Zarina Sarfraz says:
    May 22, 2013 at 6:24 pm

    expiation is not anywhere near,his mind is definitely clouded….is he on drugs? Myheartgoes out to the victim & relatives……it reminds me of the times of “bloody Mary” & the victimisation of RCs at that time!

  2. mufarsa says:
    May 23, 2013 at 2:25 am

    Brilliant. Well written and well said.

  3. tonosanchezreig says:
    May 23, 2013 at 4:26 pm

    Reblogged this on Al-Must'arib (the vocational Mossarab).

  4. Semir Nour says:
    May 25, 2013 at 4:07 am

    Well said, Lesley. I keenly follow you posts and I admire the angle from which you observe and analyse this sort of events. Undoubtedly, humanity is in a sad state of affairs. This chap and his friend, have committed a crime, a heinous one. They had confused ideas of Islam.

    The real sad thing about the state of humanity in this age, is the fact that the lives of innocent people have become nothing but a battle field for those sick-minded individuals (and government establishments) who seek to expand the scope of their territories at the expense of others rights, properties and lives (be it Muslims or non-Muslims). They have no regard to any sense of moralities, principles or faith.

    These two guys have been manipulated and confused by some sick individuals or so-called Islamic organizations. However there seems to be other parties who are trying to take advantage and maximize their gains from this events by stir up the public opinion against Islam and Muslims, perhaps, in order to pass some immigration law or justify some foreign policies.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 25, 2013 at 9:12 am

      There are always marginal ‘other parties’ trying to capitalize one way or another on incidents like this, either by denying them (“an-anti-Muslim conspiracy” kind of thing) or by mouthing off on the stale old Islam=terror meme. In fact what strikes me, so far, is the relative sanity of the general response. Mehdi Hasan, former political editor of The New Statesman and now political editor of Huffington Post UK, points to it in this piece published yesterday in the Telegraph (yes, the Telegraph!):
      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10076096/The-Muslim-faith-does-not-turn-men-to-terror.html

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