To whom shall we give Access to Our Water Holes? - Islam and international relations

Cross Currents, Wntr, 2002 by Farid Esack

In the Name of Allah, The Gracious, The Dispenser of Grace -- In the Wake of September 11th

O who have attained unto faith! Be ever steadfast in upholding equity, bearing witness to the truth for the sake of God, even though it be against your own selves or your parents and kinsfolk, whether the person concerned be rich or poor, God's claims takes precedence over the claims of either of them. Do not then follow your own desires lest you swerve from justice; for if distort the truth, God is indeed aware of all that you do. (Qur'an 4.135)

The story is told of a Jewish rabbi whose disciples were debating the question of when precisely "daylight" commenced. The one ventured the proposal: "It is when one can see the difference between a sheep and a goat at a distance." Another suggested, "It is when you can see the difference between a fig tree and an olive tree at a distance." And so it went on. When they eventually asked the Rabbi for his view, he said, "When one human being looks into the face of another and says, 'This is my sister, or this is my brother,' then the night is over and the day has begun."

Introduction

"You've seen the picture of Jesus and the lamb in some Christian homes? Jesus was hanged because he stole a lamb," some Hindu kids told me in Pakistan. "Sir, do you know why the Sunnis fold their hands during the prayers? Because they hide their little idols in them," my students at an all-Shiite school told me. (I always refrained from telling them what I was, not that I actually knew!) "The Shiites do not believe in this Qur'an; they believe that the goat of A-isha', the Prophet's wife, ate ten chapters," the venerable Mawlana Badi'uzzaman taught our third-year class in Karachi. (I did wonder how the goat managed to devour a neat ten chapters and called it quits right there!)

While all of these examples emanate from my days as a teacher and student in Pakistan, and while there is certainly a link between these stories and the burning of churches, as well as the current numerous drive-by killings of worshippers in Sunni and Shi'ah mosques, I do not for a single moment want to suggest that Pakistani or Muslims are exceptional in the art of demonizing "the other." I only wish to demonstrate the crudeness of demonization among my own as a way of, from the outset, declaring myself and my own as a part of the problem.

My Pakistan experience was also the first time I saw the remarkable similarities between racism -- so vividly manifested in my homeland -- and sexism. In Pakistan, I witnessed how women were treated exactly the same way that I, as a black male, was treated in South Africa. My sojourn in Pakistan thus alerted me to the comprehensiveness of the quest for just relationships. It is not only a quest of people with diverse political agendas or from diverse cultural, ethnic or religious backgrounds who need to learn to live together; it also includes those of diverse physical abilities and appearances, gender, and sexual orientation.

While all of these examples of religiously inspired violence or sexism in Pakistan suggest that there is something intrinsically noble about learning to live together, another part of my identity, my South African-ness, has also enabled me to see slightly beyond the often simplistic nature of calls to eliminate prejudice and to learn to live with tolerance and in peace.

As a Muslim scholar, I try to find inspiration and guidance (or is it justification?) from the Qur'an, as I think through these issues. I can use Islam and its text, the Qur'an, to reinforce all my prejudices, to shed them, or to rework them. As Goldziher says, "It could be said about the Qur'ab,.... everyone searches for his view in the Holy Book." During the Battle of Siffin, the opponents of Ali Ibn Abi Talib (May Allah be pleased with him), the Prophet Muhammad's nephew, demanded that the dispute be resolved by resorting to the Qur'an as an arbitrator. Ali's dilemma is reflective of that facing many a Muslim committed to the Qur'an:

When Mu'awiyah invited me to the Qur'an for a decision, I could not turn my face away from the Book of Allah. The Mighty and Glorious Allah declared that "if you dispute about anything refer it to Allah and His Apostle." (Q. 4:59) [However,] this is the Qur'an, written in straight lines, between two boards [of its binding]. It does not speak with a tongue; it needs interpreters, and interpreters are people.

Interpreters are people who carry all the inescapable baggage of the human condition. Every generation carries its own and every individual his/her own. Our reading of the Qur'an or of our religious heritage is thus marked by the nature of our baggage, our frustrations and aspirations.

Truth and Justice

Truth, whatever else it may be, is also a human construction. We also make truth, much as we like to believe that it is solely an eternal and self preexisting reality beyond history. Modernity has accelerated the awareness that the mind is not a tabula rasa, furnished with facts entirely imported through cognitive or spiritual senses -- or imported by the authority of religio-intellectual traditions. The seemingly inescapable legacy of our theistic beliefs and our ongoing and often inexplicable commitment to them compels us to find new ways of describing the way preexisting reality -- Allah -- may address today's world. This world is, of course, made and being made by people who are not today whom they were yesterday. It is also a world desperate for justice and wholeness.