Q: You’ve often expressed that “literal readings” or “literal interpretations” of the Qur’an are used to justify aggressive violence (e.g. the actions of Maj. Nidal Hassan), isolationism (not being friends with Christians or Jews), and domestic abuse (4:34). Many Muslims, however, would argue that these problems stem not from “literal” readings, but rather selective ones which ignore large parts of the Qur’an and take single verses or even snippets of verses out of context. I think that Asma Barlas, for instance, would dispute your characterization. How would you respond to this criticism?

A: As a Muslim, it was so liberating to me when I learned about the choices we actually have between literalism and metaphorical interpretation. I found my intellectual liberation in the balcony of my mosque during the month of Ramadan 2003. The president of the mosque had declared, “A woman’s voice is not to be heard,” and we sat in the balcony, unseen and unheard. There, I read Asma Barlas’s book, “Believing Women in Islam,” and, I saw convincingly that we could challenge conventional doctrine with intellect. In the balcony, I became a feminist.

I stand with Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl and others as a “neo-Mu’tazilite,” despite the fact that most of Sunni Islam now considers heretical any other school of kalam, or theology, other than the Ash’arite literalist interpretation.  But if this is true, how could Islamic history have included hundreds of schools of kalam and jurisprudence in the early Ummah, as well as realities such as women leading men and women in prayer?  I find that most Muslims would prefer not to think about these things and instead, prefer the comfort and security of conventional wisdom. It’s always easier to simply submit to authority figures and communal pressure, especially religious ones, than it is to  question them.  I suppose some Muslims are afraid that doing so will weaken their faith.  On the contrary, it has only strengthened mine.

I’ve often heard that Islam or Muslims are misunderstood or misrepresented when critics of Islam and extremists cite certain ayats of the Qur’an, particularly those that deal with jihad or other “peoples of the book.” However,  I find this argument both apologetic and intellectually dishonest.  Polemicists will always take things out of context, especially holy scriptures, when its suits their purpose. The real problem, as I see it, is not what the verses say but how they are interpreted and used by our community and its religious authorities as mechanisms of power and control.  Let’s take 4:34 as an example.  Domestic abuse is a problem in every culture but, if we are honest, we must admit that this ayat is most often interpreted literally by many Muslim men as tacit approval, if not a divine injunction, to strike their wives. We have to reconsider how we interpret verses like this in society. In the 21st century, we should have nothing short of zero tolerance for domestic violence.

Through my own study and exploration of Islam and Islamic history, I discovered that a literalist interpretation has more or less dominated Islam since al-Ghazzali (d. 1111 CE) but started with the fall of the Mu’tazilites and the falasifa, or early Muslim philosophers who embraced Hellenistic learning and rationalism.  For the sake of brevity, I refer any Muslim who isn’t afraid of a little objectivity and critical analysis to read Robert Reilly’s new book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind.

In essence, Reilly argues that it was the rise of Ash’arite theology, or kalam, and the overthrow of the Mu’tazilites that led mainstream Islam towards a more literalist interpretation, and he credits al-Ghazzali as having driven the final “nail in the coffin” for any sort of rationalism interpretation.  Eventually, I made a very conscious decision to think for myself, as I believe we believe we were intended to do, rather than submit to the literal interpretations of Islam that are the legacy of men such as Hanbali (d. 855 CE) and other jurists who lived long before the modern era.  In their hubris, it was these same jurists who declared the “closing of the gates of ijtihad.” If other Muslims want to acccept and live under their authority, that’s their prerogative.  I prefer to follow my rational mind and my heart.

I would gently encourage everyone to surrender too to their common sense and “ruh,” or soul.

Q: When you publish your articles, your audience is mostly non-Muslim. Do you think that your description of “literal” Qur’anic readings as problematic could be reinforcing the widespread perception that the Qur’an is “literally” misogynistic or violent?

A: A literal interpretation of certain verses of the Qur’an can be misogynistic and violent, as can be literal interpretations of the Torah and Old Testament. I’ve heard from Jews, Christians and people of other faiths that they get it. They get that we are in the same struggle that has defined their faiths. There are certainly fundamentalists and scriptural literalists with both the Christian and Jewish communities, but, in our 21st century, only a very few of them translate their beliefs into action. When they do, they are usually quickly brought to account for their actions.

I’m not afraid of reinforcing any stereotypes. For too long, I sat on the fence, silent and dispassionate, while the government of Saudi Arabia, the Taliban, al-Qaida and Islamic militancy unleashed into the world a brand of Islam that is violent, intolerant and sexist. For that reason, I can’t be an apologist for Islam today for fearing of giving the religion a bad name. It’s got a bad name, and the best thing we can do, I think, is clean up our act. As a journalist, I can tell you that this PR strategy to say, “Islam is a religion of peace,” or “Terrorists aren’t Muslim,” is intellectually disingenuous. It doesn’t serve the Muslim community, because it doesn’t address very real Islamic ideologies that sanctions the terrorism. We would be better served by being honest and real, tackling these ideologies.

Q: You’ve indicated that you endorse “cherry-picking” from the Qur’an. Do you believe there is a holistic way to interpret the Qur’an that allows Muslims to realize a progressive vision of Islam without ignoring certain verses?

A: Khaled Abou El Fald told me once that we should use common sense when we think of religion, and I believe that is very true. Let’s use common sense about how to interpret the Qur’an so that our interpretations uplift our communities through love, compassion and tolerance, not punishment, rigidity and dogmatism. We’re in a fight for the soul of Islam in our world today, and I would humbly suggest that there are principles no more complicated than kindness and goodness that should guide our interpretations, allowing us to rise to the best of ourselves.

~ Asma Barlas

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Social change in Muslim communities can be a tough sell for would-be reformers. With differences in language, age, gender, ethnicity and class adding barriers to persuasion, religious knowledge is the great equalizer. As in other spiritual circles, one of the keys to shaping opinion and building consensus among Muslims is the ability to speak with spiritual confidence and authority. Nothing communicates this better than the ability to quote from scripture.

Author and journalist Asra Nomani has become well known as an advocate for Muslim women, and not surprisingly, the Qur’an is a core concern for her. But instead of bolstering her arguments for change, her treatment of the scripture is undermining her credibility as a Muslim voice.

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Nomani rose to prominence as a champion of Muslim women’s rights, both in print and the real world. Facing skepticism from conservative Muslims, she has often emphasized that her work is not in conflict with Islamic scripture, but inspired by it.

■ In 2004 she published an article for Time called “Shaking Up Islam in America“, in which she states:

Those of us pushing for reforms are not seeking to change Islam. We are questioning defective doctrine from an intellectual and theological position, using the Koran, the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad and ijtihad, or critical reasoning, as ideological weapons in the war over how Muslim communities define themselves.

■ In a 2005 Washington Post article, she argues:

But we are not anti-sharia (Islamic law) or anti-Islam. We use the fundamentals of Islamic thinking — the Koran, the Sunnah, or traditions and sayings of the prophet Muhammad, and ijtihad , or independent reasoning — to challenge the ways in which Islam has been distorted by sharia rulings issued mostly by ultraconservative men.

■ The same message is repeated in a 2007 article penned by Nomani in Sojourners magazine:

From Tamil Nadu to Toledo, Ohio, women scholars, activists, and community leaders—and the men who support them—are challenging traditional interpretations of Islamic law by going back to the four cornerstones of the law: the Quran (the holy book of Islam), the Sunnah (the traditions and sayings of the prophet), ijma’ (consensus of scholars), and qiyas (analogical deductions from the three).

Despite these claims, Nomani has presented the scripture as a problem in the overwhelming majority of her work. The suggestion that it must be tempered, limited or altered in order to accommodate modern ideas of women’s rights has become a running theme in her commentary.

Her main thesis is not, in fact, that the Qu’ran “has been distorted by sharia rulings issued mostly by ultraconservative men”, but rather that it contains inherently barbaric and misogynistic verses which Muslims are reading too “literally”.

■ In her recent appearance on The Diane Rehm Show (at the 36 minute mark), Nomani speaks of “the threat that our world faces when an ideology that practices a literal interpretation of the Qur’an, you know, basically wreaks havoc in our world.”

■ This echoes comments she made in a 2005 PBS online forum:

… But Osama bin Laden read the Quran in its original Arabic — as would have all of the hijackers of 9/11 — but they still read into it a mandate that allowed them to kill innocent civilians. Like all texts, literal reading of the Quran allows for the kind of disturbing readings that you are having.

Note the inconsistency: in one sentence Nomani says (of the Qur’an) that terrorists actively “read into it a mandate that allowed them to kill innocent civilians” [emphasis mine], but in the next breath she blames this on a “literal reading”. It is possible that Nomani is using “literal” to mean something other than what the word “literally” means. This would be nothing of consequence were it not for the fact that she uses this word over and over and over again in the same way.

■ Consider these excerpts from her 2009 article about Maj. Nidal Hasan, “Inside the Gunman’s Mosque“:

But a closer look behind the doors of the mosque and inside the conversations between the engineer and the doctor reveal a more complex picture of a young first-generation American Muslim man living a life of dissonance between his identity as an American and his ideology as a Muslim who had accepted a literal, rigid interpretation of Islam, …

“So many times I talked with him,” said Akhter, a community leader who is sort of like a mosque gadfly, challenging congregants to reject literal, rigid interpretations of Islam.

The story of Hasan at his local mosque is a cautionary tale to all Muslim communities about the consequences when we fail to win the war of ideas in the Muslim world with moderate interpretation of Islam over rigid, literal interpretations.

That politics of making another Muslim illegitimate is a strategy typically used today by literal, rigid interpreters of Islam to discredit other Muslims, …

To argue for jihad as holy war is to accept strict adherence to verses such as this one (2: 216), translated in the Noble Quran as: “Jihad (holy fighting in Allah’s cause) is ordained for you (Muslims) though you dislike it.” That translation is published by the government of Saudi Arabia.

Another time, the engineer and the doctor debated the question of whether a thief’s hand should be cut off, a punishment laid out in a literal read of the Quran (5: 38).

Hasan’s strict adherence to literal readings of the Quran betrays his leanings to extremist Islam.

Those excerpts were all from just one article; other examples abound.

Asra Nomani, Qur'an in hand.

■ In an NPR discussion about the man behind the 2009 shooting at Ft. Hood, Nomani remarks:

And he would have a very clear acceptance and embracing of puritanical, literal interpretation of Islam that said that jihad was a holy war, that said that you should cut the hands of thieves, that sanctions polygamy, all of the spectrum of interpretation that goes along with a very literal interpretation of the Quran and Islam.

■ During a 2007 interview with C-Span’s “Q & A” program, she argues:

And I don’t think it’s much unlike in the Christian and Jewish faiths where, if you have a literal reading of text, you’re most likely going to be more conservative in an orthodox kind of way.  So, in our Quran, we have several really red flag issues.

One is, what’s your relationship with Jews and Christians? Are you going to believe this literal reading of the Quran that says you should not be friends with the Christians and Jews? Or are you going to believe that that was a historical moment when there was feuding going on between the tribes in Medina and Mecca, and that that’s not for all time?

■ When asked about her activism in a 2009 interview with Religion News Service, she explains:

Women are the canaries in the coalmine as an indicator of the type of Islam people practice; it’s an indicator of how you interpret the rest of your faith—are you going to have a literal read on the rest of these verses that justify domestic violence and suicide bombings? My fight is for an Islam that is not literal and not puritanical.

■ In a 2004 New York Times Op-Ed, Nomani says:

These men rally around strict interpretation of the Koran and Sunnah, which last week entailed a sermon that criticized women working outside the home and called women who have lost their chastity worthless.

■ In a 2009 (televised) debate (over whether Muslim women should have the right to marry outside of the faith), she remarks:

There is a side that is arguing for a literal interpretation of the Koran.  Every religion has had this battle.  Are we going to have a metaphorical, an historical interpretation of the Koran, or are we going to have very literal interpretations that say: ‘If you do this and only this, then you are a Muslim and you are acceptable’? This issue that we’re talking about tonight has wide ramifications.  How are we going to look at Surat Al Nisa’a 4:34 – the literal reading of which says that you can beat a wife lightly, if you add the parenthetical phrase; or that you should not – the other verse that says – you should not be a friend with the Jew and the Christian.

■ In her 2009 article “The New Fight to Ban the Veil“, Nomani speaks of a “frightening brand of Islam”, saying:

It preaches a literal translation of the Koran that becomes troublesome when applied to problematic verses—which are used by militants to sanction domestic violence, intolerance, and even suicide bombings.

■ Appearing on a 2010 NPR program titled “Help Young Muslims Resist ‘Jihad Cool’“, she opines:

You know, I think what you’re speaking about is the struggle inside of our community, where there are literal verses inside of the Koran that could be read to sanction domestic abuse, you know, that could be used to sanction lack of tolerance towards Jews and Christians, even suicide bombings, just like all of the faiths, right?

Whatever intentions Nomani may have, the subtext of her message is clear: the Qur’an (or sections of it) is “strictly” and “literally” misogynistic and violent, sanctioning everything from domestic abuse to suicide bombing. Because she writes this way, many of her articles are useful to people with anti-Muslim agendas. Robert Spencer, for example, posted Nomani’s 2004 New York Times Op-Ed (quoted above) on his Jihad Watch website, interrupting the text to point out Nomani’s wording:

Note that these hardliners rely on a “strict interpretation of the Koran and Sunnah” and use the Prophet Muhammad to justify their hatred.

Words matter. According to Nomani’s words, the Qur’an and Islam, when taken literally, “allow for” domestic abuse, extremism and terrorism. It is strange that a Muslim advocating for Muslim women would write and speak in such a way – especially when communicating to a non-Muslim audience, a good share of whom already hold heavily Islamophobic sentiments (just see the comments below her posts in The Daily Beast).

Regardless of what she personally believes, Nomani’s writing makes her appear ambivalent about her own religion. This ambivalence is most evident when she discusses domestic violence.

■ In her 2009 article “The Saudi Bitch Slap“, Nomani discusses comments made by a Saudi judge about the permissibility of slapping women for certain “offences”. She writes:

To me, the issue of religiously mandated violence against women is part of a continuum of literalist interpretation of the Quran that includes banning women from driving, segregating women, allowing forced marriages of underage girls, and, ultimately, sanctioning intolerance and targeted violence against civilians of the kind perpetuated by al Qaeda.

She continues:

In this case, the debate over the right of Muslim men to “bitch slap” their wives underscores a literal read of verse 4:34 of the Quran, which states, according to a direct translation, that it’s OK to “beat (lightly)” a disobedient wife as an option of third resort after admonishing her and then turning away from her in bed. Trying to reconcile this literal read with the 21st century has led to something I call “the 4:34 dance,” where imams from Saudi Arabia to Texas have extolled the virtues of various degrees of abuse, from wet noodles to yardsticks.

Nomani here disregards the scholarship of two very influential female scholars – women with whom she has worked and whose books appear on the “resources” page of her website: Asma Barlas and Amina Wadud. On the basis of textual analysis and a wider study of the Qur’an, both Wadud and Barlas have concluded that the “literal” meaning of 4:34 is far from the so-called “direct translation” Nomani provides.

Firstly, Nomani’s phrase “a disobedient wife” might be misleading.

■ According to Amina Wadud, the word nushuz in 4:34 (often interpreted as “disobedience”) has a much different meaning than simply disobeying a husband:

… it should first be noted that the word nushuz likewise is used with both males (4:128) and females (4:34), although it has been de­fined differently for each. When applied to the wife, the term is usually defined as ‘disobedience to the husband’. With the use of ta’a that follows. Others have said this verse indicates that the wife must obey the husband.

However, since the Qur’an uses nushuz for both the male and the female, it cannot mean ‘disobedience to the husband’. Sayyid Qutb explains it as a state of disorder between the married couple.

■ In her book Believing Women in Islam, Asma Barlas discusses another Arabic term used in verse 4:34: qanitat (often interpreted as “wifely obedience”):

As Wadud (1999, 70) and Siddique (1990) point out, the Qur’an uses the word qanitat (which most Muslims interpret as wifely obedience) in other contexts to refer to human behavior towards God; we cannot, therefore, assume that it refers to the wife’s conduct alone. Indeed, as Wadud (77) points out, the Qur’an “never orders a woman to obey her husband. It never states that obedience to their husbands is a characteristic of the ‘better women’”; nor does it make it “a prerequisite for women to enter the community of Islam.” The Qur’an did not force even the wives of the Prophet to obey him, nor did he force obedience on them; nor, indeed, did he deal with marital discord by abusing or beating them. Similarly, while exegetes translate nushuz as disloyalty and ill-conduct on the wife’s part, in the Qur’an it refers to a general state of marital disorder, as Wadud notes.

Another term from verse 4:34 – a form of the Arabic root daraba – is rendered by Nomani as “to beat (lightly)”. This interpretation has also had its validity questioned by many scholars, including Nomani’s mentors – something you would never have known by reading her work.

■ In Sexual Ethics & Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith and Jurisprudence, Kecia Ali notes:

The three measures given in Surah 4, verse 34 to be taken in cases where men fear female nushuz are “admonish them, and abandon them in bed, and strike them.” The verb daraba, “to strike,” is commonly translated in this context as “hit,” “beat,” or “scourge,” though two recent translations have rendered the word as “spank.” The verb appears numerous times in the Qur’an with other meanings, leading some to question why it must be understood as striking in this context. One translator has proposed that daraba in this context does not mean strike, but rather “separate” or even “have sex with” (a metaphorical meaning attributed to the same Arabic root).

■ In her 2006 talk “The Pleasure of our Text: Re-reading the Qur’an,” Asma Barlas explains:

For instance, the so-called “wife-beating” verse begins to unravel once we realize that the word that is translated as “to beat” derives from the root daraba that has several different meanings, including “to separate” and “to ignore.” What sorts of hermeneutic and political choices went into rendering daraba as beating?

Amina Wadud

Hermeneutic challenges like this have been undertaken by a wide variety of scholars – both men and women – in traditional and non-traditional settings. It is hard to understand why Nomani so glaringly omits their contributions without even a cursory mention. This is even more troubling considering that Nomani has explicitly named Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas and Kecia Ali as important contributors to her vision of Islam:

Dr. Amina Wadud, the woman who lead the prayer in New York and Asma Barlas, another professor. They both have done these great readings of the Koran. … Kecia Ali, she’s done really important work on sexuality issues in Islam.

In the interview quoted from above, she adds:

There’s a lot of really great work out there by great scholars of the day who are doing their piece of the pie. Now is the time to bring the pie together so that everybody can share it.

Sadly, this is one of Nomani’s greatest shortcomings as a Muslim voice: she consistently neglects progressive Muslim scholarship while going out of her way to illustrate ‘bad’ interpretations of Islam in vivid detail. This lopsided presentation problematizes Islam while providing no satisfactory Islamic solution to the problems at hand. Considering the wider political context of her writing and the fact that her audience is mostly non-Muslim, this is completely inexcusable to many in the Muslim community. One particular exchange from a few years ago exemplifies the problem.

■ In a 2006 appearance on The Washington Post‘s “Outlook” program, Nomani is asked very specifically about verse 4:34 and the interpretation of the word daraba:

In your article, you argue for a non-literalist interpretation for Sura An-Nisa. How can it now be interpreted to avoid the misogyny that it breeds when it contains, quite specifically, the word ‘beat’ (in Ali and Pickhall’s translation). Is there a way to argue, as Fazlur Rahman does, that the essence of the Qu’ran is what matters and that we must read it in a way that lets us extract universal principles? If so, how could we understand the essence of this Sura?

In reply, she makes no mention of challenges to the “literal” translation of verse 4:34 that have been put forth by scholars like Barlas, Wadud or Ali. Instead, she accepts the patriarchal reading, calling it outdated:

The Koran also talks about slavery and slaves, but the Muslim world didn’t continue that practice (except perhaps in the underbelly of society). We have allowed for contextual understanding of many verses of the Koran, including the literal readings that tell us to slay the the “pagans” and never befriend Jews and Christians. If we allow ourselves, we understand that those words were written at a specific political time of tribal and political rivalry. As I wrote in the article, 4:34 was progressive for the 7th century. Let’s continue that progressive spirit to the 21st century and say “zero tolerance” to any physical discipline of a woman, gentle or not. And I think that is in fact the spirit of what the scholar Fazlur Rahman encouraged us to do. I believe the essence of the sura was to improve the condition for women in the 7th century to a standard that men of that time could accept. We have now risen to a higher standard.

■ Similar problems appear in a 2006 article called “Clothes Aren’t the Issue.” Here are some excerpts from the piece:

Finally, he may “beat” her, though it must be without “hurting, breaking a bone, leaving blue or black marks on the body and avoiding hitting the face, at any cost.”

Such appalling recommendations, drawn from the book “Woman in the Shade of Islam” by Saudi scholar Abdul Rahman al-Sheha, are inspired by as authoritative a source as any Muslim could hope to find: a literal reading of the 34th verse of the fourth chapter of the Koran, An-Nisa, or Women.

However, the kidnapping and killing of my friend and colleague Daniel Pearl in 2002 forced me to confront the link between literalist interpretations of the Koran that sanction violence in the world and those that sanction violence against women. For critics of Islam, 4:34 is the smoking gun that proves that Islam is misogynistic and intrinsically violent. Read literally, it is as troubling as Koranic verses such as At-Tauba (“The Repentance”) 9:5, which states that Muslims should “slay the pagans wherever ye find them” or Al-Mâ’idah (“The Table Spread with Food”) 5:51, which reads, “Take not the Jews and Christians as friends.”

In the entire article – written exclusively about verse 4:34 in the Qur’an – Nomani never once challenges the idea that “beat them” is the real (“literal”) translation; the closest she comes is in one sentence, where she casually mentions that:

An Iranian American scholar recently published a new 4:34 translation stating that the “beating” step means “go to bed with them (when they are willing).”

But even this sentence is weak and noncommittal. Nomani simply says that a scholar published a translation “stating that” 4:34 may be translated differently; she never asserts this herself. Nomani tacitly accepts the “literal” meaning as “beat them.” Elsewhere in the article she writes:

Yet even these small advances, if we can call them such, face an uphill battle against the Saudi oil money propagating literalist interpretations of the Koran here in the United States and worldwide.

And:

He soon moved to the subject of disobedient wives, and his recommendations mirrored the literal reading of 4:34.

Amazingly, nowhere in the entire piece does Nomani discuss the Arabic root of the word translated as “beat them” (daraba) or explain that it has a multitude of meanings – something her intellectual forbears have devoted much of their careers to.

Not surprisingly, again we see Nomani’s work being seized on by Islamophobes. The web page for “Wife Beating In Islam” on the Answering Islam website cites “Clothes Aren’t the Issue” as evidence of Islam’s supposed inherent misogyny, commenting:

This article is by a Muslim women, Asra Q. Nomani, who is keenly aware of the extent of Muslim spousal abuse in the West. She challenges Muslims who teach wife beating. Sadly she has not yet admitted to herself that her prophet, Muhammad, who institutionalized wife beating in Islam. Nevertheless, she understands the command’s cruelty. [sic]

■ During a 2009 radio appearance on NPR (“How Does Your Community Handle Domestic Abuse“), Nomani again takes it for granted that the “literal” meaning of verse 4:34 is “beat them”:

And sadly, in our mosques, we are still grappling with trouble over this interpretation of a chapter and verse in our Quran that, literally read, will say that a man has a right to lightly beat his wife.

In a few places Nomani has softly hinted that she may dispute what people claim the aforementioned verses “literally” say. In a 2009 interview posted on the website Qantara.de, she says:

… This justifies violence against women and suicide attacks with an allegedly literal interpretation of the Koran and suggests that a Muslim should not make friends with Jews and Christians if at all possible.

Also, in a 2005 interview with a Pakistani news magazine she says:

I have sat in congregations where men who are supposedly knowledgeable about Islam spew hate toward women, Jews, Christians, the west and  any Muslims who don’t agree with them. I have prayed behind imams who preach that the Quran  permits men to beat their wives. Our definition about “knowledge” has become very skewed in our Muslim world, and I stand strong as a woman who is very firmly grounded in the most essential teachings of our religion for peace, love, and tolerance.

If Nomani does or ever did believe that patriarchal readings of the Qur’an were not truly “literal”, she has never articulated this in any meaningful way.

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Because of her repeated statements about “literal” Qur’an interpretations being dangerous and her general failure to present alternative readings, many of Nomani’s readers understand her message to be that the holy book of Islam is inherently (“literally”, “strictly”) violent and anti-woman. As a result, she is often seen as someone wanting not only to change the way Muslims practice Islam, but also to revise parts of Islamic scripture itself. This delights some non-Muslims but appalls Muslims and raises doubts about Nomani’s real intentions. It also makes her susceptible to the charge that she is trying to “change the religion” – a toxic accusation in the Muslim community. By her own account, though, Nomani endorses precisely such a view of the Qur’an.

■ In a 2009 interview with Beliefnet, she was asked about the idea of “cherry-picking” Qur’anic verses:

Do you think we can cherry pick within religion? Follow the verses that work for us, and ignore the ones that seem intolerant?

She replies:

I don’t have a problem with that. I think so often this concept of cherry-picking is associated with negativity. Catholicism has gone through it — ‘Cafeteria Catholic’ they call it where you just go through the buffet line and pick what you like. Religion is identified by how people practice it. Even the Wahhabis cherry pick. Because if you really believe that you can’t have innovation in religion (which is what Wahhabis believe), they still allow for what’s convenient for them.

Just through the practice of being a human being you cherry-pick your way through life. I just reject that assumption that that’s disparaging. Every day of our lives is filled with choices. I think we have to stop chasing this idea of this universal practice of the religion that is divinely mandated and required, because we set that up as the bar. And then it’s intimidating. It silences critics. It silences questioning. It is used by the ideologues as a way of making people feel inferior.

Nomani here sets forth two basic options for the practicing Muslim: a) accept an “intimidating” “universal practice of the religion” that “silences questioning”, or b) “cherry-pick” verses from the scripture and ignore others.

This is unfortunate because women like Asma Barlas and Amina Wadud have worked tirelessly to drive home the point that Muslim women don’t need to be confined to such a choice: they should interpret the Qur’an for themselves and take refuge in it as a source of power against patriarchy. Nomani fails to promote such a vision of Islam, instead taking it for granted that the Qur’an has sections which are “literally” misogynistic/violent/unacceptable and suggesting that a progressive Muslim’s only viable option is to dismiss parts of their scripture. For the great majority of Muslim women, this is proposition is neither appealing nor empowering. In fact, it plays into the hands of conservatives who often guilt-trip critics by arguing that the Qur’an “literally” says X, and anyone refusing to accept it is ignoring the word of God and being a bad Muslim. Responding by asserting that some verses are simply incompatible with modern life is a guaranteed way to lose all leverage and credibility, instantly.

■ Nomani’s strongest statements about the Qur’an appear in a very recent article she published for The Daily Beast, called “Get Over the Qur’an Burning“. Here are excerpts from the piece:

I believe the Qurans are being burnt because we, as Muslims, haven’t dealt sincerely and intellectually with very serious issues that certain Quranic passages raise, particularly in the West. These include verses—when literally read—that say that disobedient wives can be beaten “lightly,” that Muslims can’t be friends with the Jews and the Christians, and that it’s OK to kill converts from Islam.*

We, as Muslims, need to tear a few pages out of the Quran—symbolically, at least, by rejecting literal adherence to certain problematic verses.

Look at one literal reading of the 34th verse of the fourth chapter of the Quran, An-Nisa, or Women. “[A]nd (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them,” reads one widely accepted translation. Based on a literal reading, Saudi scholar Abdul Rahman al-Sheha concludes that when dealing with a “disobedient wife,” a Muslim man has a number of options.

… this verse may have been progressive for the seventh century when women were supposedly beaten indiscriminately, but it isn’t compatible with the modern day, if read literally.

The kidnapping and killing of my friend and colleague Daniel Pearl in 2002 forced me to confront the link between literalist interpretations of the Quran and their role in sanctioning violence in the world. … These are verses such as … 9:5, which states that Muslims should “slay the pagans wherever ye find them” or … 5:51, which reads, “Take not the Jews and Christians as friends.”

We need to reject literal reads of the Quran and recognize that these verses were communicated during specific moments of war, and they aren’t edicts for all time. We, as Muslims, must reject the notion that we read these words literally. To many, that would be an act of blasphemy. But, until we do, the literal words of the Quran will be used to rally hate against the faith. … It’s really just these particular verses that need to go up in smoke.

[* there is no verse in the Qur'an which prescribes death for apostasy.]

Even in light of Nomani’s previous statements about the Qur’an, this article is surprising for its inflammatory suggestions that certain verses “need to go up in smoke”, and that Muslims “need to tear a few pages out of the Qur’an” (symbolically, “at least”).

The problem, as Nomani frames it, is that Muslims follow the Qur’an too closely and take it too seriously. An easy conclusion to make from that assertion would be that the Qur’an is not itself “perfect” and therefore not fully of divine origin.  A review of her “Mosque in Morgantown” documentary by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, for example, simply assumes this is her opinion:

It is difficult to gauge how many others share her discomfort with mosque leaders who treat the Quran as the literal, unalterable word of God.

Treating the Qur’an as the “literal, unalterable word of God”, of course, is a basic tenet of Islam (there is a wide difference between altering and reinterpreting). Nomani’s apparent disagreement with this raises major red flags for many Muslims. She was asked about this in the 2009 Beliefnet interview quoted above:

Some Muslims argue that a lot trouble stem from a literalist interpretation of the Qur’an. And in the Bible or the Torah there are also verses that can be viewed as intolerant. There are verses that seem to contradict each other. Should we read these verses literally or interpretively?

She responds:

There are many people who say that the Qur’an is the word of God, and you have to take it literally. I don’t accept that conclusion. I believe that we do have to use these principals of ijtihad (independent interpretation) to practice the faith in a way that is compatible with our modern day society and common sense.

This is ultimately where my conflict with my mosque became clear: What I kept hearing from the pulpit was a literal interpretation that was problematic on many levels, from how they thought we should relate to the West, to Jews and Christians, and to women. It was an expressed a violence against other people. That’s when you just have to say, no, that’s not acceptable. [sic]

Nomani’s first statement appears ambiguous, but her position is much clearer in light of a comment she posted beneath her “Get Over the Qur’an Burning”  article in The Daily Beast:

What I’m trying to say, then, is that when you think “Muslims consider the Koran to be dictation from the Almighty…” know that there are Muslims who don’t. There are Muslims who see the Quran as the revealed text of a man, the prophet Muhammad.

_____________________________________________

Asra Nomani, like anyone else, is entitled to her own opinions. But as a Muslim public figure seeking to effect change among other Muslims, her claims that the Qur’an should be “cherry-picked”, that certain verses in it should “go up in smoke” and that it is not even the word of God are simply disastrous. Not only is this a PR catastrophe of the first order, but it also betrays the legacy of the pioneering women Nomani bills as her inspirations.

*         *        *

I am always disheartened to hear progressive Muslims claim, (dis)ingenuously, it seems to me, that ‘‘Islamism is Islamism,’’ … To accept the authority of any group and then to resign oneself to its misreadings of Islam not only makes one complicit in the continued abuse of Islam and the abuse of women in the name of Islam, but it also means losing the battle over meaning without even fighting it …

~ Asma Barlas

*         *        *

Backing away from “problematic” verses and casting them aside as unchallengeable is the antithesis of “Islamic feminism”. It is the polar opposite of everything people like Asma Barlas stand and fight for.

As long as she avoids real engagement with the Qur’an, Asra Nomani’s arguments will have little practical value for Muslim women. Worse yet, because she portrays the Qur’an as a problem, many non-Muslims see her work as confirming their suspicions that Islam is violent and misogynistic at its core.

Her failure to challenge patriarchal readings of the Qur’an is not only a disservice to the women she speaks on behalf of, but this neglect is a disservice to Nomani herself because it seriously undermines her credibility.

Asra Nomani has taken a very confrontational approach in her mosque activism, but she hasn’t confronted violent and patriarchal interpretations of the Qur’an with the same fierceness. If she truly wants to embody the spirit of ijtihad, she needs to make the Qur’an her vehicle rather than her obstacle.

In the video below, Dr. Asma Barlas shares her views on the Qur’an and women’s rights. Tellingly, her critique of Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali applies equally to Asra Nomani.

Dearest friends, I have a confession to make: I just watched Eat, Pray, Love with Julia Roberts.

*needle screeches off record*

Look – I saw it as part of a family outing, OK?

DON’T JUDGE ME.

I know, I know. I should have just picked up a knife and ended my misery early. No George Strait song – no matter how catchy – should last 140 minutes. I don’t care how many sitar solos and gamelan synths you toss in.

And that’s really all the film is: an extended theatrical adaptation of “She Let Herself Go” – but with Italy, India and Indonesia replacing Las Vegas, Honolulu and New York City. Sound far-fetched? The film’s website is Letyourselfgo.com.

Just sayin’…

Self-absorbed spending sprees aside, the worst thing about Eat, Pray, Love is the film’s portrayal of its Asian characters.

When the protagonist, Liz Gilbert, visits Italy, she meets a group of interesting locals and spends time learning and traveling with them. She meets old Italians and young Italians, conservative types and liberals too. Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head!

After the first segment of the film, though, interaction with locals seems to taper off. In India Liz spends most of her time with a bespectacled Texan. She manages to make an Indian friend, but their relationship is not one of equals.

Tulsi, an endearing teen with cracked glasses, for some reason confesses within seconds of meeting Liz that she’s being forced into an unwanted marriage by her family. “It is the custom”, she explains. From that point on, Tulsi only exists as the symbol of an impending arranged marriage. The rest of the Indians are either carrying Liz’s bags or serving as background texture.

It gets worse.

In Indonesia we meet Ketut, a Balinese fortune teller, and Wayan, a healer. Neither are equals to Liz: Ketut is utterly one-dimensional and Wayan is (again) an imperiled brown female who Liz helps to ‘save’. Both speak broken English, but they do it in such a contrived, “playing-the-native” fashion that it is almost intolerable to listen to. (I say this as someone who has spent considerable time living in Indonesia.) At one point Julia Roberts patronizingly smiles at Ketut as though she wants to pat him on the head and take him home as her pet. I threw up a little.

Virtually all the rest of the Balinese are colorful cultural props: anonymous women carrying fruit on their heads, merchants, a couple of men with their roosters… They serve the same function as the rice paddies: to convince western consumers that they are in a magical, timeless wonderland. You never see a Balinese doing anything modern – not even riding a motorbike. You also do not see any men, other than an enfeebled, toothless old soothsayer. Bali is feminized and pre-modern: just as tourists want to imagine it.

“I want to go where I can marvel at something”, Liz laments in the start of the film. She interacts and dialogues with Italians, but it seems Indonesians are only objects to be marveled at. Liz beams as they spoon-feed her their primordial wisdom. Then she goes to the bar and gets drunk with expats.

Om…

It was obscene to see Bali so blatantly promoted as a sexual tourism destination. You may not have guessed it from the film, but Bali’s two largest tourist hubs, Kuta and Nusa Dua, are among the trashiest places in Indonesia, rife with prostitution and full of hideous kitsch marketed to the type of people who think Eat Pray Love is profound. Judging from the bonanza of tasteless marketing being fueled by the film in Bali, Ubud (the film’s location) will be heading the same direction. “Ubud’s gridlock, horrible sidewalks and inflated prices might mean that none of the hundreds of tourists who come here every day will ever come back – but there are still several billion people on earth who haven’t been to Ubud yet, and tour agencies will keep trying to capture them and send them uphill,” says Diana Darling, a longtime resident.

In the film, Bali is like an exotic escort: in her charming accent, she whispers sweet nothings into the ears of her visitors before yielding to their carnal desires. Eventually some foreign currency changes hands, and the visitors head home happy and hungover while she lights an incense and fixes the flowers just right for the next batch of pleasure-seekers. Really sickening stuff.

Back to those self-absorbed spending sprees.

There is nothing profound about Eat, Pray, Love. The driving force behind Liz’s “quest” is to rediscover a sense of pleasure: a desire to learn how to desire again. Liz wants to be in love, to enjoy her food again (she actually says this), and to “marvel at something”. The spiritual platitudes she gathers along the way help her do this without feeling guilty. This, in fact, is the purpose of her stop in India. As the sagely Texan from the ashram tells her, “Here’s the deal, you’re going to stay here until you forgive yourself, you hear me? Everything else will take care of itself.” … Shades of Adi Shankara.

Liz’s story, to borrow a phrase from Slavoj Žižek, is nothing more than aestheticized hedonism. It’s Sex and the City with rudraksha beads.

A recent article in the Daily Mail exemplifies the narcissistic nonsense that is Eat, Pray, Love and shows just how meaningless its brand of pop spirituality is. The author, Flora Stubbs, chronicles her attempt at recreating Liz Gilbert’s quest. (Make note, my fellow humans: our civilization has reached a point where we now purchase other people’s experiences.)

This journey, she writes, is “in pursuit of a sensual and spiritual awakening”.  “I hoped to combine a detox of body and mind with a pleasurable holiday,” she says. This all makes sense, of course, because in Liz Gilbert’s world, the sensual merges with the spiritual and pleasure is worship. Shopping is meditation. God is gratification. Romance is meaning of life and enlightenment is an oil massage.

In Ubud, Stubbs checks into one of the many upscale foreign-owned resorts that now offer an Eat, Pray, Love package. You know – precisely the kind of place that sucks revenue out of Bali while driving up real estate prices and perpetuating the privatization of land that has demoralized Bali’s traditional agricultural system. (But you needn’t fret about that. Chant the Guru Gita and still your mind. Forgive yourself, and everything else will take care of itself. You’re not a bad person – you do yoga, remember?)

The posh Ubud hotel makes “detox a pleasure” and its “cleansing” routine feels “like pure indulgence”. The Singaporean owner, Stubbs writes, has managed to create “that elusive thing: a spa retreat that doesn’t feel like one”.

Here, my friends, we have the essence of Gilbert’s journey: a consumer experience that doesn’t feel like one.

The cover epitomizes the war-perpetuating fantasy that America’s military must not abandon its beneficent, merciful mission to destroy Al-Qaeda/Taliban militants fundamentally redevelop an utterly war-torn society (and in the process empower Afghan women) with its patented “government in a box” (nuts and bolts not included).

So in other words: we can’t leave Afghanistan because if we leave, we won’t be able to accomplish.. what we haven’t been able to accomplish. A quite compelling argument, I admit.

Anyway, this morning I was reading an interesting discussion about all this at Muslimah Media Watch which ended with the thought:

I wonder what the reaction would be if the image was of a woman mutilated in a U.S. raid or drone attack, with the headline “what happens if we stay.”

I thought that was a brilliant idea, and it inspired me to put this together (click to enlarge):

The image on the cover shows a young victim of a US airstrike in Azizabad, Afghanistan in 2008 which killed between 70 and 90 civilians (source).

I only hope that more people can be exposed to the truth of what we do in the context of our wars, so that they might help bring an end to the current occupation in Afghanistan and also be less easily persuaded into supporting other wars in the future.

Feel free to circulate/repost this image.

Peace.

In recent years, the burqa (or rather the banning of it) has become a cause célèbre in French politics. President Nicolas Sarkozy famously called it a “sign of debasement” and declared that it “will not be welcome” in the French Republic;¹ around the same time, a parliamentary commission was created to study the burqa and produce a report on its use.² As if the running subtext about immigration and French identity was not clear enough, the burqa has been used as grounds for denial of French citizenship in two highly publicized cases.^{3 (a, b)} French Family Minister Nadine Morano has even suggested that foreigners be required to sign a “no-burqa” contract upon entering France.⁴ When the aforementioned parliamentary commission released its report, it described the burqa as an “unacceptable” affront to French values and recommended that it be banned from all public institutions.⁵ Not surprisingly, of the 200 people that the commission heard testimony from, just one was a Muslim woman who veiled her face.⁶

Going beyond the proposals of the parliamentary report, Prime Minister François Fillon drafted a letter to the French Council of State requesting legal advice on how to enact the “widest and most effective” possible ban on burqas in France,⁷ and Jean-François Copé, the ruling UMP party’s head in parliament, advanced a draft law targeting the burqa which stipulates that “nobody, in places open to the public or on streets, may wear an outfit or an accessory whose effect is to hide the face”.⁸ This has all culminated in a 335-1 vote in the French lower house of parliament on a law to ban all face-covering veils in France and impose a fine of up to 150 euros ($190) on women found wearing them, as well as punish any men found to be forcing a woman to cover their face with up to a year in prison and a 15,000 euro ($19,000) fine.⁹ The French Senate is scheduled to vote on the law in September (2010).

When most people talk about "burqas" in the European context, they're thinking of "niqabs"/"niqaabs". For simplicity's sake, I generally refer to the "burqa" here since the discourse has already been framed using that word.

The buildup to the recent vote neatly dovetailed with a so-called “grand debate” on French national identity launched by Nicolas Sarkozy’s government in November of 2009 and managed by the Ministry of Immigration and National Identity,¹⁰ an institution formed by Sarkozy in 2007.¹¹ Family Minister Nadine Morano epitomized the shallowness of the project with her widely criticized remarks about French Muslims needing to “love France when they live here, to find work and not to speak in slang”, reminding them that they also “shouldn’t put their caps on back-to-front”.¹² In a statement published in Le Monde in December 2009, Sarkozy himself articulated what many felt to be the true meaning of the “grand debate” – a warning to Muslims that they’d better avoid disturbing French® identity with (as Sarkozy put it) “ostentation” and “provocation”. After calling Muslims his “fellow countrymen” and pledging to combat discrimination, the French President added, “But I also want to tell them that in our country, where Christian civilization has left such a deep trace, where republican values are an integral part of our national identity, everything that could be taken as a challenge to this heritage and its values would condemn to failure the necessary inauguration of a French Islam” [emphasis mine].¹³

The deliberate framing of Muslim immigration as a challenge to national identity has not gone unnoticed, nor has the impeccable timing of the “debate”, which was designed to finish just prior to France’s regional elections in March (2010).¹⁴ In the end, the endeavor – which Immigration and National Identity minister Eric Besson called a “success” – produced proposals including hanging French flags at schools, having school children sing the French national anthem, banning burqas and other face-covering veils in public places, and buffing up the “citizen contract” which newcomers to France are required to sign.¹⁵ This entirely symbolic set of prescriptions, as well as the whole premise behind Sarkozy’s project (the idea that France’s integration woes are a matter of “identity” and can be addressed through “debate”) is typical of France’s failing approach to its social problems. The “debate”, which ended up quickly devolving into what some called a “bar-room discussion” that resembled a (U.S.) republican ‘Tea Party’ more than anything else,^{16 (a, b)} was widely rebuked in the French press, with Le Figaro saying it “fell far short of expectations”, L’Echo de la Haute Vienne calling it a “pitiful seminar” and Libération branding it a “fiasco” and comparing its discourse to… a “rabbit fart”.¹⁷

In the meantime, several French mosques were vandalized (painted with messages such as “dirty niggers” and “France for the French”),^{18 (a, b)} eight Muslim graves were desecrated,¹⁹ and most recently a fight broke out among two French women after one of them was harassed by the other for wearing a niqaab (note that the woman in the niqaab was a convert).²⁰ The French Council of Muslim Faith called for a “national debate” on Islamophobia – an idea that was going to be included in the parliamentary commission’s report on the burqa but was nixed at the last moment.²¹

Despite having lived in France for generations, Muslims are not considered French by many so-called "French French" people.

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Missing the point

In the U.S., this series of events (as well as prior controversies over the Muslim headscarf in French schools during the 1990s) has sustained a seemingly endless stream of news editorials and internet commentary. Despite the large amount of attention garnered, there seems to be something conspicuously absent from the conversation. Between impassioned cries about women’s rights, secularism and the freedom of religious expression, there remains a deafening silence about France itself. If France is mentioned (that is, in any capacity beyond the most pedestrian American fantasies about “Paris”, “French women”, “fine art” or haute couture), it is in the vague context of “French values”, laïcité (French secularism) or the welfare state. Within the debate, it is unclear whether France is a place or simply a political idea.

This, however, is precisely the purpose of the burqa discourse: it conveniently frames the challenge of French Muslim integration as a problem of religious and cultural difference. The discussion then gets deflected into the abstract realms of political philosophy and Qur’anic exegesis, avoiding any exploration of what life is actually like for Muslim women in France.

At every turn, the French Muslim experience is downplayed and obscured. The obstacles to French Muslim integration, symbolized by the burqa, are invariably dissociated from French society and instead ascribed to foreign customs (“Arab/Muslim culture”) or globalized politico-religious movements (“Salafism”). What Sarkozy and his cabinet are loathe to admit is that the very French problems of residential segregation, inequalities in the education system, staggering unemployment and widespread social exclusion represent barriers to Muslim women that are far more opaque than the fabric of any garment. But drifting aimlessly in the world of the symbolic and having lofty “debates” about “what it means to be French” is an ingenious way to avoid the thorny, concrete questions of the structural.

By zeroing in on the burqa, Sarkozy and others have managed to construct a discourse on French Muslim integration that precludes almost any consideration of France itself.

A woman walks through a French cité.

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Livin’ just enough… for the cité

France’s first major wave of (mostly) Muslim migration began around 1914 when an auxiliary work force was needed during the war. Algerians (then considered members of France) were given the right to emigrate, and in response a group of impoverished, overwhelmingly male North African laborers (including Moroccans and Tunisians illegally) came in search of jobs, growing in number from 30,000 in 1914 to 250,000 by 1950.²² Their lives – from the moment of arrival by ferry to subsequent settlement in cramped, isolated housing – were marked by racism and segregation (as were their graves).²³ In the 1950s and ‘60s, when France required more cheap, uneducated labor for its expanding industrial sector, more North African migrants were ushered in. As it was generally hoped that these workers would only remain in France temporarily, they were abandoned to lives of squalor and segregation similar to those of their predecessors – clustered in decrepit shanty towns called bidonvilles that lined the periphery of the French city.^{24 (a, b)} Many migrant workers later shifted from the bidonvilles to what were called foyers (dismal, isolated dormitories with overcrowded apartments and shared facilities).²⁵

A bidonville in Aubervilliers (near Paris), 1957.

The 1950s also saw the emergence of government subsidized housing projects in France. At the time, these building complexes, called cités, were a considerable improvement from the conditions that workers and their families faced in the inner cities, bidonvilles and foyers. These new suburban apartments were seen as the stepping stone between the discomfort of the city and the dream of home ownership,²⁶ and as such they were hailed as a “sign of progress”.²⁷

This was considered cutting-edge when it was built. The architects, no doubt, never had to live in these hideous boxes.

When economic recession and deindustrialization set in during the 1970s, the factory jobs that had propelled so many French workers into (and then beyond) the cités started to vanish.²⁸ At this point the housing projects became transformed from a symbol of opportunity and mobility to “a trap for working-class families who did not have the financial means to leave”,²⁹ with so-called “white flight” occurring shortly after.³⁰ By 1974, more than 1.2 million immigrants of Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian origin were living in France.³¹ From the mid ‘70s into the ‘80s, many native French families left the cités through the help of a home-buying program sponsored by the French government.^{32 (a, b)}

Gradually France’s subsidized housing estates fell into disrepair. After decades of neglect, their infrastructure began to crumble, as did the prospect of social or economic mobility for remaining residents. As the suburban projects became catch-alls for the most marginalized and excluded of French society (largely but not entirely immigrants and their children), commercial and state services receded and problems of petty crime and poor security compounded.

_______________________________________________________

The banlieue and its baggage

The suburban territories that line the French urban periphery (and contain the cités) are called “banlieues”. The most striking feature of France’s banlieues is not their abysmal design or dilapidated structures, but their deep isolation and separation from both the metropolitan city and each other. Etienne Balibar (2007) compares the banlieue to a South African township because of “the way it tends to reproduce a sort of apartheid in Europe on the level of citizenship that ‘sets apart’ populations of immigrant origin”.³³ Paul Silverstein & Chantal Tetreault (2006) argue that France has recreated the “colonial dual cities” it once maintained in North Africa, with residents trapped “in a state of immobile apartheid, at a perpetual distance from urban, bourgeois centers”.³⁴

“RIM’K”, a French hip-hop artist of North African origin, raps about the banlieues:

__________________

Banlieue is often used interchangeably with cité and shares the same negative association with crime and immigrants. Although some French suburban districts can be affluent, I use “banlieue” to refer to what it signifies in common parlance – a space of French suburban marginality distinguished by dilapidated housing projects, perceived “lawlessness” and large numbers of North and sub-Saharan African immigrants and their children.^{35 (a, b, c)} By the late 1980s the banlieues had become heavily stigmatized in the French imagination as ominous sources of crime and social disorder; around this time the terms “ghetto” and “cité-ghetto” became popularized as synonyms for banlieue. This coincided with the growing perception of the cité as an “immigrant ghetto” and its identification as the very embodiment of France’s ‘immigrant problems’.^{36 (a, b)}

Inside a banlieue Parisienne.

Sociologists have challenged the banlieue/“ghetto” slippage. Comparing the banlieue with the black American ghetto, Loïc Wacquant (2007) notes that there are some significant similarities: a high (and increasing) concentration of minorities or “ethnically-marked populations” combined with general depopulation, a relatively high proportion young people and single-parent families, spiraling unemployment in the wake of deindustrialization, and a “bleak and oppressive atmosphere” generally resented by residents.³⁷ Wacquant stresses, though, that critical differences in spatial scale, racial and class diversity, the degree of economic and cultural self-containment, and levels of poverty, crime and physical degradation – as well as the political and economic processes that created both spaces – separate the ghetto (a “continent”) and the banlieues (“residential islands”) into leagues of their own, making the term “French Ghetto” a “sociological absurdity”.³⁸

Suburban unemployment and unrest has been a problem in France for decades.

__________________

Despite their differences, the banlieue and the ghetto are both marked by what Wacquant (1996) calls “advanced marginality”. Spatially, he explains, areas of advanced marginality are “well-identified, bounded, and increasingly isolated territories” seen by residents and outsiders as “social purgatories” and “urban hellholes where only the refuse of society would accept to dwell”.³⁹ Wacquant adds that it doesn’t matter whether these places actually live up to their reputations; the stigma attached to them develops a life of its own and has very real, negative consequences for inhabitants. As Azouz Begag (2001) explains, this is precisely the case with France’s banlieues:

. . . the poorest dilapidated neighbourhoods have been unbound from the rest of the city and portrayed as unsecured areas. It has been to this point that in French, the word ‘Zone’ or banlieues have become synonymous with areas of acute social disadvantage, unsecured, ethnic ghettos. This type of discrimination often based on a word-of-mouth stigmatisation has largely participated to split the city at a social level between us and they. Widespread media coverage of violent confrontations between police and disillusioned youths has helped to give these banlieues a reputation of lawlessness.⁴⁰

The concept of “la banlieue” – which from its very inception conveyed the image of a racialized “urban hellhole” (i.e., “immigrant ghetto”) – has been central to the French discourse on immigration since the mid 1980s. Sylvie Tissot (2008) observes that one of its most insidious effects has been to redirect the discussion from socioeconomics to ethnicity. Questions of poverty, unemployment, and educational disparity become “discussed only through territorial categories”, while “the language of socioeconomics … give[s] way to the language of space”.⁴¹ Tissot elaborates,

The new paradigm approaches social exclusion through a growing but disguised racialization of discussions of poverty, with territorial categories functioning as euphemized racial categories, as well as through the question of social ties rather than economic hardships.⁴²

Out of sight, out of mind, out of luck.

The ultimate result of the immigrant-problem-banlieue conflation is what Tissot calls “ethnicization”. Instead of illuminating the larger issues of institutionalized racism, economic alienation and social exclusion commonly faced by French immigrants, “la banlieue” presents itself as “a problem posed by immigrants, and more precisely by their supposedly insurmountable cultural and religious differences”.⁴³

What do you think French politicians would rather discuss – burqas, or this:

__________________

Because most residents in French public housing are of Maghrebin (Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian), sub-Saharan African and Turkish origins,⁴⁴ the banlieue becomes seen not only as the materialization of France’s “immigrant problem”, but also its “Muslim problem”. Since the late 1980s, the banlieue has been used to symbolize the failure and even inherent inability of French Muslims to integrate.⁴⁵

This logic is nothing new. “French” and “Muslim”, we should remember, were mutually exclusive categories in French colonial ideology; as Cécile Laborde (2008) explains, “French citizenship was more accessible to a Pole moving to France than to a Muslim resident of French Algeria”.⁴⁶ Historian Joan Wallach Scott (2007) calls this the “paradox of the French civilizing mission” (i.e., “that the stated goal was to civilize (to assimilate) those who finally could not be civilized”) – adding that it “continues to this day”.⁴⁷

This is not a banlieue. It is a French internment camp. You might have confused the two.

If the challenge of “integrating” French Muslims appears to be a throwback to the old colonial paradox (to ‘civilize those unable to be civilized’), it is only because people have made it that way themselves by defining France’s “integration” problem as a question of culture and religion rather than social immobility, housing policy and educational inequality. Discussions of the banlieues themselves can also get transformed into complaints about culture (e.g., “speaking in slang”, wearing hats backwards and the like). Until the real issues are addressed, and people stop framing the discourse on French Muslims as a cosmic clash of religion and secularism, things will only get worse. Perhaps, in time, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Even Nicolas Sarkozy occasionally has to acknowledge the bloated elephant in the corner of the room, which he did in 2008 when he rhetorically asked:

How can we talk about a republic when your success at school and in professional life depends not on … merit but largely on your social origin, the neighbourhood where you live, your name or the colour of your skin? ⁴⁸

Good question.

But I’d bet a thousand francs that you won’t find the answer hidden beneath any burqa.

Despite her widespread fame and enormous influence as a South Asian and Muslim journalist, Asra Nomani polarizes a lot of people, particularly Muslims. Some would point to her “immoral” personal background (she had a child out of wedlock) or her feminist outlook to account for the negative reactions she gets. For sure, many of her detractors do go after her personal life, which is perhaps the easiest (cheapest) line of attack. This fact, though, doesn’t explain the poor reception she receives from a number of Muslims who share her general goals and ideals.

Looking at more than 80 articles, interviews and media appearances by Ms. Nomani spanning the last ten years, I’ve tried to highlight the main complaints that Muslims might have with her ideas and methods. A lot of the nasty ad hominem swipes she receives ultimately stem from some of these core grievances.

While I somehow sort of doubt Asra reads this blog, I do hope she might swing by for a look and perhaps take some ideas from it on how to more effectively convey her messages and accomplish her goals. Her work is often frustrating to me, but I believe she’s a good person with good intentions and I agree with a lot of her main ideas.

I just wish she would express them better.

I’ll be posting my analysis and commentary shortly, which is divided by topic for the sake of simplicity. In the meantime, feel free to comment if you have any input or suggestions

السلام عليكم

It was the year John Glenn completed the first US earth orbit, “the twist” was taking the country’s dance floors by storm, “The Jetsons” made its TV debut, and the Beach Boys had their first hit. Ah… those were the days.

That same year, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy made a visit to Pakistan. She visited Lahore, Peshawar, and even the Khyber Pass in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province (now called “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa“). Notice how warmly she is received by the public, and how easily she is able to travel without fear of being blown up into a thousand pieces.

I wonder, what has changed since then to make extremism blossom in the region and lead most Pakistanis to view the US as the greatest threat to their country? Hmmm…

Update: I was thinking at first that the answer must be: a) they got more Muslim or b) we got more freedumses, but my research assistant has indicated otherwise. Back to the drawing board..

Enjoy.

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This is a hilarious montage of popular French television host and producer Thierry Ardisson and his waffling position on freedom of expression. It’s a wonderfully  succinct depiction of the emptiness behind arguments promoting (*certain*) hateful speech on the grounds of ‘freedom of expression’. One of the guests featured in the clip makes a great point: “For me, freedom of expression and respecting the other go hand in hand. I am for freedom of expression. But why exercise it only to hurt another?”

(there is another, possibly longer version of this video that ends with a play on the French Republican slogan Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité… can’t find it at the moment but let me know if you do and I’ll update the post.)

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This is a revealing clip from an interview with veteran Israeli politician and activist Shulamit Aloni, where Aloni quite matter-of-factly explains how critics of Israeli policy are summarily smeared as anti-Semites.

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ta ta for now

The father and brother of a Harry Potter actress will appear in court later this month in Manchester, England, on charges of threatening to kill the young star, prosecutors said Friday.

Abdul Azad, 54, and his son Ashraf, 28, are accused of attacking actress Afshan Azad earlier this month because of her relationship with a Hindu man, a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said. The family is Muslim.

As was to be expected, a chorus of condemnations rose in response to this, with many citing Islam or religion in general as the root cause of the attack. There’s something curious about the way people are discussing this… Take a look at these comments posted in The Huffington Post:

“Okay, after reading through four different news stories of this incident, one thing appears to be clear. Nobody who knows anything about this is claiming that it had anything to do with religion.”

“Let’s all keep dancing around and pretend this has nothing to do with Islam.”

“Try to spin it as having nothing to do with religion if you like but it’s pretty plain.”

“Does this involve Islam?”

“Could also be this has nothing to do with RELIGION. … All I’m saying is RELIGION isn’t always culprit.”

“Could be. But most probably this has much to do with religion.”

“Tell you what – will you give ma $1 for every attempted murder I can find where family members collaborate to kill one of their own and it has nothing to do with Islam? You will lose a lot of money.”

“I absolutely positively guarantee that this had nothing to do with religion. :/”

“let me guess…had to do with their religion…”

People on all sides of the debate were pretty concerned about whether or not this incident “involved” or “had to do with” religion/Islam. I found myself wondering if that question had any significance at all.

I’m still trying to figure out what it actually means to describe this as “having to do with religion” or “having to do with Islam”. There seems to be an unspoken consensus among a lot of people that “having to with religion” or “involving Islam”  is some sort of definitive explanation of what happened. I can imagine two people chatting..

A: Did you hear about that girl getting attacked by her dad and brother? What was the deal with that?

B: Had to do with religion.

A: Ah..

Using this description is a wonderful way of talking about something without saying anything about it. It’s like describing Joseph Stack’s decision to suicide bomb an IRS building as being caused by “political philosophy” (and of course then decrying the long list of all violent, crazy things done by “political people”).

A: Did you hear about that IRS building getting attacked by that guy in his plane? What was the deal with that?

B: Had to do with political philosophy.

A: Ah..

If we spoke this way about the Stack incident, even in the most casual of conversations, no one in their right mind would take us seriously. The same should be true for issues like this one.

Of course the attack on Afshan Azad might “have to do with” Islam. The problem is, though, that a great many people use that misleadingly obvious statement not to mean that the attack is related to religion, but that it is reducible to religion – as if Azad’s father and brother were reading the Qur’an one afternoon and came to a passage that told them to kill her.

A riddle: if someone has major political disagreements with his daughter (e.g. one is liberal and the other conservative), and he finally decides to try to kill her, do we explain the attack as “having to do with politics”, or could it be possible that he was simply… a violent control freak?

Finally, a comment about so-called ‘honor’ killings and religion.

1) They predate Islam.

2) They happen frequently among non-Muslims as well.

3) They are unheard of among the world’s largest population of Muslims (among others).

4) They are driven by ideas about, well, “honor”. People don’t seem to get this part, and thus anytime someone associates a religious issue or value with this “honor”, they fail to differentiate the two:

“She says these horrific acts against women have nothing to do with Islam”

That’s a notion difficult to defend when the reason for that behavior was that the girls’s boyfriend wasn’t of islamic faith.

It doesn’t occur to them, though, that:

killing your daughter for dating outside the Islamic faith is against the Islamic faith.

Oops.

I feel bad that I haven’t posted anything in a good while.. Part of the reason has been that it is simply depressing to write about various shades of ignorance all the time. It’s obviously important to address common misconceptions, lies and nonsense, but it can be a seriously draining exercise that turns you into a cynic and a pessimist if you’re not careful. I’m sarcastic a lot of the time, but it really does hurt me to see people treat and speak about others in such dehumanizing ways. Like did you catch what Senator Chuck Schumer said this week? What really is there to say to something like that, besides “Wow, that’s f*cked”?

It’s a constant challenge to respond to things like this in a constructive way. It’s also hard not to let one’s own approach become dictated by them; after all, the things that make us immediately want to speak out are usually the most offensive and ridiculous. I try to keep in mind, though, that a positive counterexample to something is usually more effective than a negative rebuttal.

… But I suppose there’s a lot of demolition that has to take place before a new foundation can be laid.. So creative destruction would be a happy medium

Anyway, I’m gonna keep on keepin’ on. If anyone was wondering, no I haven’t scrapped the blog and I will be back soon with new posts.

Peace.