tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/islamic-history-18241/articlesIslamic history – The Conversation2023-09-25T04:02:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2131482023-09-25T04:02:27Z2023-09-25T04:02:27ZHow popular music videos drove the fight against the Islamic State<p>Almost a decade ago, the Sunni jihadist network known as the Islamic State (IS) declared the formation of an Islamic Caliphate after they <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Mosul">captured the Iraqi city of Mosul in June 2014</a>.</p>
<p>In response, tens of thousands of Shia men joined a complex patchwork of militias to fight against IS. Many of these militias are notoriously violent and directly loyal to Iran’s theocratic state.</p>
<p>But very little is known about how these Shia militias were so quickly and so effectively mobilised. In <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569775.2023.2196875">our research</a>, we have taken a novel approach, examining the many popular music videos produced by these militias.</p>
<p>These music videos drew on a complex cocktail of historical myths and contemporary clergymen to mobilise Iraq’s Shia population to fight the IS.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-islamic-state-where-does-it-come-from-and-what-does-it-want-52155">Understanding Islamic State: where does it come from and what does it want?</a>
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<h2>Foundational myths, historical grievances</h2>
<p>The popular music videos explicitly reference a deeply held set of religious myths and symbols that have informed Shia politics since its inception.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUUGLiTzUSY">One video</a> shows images of militiamen driving towards the front-lines and firing from a bunker at IS targets. </p>
<p>The singer extols the religious virtues of fighting the IS by comparing those killed today with the Shia martyrs at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Karbala">Battle of Karbala</a>: </p>
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<p>We fight our enemies. Our martyrs are similar to the martyrs of Karbala. Our people are supporters of Hussein.</p>
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<p>The divide between the Sunni and Shia sects dates back to the early years of Islam. </p>
<p>A debate emerged after the Prophet Muhammad’s death about who should lead the Islamic community. The majority accepted the authority of the Prophet’s senior companion, Abu Bakr. A minority, later identified as Shiites, believed only a blood relative of the Prophet – in particular, his cousin Ali – had the right to lead.</p>
<p>In the year 680, the division between the two sects escalated at the Battle of Karbala, where Ali’s son Hussein and many of his followers were defeated and executed by Sunni forces.</p>
<p>The legend of the Battle of Karbala has come to symbolise the historical injustice of the Shia faithful at the hands of the Sunni majority. It is commemorated at the annual <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashura">Ashura</a> festival in which Shiites reenact the battle, including by self-flagellation. </p>
<p>The emotive lyrics and tone of the song are specifically designed to resonate with this history of suffering. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-shia-sunni-divide-78216">What is the Shia-Sunni divide?</a>
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<h2>The Shia jihad against the IS</h2>
<p>The popular music videos produced by different Shia militias also draw on fatwas (religious edicts) issued by several prominent Shia clerics in response to the violence of the IS.</p>
<p>In 2014, Iraq’s most senior Shia cleric <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_al-Sistani">Grand Ayatollah Sistani</a> issued a fatwa announcing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7by5almGhA">a jihad (holy war) against the IS</a>.</p>
<p>He called for a mass Shia mobilisation, arguing </p>
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<p>It is the legal and national responsibility of whoever can hold a weapon to take up arms to defend the country, the citizens and the holy sites.</p>
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<p>Some popular music videos explicitly cite the fatwas of Sistani and other clerics, encouraging their young supporters to heed these calls. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvDC9XTRcU.">A short clip</a> shows armed members of one militia chanting: “Al-Sistani is like a crown on our heads. Your wish is our command.”</p>
<p>One very slickly produced <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6DMWC93po8">music video</a> refers to both historical grievances over the failure to recognise Ali as the legitimate heir of the Prophet Muhammad and to the centrality of Sistani’s fatwa to their decision to fight the IS:</p>
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<p>We are the Turkmen [of Iraq] <br>
We follow Ali’s path <br>
Iraq must live in peace and happiness <br>
When Sistani orders us, we obey. We will defeat and destroy the IS <br>
We believe in the fatwas of our religious authorities, and we defend our holy sites.</p>
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<p>As the singer recites each verse, the footage shows heavily armed Shia men posing in front of a tank. It also features live action footage from various battles against the IS, including advancing on key targets, firing machine guns and heavy artillery. </p>
<h2>Mobilising young men</h2>
<p>These videos serve as a unique archive of the war against the IS, demonstrating the ways in which these militias found novel ways to mobilise young men to fight by drawing on a rich catalogue of Shia religious symbolism as well as the fatwas of clerics like Sistani.</p>
<p>Slick popular music videos draw on a rich catalogue of historical motifs of suffering as well as the contemporary edicts of key clergymen, produced by different Shia militias and shared on YouTube and other social media platforms. </p>
<p>These evocative and poignant songs played an underappreciated and under-examined part in mobilising young men to fight back against the horrors of the IS, indicating the powerful role popular culture plays in contemporary warfare.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-islamic-state-flag-hijacks-muslim-words-of-faith-banning-it-could-cause-confusion-and-unfair-targeting-of-muslims-209042">The Islamic State flag hijacks Muslim words of faith. Banning it could cause confusion and unfair targeting of Muslims</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213148/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Isakhan receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Department of Defence.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ali Akbar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In our new research we examined popular music videos which drew on historical myths and contemporary clergymen to mobilise Iraq’s Shia population to fight the Islamic State.Benjamin Isakhan, Professor of International Politics, Deakin UniversityAli Akbar, Sessional lecturer and researcher, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2090422023-07-10T01:44:27Z2023-07-10T01:44:27ZThe Islamic State flag hijacks Muslim words of faith. Banning it could cause confusion and unfair targeting of Muslims<p>The Australian government may make the Muslim community a target through an ill-informed proposal.</p>
<p>New <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/r7048_first-reps/toc_pdf/23077b01.PDF;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22legislation/bills/r7048_first-reps/0000%22">legislation</a> has been introduced to parliament to outlaw the public display of “prohibited symbols”. These include two Nazi symbols and the Islamic State flag.</p>
<p>The bill was initially introduced to ban the Nazi Hakenkreuz (swastika) symbol as Australia tries to deal with a rise in <a href="https://time.com/6286524/australia-ban-nazi-symbols/">Neo-Nazi activity</a>. Neo-Nazi groups are becoming a greater threat as they try to recruit new members and are becoming more brazen through <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/podcast-episode/neo-nazi-groups-becoming-more-brazen-says-asio-chief/f4ke3kbyv">public displays</a>, according to ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess.</p>
<p>The Islamic State flag was not in the initial <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bills/s1373_first-senate/toc_pdf/23S01020.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22legislation/bills/s1373_first-senate/0000%22">bill</a>. To justify its late addition, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus <a href="https://ministers.ag.gov.au/media-centre/speeches/second-reading-counter-terrorism-legislation-amendment-prohibited-hate-symbols-and-other-measures-bill-2023-14-06-2023">said</a> the IS flag symbolised the “abhorrent actions taken by one of the world’s deadliest and most active terrorist organisations”.</p>
<p>According to the proposed bill, the IS flag is to become a prohibited symbol. Anything that “so nearly resembles” the IS flag such that “it is likely to be confused with, or mistaken for” the IS flag, is also to be banned.</p>
<p>The bill then details what is meant by public display: “if it is capable of being seen by a member of the public who is in a public place”.</p>
<p>This can include documents such as newspapers or a magazine. Basically, anywhere in public where the “symbol” can be seen.</p>
<p>But this is problematic because the IS flag hijacks words which are sacred for all Muslims. The IS flag ban will likely create more problems than it solves and should be removed from the legislation. Or at the very least, the ban should be postponed until solid data is available about its problematic use.</p>
<p>There has been some backlash over the proposed wording already. In response, Dreyfus said the Labor government <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/well-listen-government-responds-to-concerns-over-proposed-is-flag-ban/y5xqk8wf5">would listen to such concerns</a> and that final changes to the wording are still possible, though it remains to be seen what form that would take. </p>
<p>The bill will now be looked at by a parliamentary committee.</p>
<h2>What is on the IS flag?</h2>
<p>The wording on the IS flag is of great significance for Muslims. The IS flag writes, “There is no God but God” in Arabic which is the fundamental tenet of Islam. It is the Islamic creed. It’s a phrase that Muslims declare at least once in their lifetime, while most Muslims would repeat it multiple times in a day.</p>
<p>The wording in the white circle of the flag reads “Allah, Messenger, Muhammad”. It is believed this is a <a href="https://time.com/3311665/isis-flag-iraq-syria/">seal</a> used by Prophet Muhammad in sealing letters that were sent to dignitaries. Historically, it was common to seal letters in such a way.</p>
<p>All Muslims embrace the wording found on the IS flag. IS adopted such a flag to claim they are acting in the name of God and following the way of Prophet Muhammad. </p>
<p>With such an approach, terrorists are claiming <a href="https://newlinesmag.com/essays/the-hoax-in-the-isis-flag/">legitimacy</a> – they are hijacking Islam.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Saudi Arabia flag" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535998/original/file-20230706-21-5t00of.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Islamic creed is also on the Saudi Arabian flag: La ‘ilaha 'illa-llah ('there is no God but God’), muhammadun rasūlu-llāh (‘Muhammad is the Messenger of God’).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>Confusion and unnecessary suspicion</h2>
<p>Banning the IS flag or anything that “so nearly resembles” it could potentially create many problems and confusion in everyday life for Muslims – a group of people who have already endured so much due to <a href="https://theconversation.com/lets-rip-it-off-her-head-new-research-shows-islamophobia-continues-at-disturbing-levels-in-australia-179106">Islamophobia</a>.</p>
<p>Many Muslims display the Islamic creed in its Arabic wording within their homes, as stickers on their cars, in mosques, or as artwork in various forms. Only last week, I was driving behind a car that had the Islamic creed written on its rear window, large and bold.</p>
<p>Even the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/flag-of-Saudi-Arabia">Saudi flag</a> has the Islamic creed written on it, though with a green background. Nevertheless, it is the exact wording found on the IS flag. </p>
<p>A law enforcer, politician or lay person may not know the nuanced differences between an IS flag and the use of the Islamic creed by a member of the Muslim community in their personal lives. This may result in unnecessary suspicion or even arrest.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1503599434319474688"}"></div></p>
<p>For Muslims and for those who understand Islam, the creed has been hijacked by a terrorist organisation. While the intent of the ban may have been good, going ahead with such a ban will create more problems than it solves.</p>
<p>The wording of this proposed bill may even strengthen the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48603170">narrative</a> of IS, that “Muslims and the Muslim identity is under attack in the West”.</p>
<p>What’s more, the impact of IS is significantly <a href="https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/syria-isis-terrorism/">dwindling</a> – it’s not the threat it was between 2014 and 2019.</p>
<p>New South Wales police data shows public displays of the IS flag have <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/islamic-state-flag-flown-over-300-times-in-nsw-in-last-six-years-20211130-p59dje.html">markedly declined</a> since their peak in 2015. As such, there’s no need to ban a flag for a <a href="https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/syria-isis-terrorism/">weakened organisation</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zuleyha Keskin is affilitated with ISRA Academy.</span></em></p>While the flag ban is well-intentioned, we must remember the creed of Islam has been hijacked by a terrorist organisation - and one which is dwindling anyway.Zuleyha Keskin, Associate Professor, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1915892023-01-08T19:00:39Z2023-01-08T19:00:39ZLong before Silicon Valley, scholars in ancient Iraq created an intellectual hub that revolutionised science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500598/original/file-20221213-1956-ue3d6s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5716%2C3725&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Time and again, collaboration has proven to be a key driver of scientific and technological innovation. So it follows that some of the greatest advances have come from intellectual hubs set up for this very purpose. </p>
<p>Today Silicon Valley is synonymous with this idea – but it’s just one in a long line of institutions that paved the way before it. One such example came from Baghdad, Iraq, during the Islamic Golden Age in the fourth Islamic century (tenth century AD).</p>
<p>It was around this time, when Europe was living through its so-called “Dark Ages”, the House of Wisdom (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Bayt-al-Hikmah">Bayt-al Hikmah</a>) was born. It was here that many great works from Persia, China, India and Greece were collected and translated into Arabic, including works by Aristotle and Euclid. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500594/original/file-20221213-3335-u7oobq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500594/original/file-20221213-3335-u7oobq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500594/original/file-20221213-3335-u7oobq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500594/original/file-20221213-3335-u7oobq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500594/original/file-20221213-3335-u7oobq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500594/original/file-20221213-3335-u7oobq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500594/original/file-20221213-3335-u7oobq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500594/original/file-20221213-3335-u7oobq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">This illustration showing Aristotle teaching a student is from a manuscript attributed to Assyrian physician and writer Jabril ibn Bukhtishu (8th-9th century)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arabic_aristotle.jpg#filehistory">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This culturally and linguistically diverse environment gave rise to innovations that would have lasting legacies in fields including algebra, geography, astronomy, medicine and engineering. </p>
<h2>Automata with talent</h2>
<p>During its tenure of some three-and-a-half centuries, the House of Wisdom was populated by a number of multitalented thinkers.</p>
<p>Among these were the Banu Musa brothers – three ninth-century Persian scholars who lived in Baghdad. The brothers formed a multidisciplinary team: one was a mathematician, one an astronomer and one an engineer.</p>
<p>They translated works from other languages into Arabic, sponsored other translators and invested money in buying rare manuscripts. They were also involved in politics and the development of urban infrastructure, and were even musically talented. </p>
<p>But arguably their most tangible contribution was to automated machines, or automata. One of their works published in 850 AD, <a href="https://invention.si.edu/ingenious-devices">The Book of Ingenious Devices</a>, translated as The Book of Tricks, describes machines that served as precursors to modern robots. </p>
<p>These automata included mechanical musical instruments and a self-playing steam-powered robotic flute player. Vrije University of Amsterdam’s Teun Koetsier considers this mechanical musician to be the world’s <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094114X01000052#BIB8">first programmable machine</a>. </p>
<h2>Brilliant polymaths</h2>
<p>Another scholar of the House of Wisdom at the time was Mohammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, whose name inspired a term we use regularly: “algorithm”.</p>
<p>In fact, his is a two-fold legacy, as the term “algebra” also derives from the title of one of his books, Kitab al-Jebr, or The Book of Completion. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498936/original/file-20221205-18-4z6rq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498936/original/file-20221205-18-4z6rq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498936/original/file-20221205-18-4z6rq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498936/original/file-20221205-18-4z6rq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498936/original/file-20221205-18-4z6rq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498936/original/file-20221205-18-4z6rq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498936/original/file-20221205-18-4z6rq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498936/original/file-20221205-18-4z6rq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A page from al-Khwarizmi’s Kitab al-Jabr, written around 820 AD.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>This was one of the (if not the) world’s first publications <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2021666184/">of algebraic rules</a>. He also made important contributions to geography and astronomy.</p>
<p>Al-Khwarizmi worked closely with al-Kindi, also known by his Latinised name Alkindus. </p>
<p>Al-Kindi was an Abbasid polymath. He was a citizen of the Abbasid Empire, which spanned the Arabic-speaking world from what’s now Pakistan to Tunisia, and from the Black Sea to the Indian Ocean. He was a mathematician, student of cryptanalysis, and pioneer in music theory who combined Aristotelian philosophy with Islamic theology. </p>
<p>Al-Kindi is credited with introducing Indian numbers to his colleagues and peers in the Arab-speaking world. Together with al-Khwarizmi, he developed the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hindu-Arabic-numerals">Arabic numerals</a> that we all use today (i.e. numbers 0-9). </p>
<p>He also authored the oldest known book on cryptanalysis, and is known to have <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1198/tas.2011.10191">used statistical inference</a> (a type of data analysis). Statistician Lyle Broemeling describes this as one of the earliest known examples of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23339552">both these methods</a>. </p>
<p>Al-Kindi’s personal library was so magnificent the Banu Musa brothers apparently conspired, in their jealousy, to have him beaten, evicted from the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ntLEUHTXxUMC&oi=fnd&pg=PT6&ots=FAkICUzaNS&sig=OwI_aXuIMufOXayPBI4TTz_WWrM&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Kindi&f=false">House of Wisdom</a>, and his library confiscated and given to them.</p>
<h2>Gone without a trace</h2>
<p>After centuries of fostering intellectual thought and technical development, The House of Wisdom was destroyed by the Mongols during the Siege of Baghdad in 1258 – leaving next to no traces.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498937/original/file-20221205-18-jhgl7i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An artwork depicts the siege of Baghdad by Mongols" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498937/original/file-20221205-18-jhgl7i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498937/original/file-20221205-18-jhgl7i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498937/original/file-20221205-18-jhgl7i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498937/original/file-20221205-18-jhgl7i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498937/original/file-20221205-18-jhgl7i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498937/original/file-20221205-18-jhgl7i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498937/original/file-20221205-18-jhgl7i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This painting by Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani formed part of a manuscript made in Iran around 1430 AD. It shows the 1258 siege of Baghdad by the Mongols, headed by Genghis Khan’s grandson Hulagu Khan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8427170s/f374.item">Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Supplément Persan 1113</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This absence of archaeological evidence has even led some scholars to doubt its very existence, or to suggest it existed not so much as a place, but as a state of mind. </p>
<p>In his book Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, Dimitri Gutas suggests the House of Wisdom could, at best, be romanticised as an “idealised national archive”. But this view is challenged by Islamic Studies expert Hossain Kamaly in the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4311303?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">review of the volume</a>. </p>
<p>However, even Gutas agrees that between 800 AD and 1000 AD there was a large-scale translation movement in the Middle East that led to a comprehensive and systematic translation of Greek non-literary works into Arabic. Translators were held in high esteem, and social prestige was awarded not only to them, but also to the elite who helped fund their activities.</p>
<p>As renowned science communicator and theoretical physicist Jim al-Khalili <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Pathfinders/ntLEUHTXxUMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22there+was+indeed+an+establishment+known+as+the+House+of+Wisdom%22&pg=PT125&printsec=frontcover">summarises</a> in his book Pathfinders:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[T]here was indeed an establishment known as the House of Wisdom […] expanded dramatically in scope from a mere palace library […] that became a centre for original scientific scholarship.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, the House of Wisdom could have been a small space, but one that enabled a culture of interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition in a rich and dynamic environment. Its legacy and contribution to modern research are clear. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500595/original/file-20221213-18-yusnzh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500595/original/file-20221213-18-yusnzh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500595/original/file-20221213-18-yusnzh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500595/original/file-20221213-18-yusnzh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500595/original/file-20221213-18-yusnzh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500595/original/file-20221213-18-yusnzh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500595/original/file-20221213-18-yusnzh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500595/original/file-20221213-18-yusnzh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In his book Kitab Surat-al-ard, Al-Khwarizmi depicts what is considered one of the earliest maps of the River Nile (11th century).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Musa_al-Khwarizmi#/media/File:Earliest_extant_map_of_the_Nile,_in_al-Khw%C4%81razm%C4%AB%E2%80%99s_Kit%C4%81b_%E1%B9%A3%C5%ABrat_al-_ar%E1%B8%8D.jpg">Wiki Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lessons for today</h2>
<p>While there’s much we don’t know about the House of Wisdom, one thing seems clear: it was driven by an appreciation of the rich ideas that can emerge in a dynamic, multidisciplinary environment.</p>
<p>In this regard, it begins to sound less like Silicon Valley, which has shown itself to be focused <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/30/silicon-valley-wealth-second-richest-country-world-earth">squarely on commercial gain</a> and is known for attracting <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/photos/2016/06/silicon-valleys-14-most-spectacular-failures">unscrupulous behaviour</a>. </p>
<p>On closer inspection, The House of Wisdom sounds more like a collaborative environment that could be achieved in higher education.</p>
<p>One key to its success was consistent financial backing from various caliphs, who were the political and religious leaders of Islamic states, known as caliphates. In other words, the scholars were focused on just that – scholarship – rather than applying for funding. </p>
<p>Also, all manners of gathering knowledge were equally respected, rewarded and encouraged, which led to <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/imagining-the-house-of-wisdom-1001-inventions/ZgVBINJnnb9HJg?hl=en">social stability and prosperity</a>. </p>
<p>What would it take to create a space like this today? A complete re-evaluation of the way higher education is managed, funded, judged and taught? </p>
<p>Or maybe we should simply ask: are our disciplinary divides, which position the sciences and humanities as antithetical, holding back innovation? </p>
<p>For the scholars in Baghdad in the fourth Islamic century, these pursuits were opposite but equal sides of the same coin. Perhaps we’d benefit by taking a page from their book.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-to-study-science-communication-beyond-the-west-152237">3 reasons to study science communication beyond the West</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191589/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The House of Wisdom was populated by a number of multitalented thinkers – at a time marked by fervent collaboration and intellectual prosperity in the Arabic-speaking world.Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller, Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1914752022-10-07T12:19:41Z2022-10-07T12:19:41ZHijab rules have nothing to do with Islamic tenets and everything to do with repressing women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488332/original/file-20221005-20-9rxvpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C4958%2C3292&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets to protest the death of Mahsa Amini.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TurkeyIranProtest/8df67af81f5645be8ce8fa94f7d7958e/photo?Query=iran&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=57388&currentItemNo=57">AP Photo/Emrah Gurel</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in 2022 after she was held by Iran’s morality police for not complying with the country’s hijab rules drew global attention to the repression of women in Iran. Neighboring Saudi Arabia, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-shia-sunni-divide-78216">a Sunni country</a>, <a href="https://www.history.com/news/sunni-shia-divide-islam-muslim">theologically and politically opposed</a> to Shiite Iran, has similar restrictive rules when it comes to women. </p>
<p>The connection between <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745322162/islamic-activists/">faith and practice</a> in the Muslim world at large lies <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346158554_Social_Justice_in_Islam_By_Deina_Abdelkader_Herndon_VA_International_Institute_of_Islamic_Thought_2000_216_pages">at the heart of my research</a>. A wider look at some of the Muslim majority countries shows that even when they may claim to be diametrically opposed ideologically, they often have similar religious police, or other rules for enforcing faith in everyday life. Moreover, it is my belief, they have nothing to do with Islamic tenets. </p>
<p>In many Muslim majority countries, imposing barriers on women has been a way of informing the world what kind of policy and ideology the government believes in.</p>
<h2>Market inspectors turned into morality police</h2>
<p>The closest thing to the morality police of today to be found in early Islamic history is the “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/558587">Muhtasib,” or observers</a>. The Muhtasib, who had to know Islamic law, were appointed by the ruler, such as the sultan in Ottoman times, to oversee matters of trade. <a href="https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/afterpharaohs2010/13942.html">The Muhtasib’s job was to</a> make sure that traders were using correct measures and weights, paying taxes and maintaining hygienic conditions in their establishments. </p>
<p>More generally <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=facultyworkingpapers">they would observe public actions</a> and had the jurisdiction to reprimand and at times penalize people. They were not known to target women, and they respected the beliefs of multiple faiths that existed at the time. In contemporary Iran, the rules on head covering are upheld for all women, even if they’re not Muslim.</p>
<p>Islam’s basic tenets are that humans share a direct relationship with God without the interference of individuals or any organizations. The Quran <a href="https://quran.com/en">does not stipulate</a> that women shouldn’t drive, as in Saudi Arabia, or that women should be forced to wear conservative dress. While the Quran asks both men and women to dress modestly, it does not discriminate. </p>
<h2>Politics of the veil</h2>
<p>In today’s political environment, women’s bodies and their sartorial modesty are often the quickest way for governments to express whether the country is secular. </p>
<p>In the 1970s, for example, the Syrian government forbade women from <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/women-and-gender-in-iraq/women-gender-nation-and-the-bath-authoritarian-regime-19682003/310B9F4D75D2AF1C84A9133BCFD2CF95">wearing the veil in public</a> because President Hafez-al-Assad wanted to convey to the outside world that the Baathist regime <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-18582755">was secular and left of the center</a>. The policy continued under President Bashar al-Assad and, in 2010, over a thousand veil-wearing primary school teachers <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/islamic-face-covering-veil-banned-syrian-universties/story?id=11204788">were removed from their teaching jobs</a> and given administrative posts. </p>
<p>In Iran, however, following the 1979 revolution, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/iran-and-the-headscarf-protests/">as observers have pointed out</a>, the hijab came to be the “central symbol,” of Islamist rule. Compulsory hijab wearing was enforced in Iran through law, and any violation was penalized with fines and a two-month prison sentence. </p>
<p>Egypt provides another example. In 2011, the image of a woman whose face was veiled but whose upper garment had come apart exposing her blue bra while she was being dragged by the Egyptian police, captured the media’s attention. The image, which came to be known as the “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2011/12/21/144098384/the-girl-in-the-blue-bra">girl in the blue bra</a>,” soon became a symbol of women’s oppression by the Egyptian military. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A half clothed woman wearing a blue bra and jeans being dragged by policemen, with one about to step on her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2011 image known as ‘The Girl in the Blue Bra,’ taken during the Egyptian Revolution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2011/12/21/144098384/the-girl-in-the-blue-bra">Stringer/Reuters/Landov</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The fact is that women face police brutality regardless of how they dress. The “girl in the blue bra” was attacked by the police because she dared protest the country’s conditions. I believe disrobing her and kicking her in her abdomen was being done on purpose to deter other women from joining the revolution. In 2011, many female protesters were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/31/egypt-online-protest-virginity-tests">put through a virginity test</a> by the Egyptian police when in captivity.</p>
<p>As opposed to a misconception that Muslim women are always forced to act conservatively in their respective countries, the truth is that women are violated for being nonconformist citizens in their respective political regimes. </p>
<p>What is important to note is that these patriarchal practices often are not limited to policing modest dressing for women and penalizing them brutally, but also in forcing them to remove their veil. Following the 2013 coup in Egypt, when Egyptian army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi overthrew the democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, widespread changes were introduced, <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-egypte-monde-arabe-2020-1-page-89.htm">including a crackdown on women</a> who chose to wear the niqab. </p>
<p>Women’s rights and choices over their bodies need to be respected – by Muslim majority nations and the rest of the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deina Abdelkader does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Imposing restrictions on women has been a way for many countries to demonstrate to the world what policies they want to pursue.Deina Abdelkader, Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1850712022-06-21T10:36:48Z2022-06-21T10:36:48ZWhy the Lady of Heaven film is dividing Muslim opinion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469988/original/file-20220621-15-ifh3ka.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Imam Ali shrine, in Najaf, Iraq, is one of the most sacred Shi'a sites.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/imam-ali-shrine-najaf-iraq-1705400182">CameraAction | Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61729392">picketing by Muslim groups</a>, leading UK cinema chain Cineworld cancelled all screenings of blockbuster film, <a href="https://ladyofheaven.com/">The Lady of Heaven</a>. Produced in Britain, this historical epic tells the story of Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammed. </p>
<p>Protesters have labelled the film “blasphemous” and <a href="https://5pillarsuk.com/2021/12/24/lady-of-heaven-pure-unadulterated-sectarian-filth/">“sectarian filth”</a>. Governments in Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Morocco have all denounced it. The Muslim Council of Britain has condemned it as <a href="https://mcb.org.uk/community/muslim-council-of-britain-mcb-responds-to-the-release-of-a-divisive-film-in-british-cinemas/">“divisive”</a>, and more than 130,000 people have signed <a href="https://www.change.org/p/remove-the-lady-of-heaven-from-uk-cinemas">a petition</a> calling for it to be banned. </p>
<p>For some, this is <a href="https://archbishopcranmer.com/lady-of-heaven-islam-life-of-brian-moment/">“Islam’s ‘Life of Brian’ moment”</a>, in reference to the Christian <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190822-life-of-brian-the-most-blasphemous-film-ever">protests</a> against the 1979 Monty Python parody film about the life of Jesus. But The Lady of Heaven is not a parody of Islam. It does not intend to discredit or mock the Islamic faith. Written by a Shi’a Islamic scholar, Yasser al-Habib, it purports, in fact, to tell the “untold story” of one of Islam’s most venerated figures, using a contemporary storyline involving Islamic State (IS) as an introductory device.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1MaDAW0jRYM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Scholarship shows, however, that the narrative the film hinges on represents a very specific interpretation of Islamic history. This not only places it outside the majority (Sunni) consensus, but is also an interpretation many Shi'a Muslims would find extreme.</p>
<h2>Sunni and Shi'a split</h2>
<p>Although Islam comprises many different denominations, tensions between its two largest sects, Sunnism and Shi'ism, have flared throughout history. To understand why this film has been labelled as “sectarian”, it is important to understand the divergences between mainstream Sunni and Shi’a theology. </p>
<p>The initial split between Sunnis and Shi'as occurred as a result of a succession dispute following the death of the Prophet Muhammed in 632AD. Sunni Muslims (the majority) believe that Muhammed’s companion, Abu Bakr, was elected as caliph. The minority Shi’a Muslims believe that the Prophet directly appointed his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, husband to his daughter, Fatima. It was this dispute that eventually led to the crystallisation of two distinct Islamic sects. </p>
<p>Fatima is thus a central figure in Shi’a Islamic thought. She had a direct bloodline to the Prophet. And she was the mother of Hussain, whose death at the Battle of Karbala in 680AD <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395717707092">is considered</a> one of the formative moments of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789047407263_020">Shi’a Islamic belief</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/heroes-and-martyrs-of-palestine/06840B11626C45A8176D15FA2581F89B">practice</a>. </p>
<p>Fatima herself is said to have died not long after the Prophet. The manner of her death is a further contentious issue between Sunnis and Shi'as. </p>
<p>Some Shi’a scholars believe that two of the Prophet’s companions, Abu Bakr and Umar, injured Fatima behind a door while forcing entry to Ali’s house. They believe this caused her injuries, eventually leading to her death. Many Sunnis, conversely, find this suggestion that two of their most venerated figures contributed to the death of the Prophet’s daughter deeply offensive. </p>
<p>Some critics of the film have suggested that an opening scene of The Lady of Heaven contains a veiled reference to this interpretation of Fatima’s demise. In the scene, Islamic State fighters force entry into a young Iraqi Shi’a boy’s house. They push the boy’s mother (who is also called Fatima) behind the door and eventually execute her. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A close up shot of the mosaiqued wall of an Iraqi mosque." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469197/original/file-20220616-15-6tatfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469197/original/file-20220616-15-6tatfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469197/original/file-20220616-15-6tatfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469197/original/file-20220616-15-6tatfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469197/original/file-20220616-15-6tatfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469197/original/file-20220616-15-6tatfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469197/original/file-20220616-15-6tatfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Prophet Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, Imam Ali, is revered among Shi'a Muslims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/shrine-imam-ali-ibn-abi-talib-1576615531">CameraAction/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fatima reimagined in Shi’a thought</h2>
<p>The film’s website describes Fatima as “the first victim of terrorism”. Contemporary portrayals of Fatima and other early Islamic figures as revolutionary fighters tap into what my research shows is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09637494.2021.1995275">a very specific narrative</a> about the arc of Islamic history.</p>
<p>Fatima has long been revered as “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40326855.pdf?casa_token=V5serabIcaIAAAAA:4Vc2NLBQscfeeLJhOIJ24BuP4uTYA5slb6UnIBDiX_Q_urYmS5_nhQKxRz850xNRpfsf2ztWi3hxnMfPz-oe-y_k3oapz8cSkDXZNm4Af08JaPgh2lYp">an exemplar of chastity and religiosity</a>”. However, as Ruth Roded wrote in her 1994 book, <a href="https://doi.org/10.31826/9781463239442">Women in Islamic Biographical Collections</a>, until recently, she was considered a “marginal and even passive” figure in the events of early Islam. </p>
<p>It wasn’t until the 1950s, with Shi’a thinkers including Mohammed Bakr al-Sadr (the founder of the Islamic Da’wa Party in Iraq) and former Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, that Fatima’s role was revised. She was transformed, as Iranian studies specialist Rachel Kantz Feder <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2014.878508">has put it</a>, “from a weak victim to a courageous revolutionary heroine”. </p>
<p>This shift was part of a reimagining of Shi’a history, from quietist dissidence to emancipatory struggle, that took place throughout the 20th century. In his 2011 book, <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674064287#:%7E:text=Shi'sm%3A%20A%20Religion%20of,artistic%20nuances%2C%20and%20metaphysical%20details.">Shi'ism: A Religion of Protest</a>, Iranian-American scholar Hamid Dabashi argues that this shift helped inspire the Shi'a Islamic revolution in Iran. </p>
<p>The Lady of Heaven extends this revolutionary narrative, drawing explicit parallels between some of the Prophet’s companions (most notably Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman) and IS in modern-day Iraq. Malik Shlibak, one of the film’s producers, <a href="https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1534661413985206279">recently commented on BBC Newsnight</a> that “they [Abu Bakr and Umar] were barbaric, ISIS-like figures”. </p>
<p>This is an extreme and marginal viewpoint, even within Shi’ism. Ayatollah Sistani, Shi'a Islam’s current highest-ranking scholar, <a href="https://imam-us.org/sayyid-sistanis-fatwa-about-the-companions-of-prophet-pbuhhp">issued a fatwa</a> denouncing the cursing of the Prophet’s companions in this manner. The man behind the film, Yasser al-Habib, a Kuwaiti-born, Shi'a cleric exiled in the UK, has long been a <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/qba75q/meet-the-controversial-shia-cleric-bringing-sectarian-tension-to-the-uk">divisive figure</a> among both Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. Al-Habib gained notoriety for <a href="https://www.eman-network.com/extremist-individuals/yasser-habib">his view</a> that the Prophet was assassinated by Abu Bakr, Umar, and his third wife Aisha, all of whom are venerated in Sunni Islam.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An overview of a large mosque compound at maghrib prayer time." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469200/original/file-20220616-11-lr7hna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469200/original/file-20220616-11-lr7hna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469200/original/file-20220616-11-lr7hna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469200/original/file-20220616-11-lr7hna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469200/original/file-20220616-11-lr7hna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469200/original/file-20220616-11-lr7hna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469200/original/file-20220616-11-lr7hna.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Al-Masjid an-Nabawi or the Mosque of the Prophet, in Medina.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/almasjid-nabawi-maghrib-prayer-1148506721">Mohamed Reedi/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some commentators have <a href="https://themuslimvibe.com/faith-islam/in-history/the-lady-of-heaven-a-deliberately-divisive-waste-of-15-million-review">raised concerns</a> that the film could exacerbate Sunni misconceptions about Shi'a beliefs. In particular, it could intensify the historic trend of labelling Shi'as as “kafr” (unbelievers) in extreme Sunni discourse, a trend which has become increasingly visible in recent years, especially since the rise of IS.</p>
<p>With sectarian tensions flaring in the Middle East, this film is a potential touchpoint in a long history of Sunni/Shi’a animosity. </p>
<p>Enlighted Kingdom, the production company behind The Lady of Heaven, was contacted to comment for this article, but did not respond before it went to press.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emanuelle Degli Esposti has received funding from the British Academy, the Leverhulme Foundation, the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, the Council of British Research in the Levant, and SOAS, University of London. </span></em></p>The cinematic epic hinges on a very specific, and contentious, interpretation of early Islamic history.Emanuelle Degli Esposti, Research Associate, Centre of Islamic Studies, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1688102021-10-04T15:29:51Z2021-10-04T15:29:51ZThe Taliban aren’t taking Afghanistan back to the middle ages – they’re subverting Islam’s sound medieval legal principles<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424024/original/file-20210930-26-1umoq4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C2844%2C1833&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harsh punishments: the Taliban have announced they will reinstate execution and amputations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Taliban are back in the saddle and, with them, the dreadful spectre of the harsh punishments meted out in their previous time in power: public hangings and stonings, amputation of hands and public floggings. Veteran Taliban fighter and senior official Mullah Nooruddin Turabi <a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-afghanistan-kabul-taliban-22f5107f1dbd19c8605b5b5435a9de54">explained in a recent interview</a> that these penalties – including hangings and amputations – are “very necessary” in order to achieve “deterrence”. </p>
<p>When the Taliban first came to power in 1996, observers predicted Afghanistan would be propelled back into the middle ages. Are we headed the same way today? In fact, far from signalling a return to the spirit of Islam’s medieval legal tradition, the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic criminal justice is an exceedingly narrow and, arguably, misguided version.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1441360533278576640"}"></div></p>
<p>On a fundamental level, the Taliban’s approach suggests disrespect for some basic rules of traditional Islamic criminal law. Indeed, the Taliban amputate the hands of thieves not because it is particularly “Islamic” to do so, but simply – and cruelly – because they can.</p>
<h2>Islamic criminal law and human rights</h2>
<p>Traditionally, Islamic law, or <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-27307249">Sharia</a>, is based on the few legal verses contained in Islam’s sacred scripture, the Qur’an, as well as on the sizeable body of reports about sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad (who died in AD632), the <a href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195390155/obo-9780195390155-0083.xml#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CSunna%E2%80%9D%20is%20the%20Arabic%20term,of%20life%20and%20legal%20precedent.&text=In%20the%20framework%20of%20Islamic,law%20and%20belief%20as%20well.">Sunna</a>. </p>
<p>Over the course of Islamic history, Islamic jurists (<em><a href="https://academic.oup.com/ajcl/article-abstract/30/suppl_1/1/2682291?redirectedFrom=PDF">fuqaha’</a></em>) debated at length which of the reports in the Sunna are reliable, and they developed a complex set of rules about how to interpret the Qur’an and the Sunna. They also determined under what conditions it is legitimate to extend the Qur’an’s and the Sunna’s norms to novel cases, and they carefully described the rules of analogical reasoning (<em><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/qiyas">qiyas</a></em>) that are to be applied in the process.</p>
<p>In the area of criminal law, Islamic jurists distinguished between different types of crime. Firstly the small number of “statutory crimes” – the so-called <em><a href="http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e757">hadd</a></em> offences, for which severe penalties are mandated by the Qur’an and the Sunna. </p>
<p>Then there was talionic punishment – the principle of a like-for-like punishment, or an eye for an eye, known as <em>qisas</em>, for homicide and cases of infliction of bodily harm, where punishment can be waived by the victim’s family and converted into a fine, or <em>diya</em>. Finally, the area of “discretionary punishment” (<em>ta’zir</em>), which is imposed at the judge’s discretion and should never exceed <em>hadd</em> punishment.</p>
<p>Contemporary debates about Islamic criminal law tend to centre on <em>hadd</em> offences and their punishments, to a large part because of their shock value. There is no easy way to square traditional Islamic criminal law, especially <em>hadd</em> law, with the modern idea of universal human rights. The right to bodily integrity and the right to choose one’s religious belief and sexual orientation are diametrically opposed to the violent <em>hadd</em> punishments for “offences” such as adultery and theft. </p>
<p>In fact, this is why in all but a few Muslim-majority countries, including those that explicitly refer to Sharia law in their constitutions, penal law is not Islamic. The current Egyptian penal code, for example, is <a href="http://theitalianlawjournal.it/data/uploads/4-italj-1-2018/pdf-singoli/1-piccinelli.pdf">influenced by the Italian criminal code</a>, while the Moroccan penal code is inspired by French <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/S/bo8930448.html">legislation</a>. </p>
<p>There are exceptions, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and, now, the Taliban’s Afghanistan. But for the Sharia-based, criminal law of these countries to claim an “authentic” Islamic pedigree, it would need to respect some basic principles of Islamic criminal law, anchored in the premodern tradition of Islamic jurisprudence.</p>
<h2>Legal principles</h2>
<p>One such principle is that a person cannot be punished for doing something that is not prohibited by law. When it comes to punishments such as flogging and amputation, this principle was taken very seriously by medieval Muslim jurists. One cannot, they taught, simply extrapolate from one “offence” to another and apply the same punishment – as they stated, “there is no analogical extension of <em>hadd</em> punishments” (<em>la qiyasa fi al-hudud</em>). </p>
<p>As noted above, the group of <em>hadd</em> crimes and punishments is small. Most medieval jurists counted no more than five or six such offences (theft, brigandage, adultery, unfounded accusation of adultery, consumption of alcoholic drinks, and apostassy), defining them narrowly.</p>
<p>Another, equally important principle formulated by medieval Islamic criminal law theorists is that “<em>hadd</em> punishment is to be averted on the strength of legal <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25704002">doubt</a>”. Standards for proof in Islamic criminal law are extremely high. Barring confession by the perpetrator, only male eyewitness testimony is regarded as acceptable evidence – circumstantial evidence is generally not accepted. </p>
<p>Both confessions and testimonies must explicitly name the crime. Mere insinuation, or use of euphemisms, does not suffice. The testimony of a secondary witness – though admissible in other areas of the law, the law of contract for example – is deemed unacceptable in Islamic criminal law. </p>
<p>In sum, premodern Muslim jurists were <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/crime-and-punishment-in-islamic-law/B6DB73FB474660E44B8B1EE27D75770F">reluctant to see</a> the serious penalties of Islamic criminal law implemented. No such reluctance, alas, appears to characterise Mullah Turabi and the Taliban.</p>
<h2>The common good</h2>
<p>Late-medieval Islamic criminal law inserted some loopholes into the fabric of the law for the despotic state to intervene and impose harsh punishment based on political expediency. From roughly the 13th century, “crimes against the state” came to be added to the above-mentioned list of five or six offences punishable by (extreme) corporal <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781315613093-16/public-order-peri-bearman-rudolph-peters?context=ubx&refId=56c387e2-a90f-462e-98a8-b512090087a0">punishment</a>, and many of the restrictions that applied to “discretionary punishment (<em>ta'zir</em>) were lifted.</p>
<p>Past experience suggests the Taliban authorities will be keen to exploit these loopholes. However, it would still be wrong to assume that the Taliban’s approach to Islamic criminal law reflects the true "spirit” of Islamic law.</p>
<p>Of course, none of this distracts from the fundamental tension between Islamic criminal law and the idea of universal human rights. But the principle commonly found in western and other legal systems that punishments are justified as long as they help to create a better society is not alien to Islamic law. </p>
<p>Pre-modern Muslim jurists regularly identified the <a href="https://brill.com/view/title/12932">common good</a> (<em>al-maslaha al-‘amma</em>) as an essential goal (<em>maqsad</em>) of Islamic law. And even Turabi speaks of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-afghanistan-kabul-taliban-22f5107f1dbd19c8605b5b5435a9de54">“deterrence”</a> as the reason why Islamic criminal law should be implemented, rather than claiming that the amputation of hands for theft is God’s revealed law and therefore immune to challenge. </p>
<p>But we are a long way away, it seems, from an open, philosophically informed discussion about how the common good is best achieved, and what this would mean for Islamic criminal law. As Turabi himself <a href="https://apnews.com/article/religion-afghanistan-kabul-taliban-22f5107f1dbd19c8605b5b5435a9de54">told the Associated Press</a>: “No one will tell us what our laws should be.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168810/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian Lange does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Taliban’s punishments are at odds with many basic principles of Islamic law.Christian Lange, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1480702020-10-20T19:40:32Z2020-10-20T19:40:32ZBeheading in France could bolster president’s claim that Islam is in ‘crisis’ – but so is French secularism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364353/original/file-20201019-21-1qrz6hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=69%2C0%2C5749%2C3882&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An homage to Samuel Paty, a teacher murdered after showing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed from the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Oct. 18, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-gathered-in-place-de-la-republique-in-paris-france-news-photo/1229165233?adppopup=true">Adnan Farzat/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A French high school teacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to his class <a href="https://www.liberation.fr/france/2020/10/16/terrorisme-un-enseignant-decapite-dans-les-yvelines_1802673">was beheaded on Oct. 16 by an 18-year-old Muslim refugee</a> in what <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54579403">France’s President Emmanuel Macron characterized as an “Islamist terrorist attack.”</a></p>
<p>The killing is the latest high-profile attack by a Muslim extremist in France, coming after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-paris-50736">2015 massacre at Charlie Hebdo magazine</a> and the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36801671">2016 truck attack</a> in Nice. It also occurred two weeks after Macron gave <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/2/macron-announces-new-plan-to-regulate-islam-in-france">a controversial speech defining Islam</a> as “<a href="https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2020/10/02/la-republique-en-actes-discours-du-president-de-la-republique-sur-le-theme-de-la-lutte-contre-les-separatismes">a religion that is in crisis today all over the world</a>.”</p>
<p>France, which colonized many Muslim-majority territories in Africa and the Levant in the 19th and 20th centuries, such as Algeria and Mali, has Western Europe’s largest Muslim minority – <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/29/5-facts-about-the-muslim-population-in-europe/">6 million people, or 9% of its population</a>. </p>
<p>Macron’s Oct. 2 speech outlined a legislative proposal to fight “Islamist separatism.” If passed in Parliament, it would essentially ban home-schooling of all children aged 3 and up and prevent foreign-trained imams from leading French mosques. The goal, said the president, is “<a href="https://www.elysee.fr/front/pdf/elysee-module-16114-fr.pdf">to build an Islam in France that can be compatible with the Enlightenment</a>.” </p>
<p>Macron’s analysis concludes, simply, that Islam is somehow at odds with modern Western society. But my <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/sociology/sociology-religion/secularism-and-state-policies-toward-religion-united-states-france-and-turkey?format=PB">research on state secularism and religion</a> shows that the reality is much more complicated.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364504/original/file-20201020-19-1kpdj6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Macron speaks at a lectern with the French and EU flags behind him" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364504/original/file-20201020-19-1kpdj6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364504/original/file-20201020-19-1kpdj6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364504/original/file-20201020-19-1kpdj6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364504/original/file-20201020-19-1kpdj6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364504/original/file-20201020-19-1kpdj6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364504/original/file-20201020-19-1kpdj6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364504/original/file-20201020-19-1kpdj6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">French President Emmanuel Macron.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/french-president-emmanuel-macron-delivers-a-speech-during-a-news-photo/1201691009?adppopup=true">Sebastien Bozon/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>French versus American secularism</h2>
<p>French secularism, which is embraced by both the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/alien-citizens-state-and-religious-minorities-turkey-and-france?format=HB&isbn=9781108476942">progressive left and the Islamophobic right</a>, goes well beyond the American democratic concept of <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1970/89">separating religion and state</a>. Called “laïcité,” it essentially excludes religious symbols from public institutions. France has <a href="https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/posts/the-weaponization-of-laicite">banned Muslim women’s headscarves in schools and outlawed religious face coverings everywhere</a>. There are no such bans in the United States.</p>
<p>While both America and France have ongoing debates about “Islamic fundamentalism” and “Muslim terrorists” and <a href="http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20100830,00.html">views that can be defined as Islamophobic</a> have some popular support, American democracy generally provides better opportunities for <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-future-of-religious-freedom-9780199930913?lang=en&cc=us#">the integration of various religious groups</a>. </p>
<p>In France, <a href="http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/connaissance/constitution.asp">the Constitution</a> defines the state only as secular, without delineating the boundaries of that secularism. In the United States, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">the First Amendment</a> restricts the secular state’s engagement with religion, saying the government can neither establish a religion nor prohibit a religion’s free exercise. </p>
<p>It would be difficult for the U.S. to announce, as Macron did, a state-sponsored project to “<a href="https://uk.ambafrance.org/France-to-restore-the-Republic-to-fight-Islamist-separatism">forge a type of Enlightenment Islam</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364501/original/file-20201020-21-1nfbrgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Pupils in headscarves sit at desks" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364501/original/file-20201020-21-1nfbrgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364501/original/file-20201020-21-1nfbrgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364501/original/file-20201020-21-1nfbrgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364501/original/file-20201020-21-1nfbrgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364501/original/file-20201020-21-1nfbrgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364501/original/file-20201020-21-1nfbrgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364501/original/file-20201020-21-1nfbrgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In France, Muslim girls may wear headscarves in Islamic private schools like the Alif school in Toulouse, but not in public schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/veiled-pupils-attend-a-lesson-in-a-classroom-on-may-11-2011-news-photo/114395069?adppopup=true">Eric Cabanis/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, 11 years before Macron voiced his provocative view, U.S. President Barack Obama gave a <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09">famous speech on Islam</a> in Egypt in 2009, attempting to reset the relationship between America and the Muslim world.</p>
<p>Emphasizing Muslims’ contributions to American society, Obama said, “It is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit – for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear.”</p>
<p>Obama’s speech reflected an idealized American melting pot, a place where hyphenated identities like <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199930890.001.0001/acprof-9780199930890-chapter-11">Muslim-American</a> are common. </p>
<p>French secularism sees no hyphenated identities – only French or Not French.</p>
<h2>Islam and the secular state</h2>
<p>Some in France also see this rigid secularism as unequal to the challenges of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/sociology/sociology-religion/secularism-religion-and-multicultural-citizenship?format=HB&isbn=9780521873604">multiculturalism</a> and <a href="http://grease.eui.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019/10/France-country-report.pdf">migration</a>. The eminent scholar <a href="https://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/laicites-sans-frontieres-jean-bauberot/9782020996167">Jean Bauberot</a>, for example, defends a more “pluralistic secularism” – one that tolerates certain religious symbols in public institutions. </p>
<p>France has in fact made many exceptions for Catholics. The government provides substantial public funding to <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691144214/the-emancipation-of-europes-muslims">private Catholic schools</a>, which educate about a quarter of all K-12 students, and six of 11 official holidays in France are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_France">Catholic holidays</a>. </p>
<p>Too often, laïcité translates into an unwillingness to accommodate the religiously based demands of Muslims. </p>
<p>In 2015, a Muslim advocacy organization sued a municipal authority in France’s Burgundy region for refusing to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/pork-school-dinners-france-secularism-children-religious-intolerance">offer an alternative to pork</a> in public school cafeterias. The court compelled the town to reverse its policy, but not because it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/28/non-pork-meals-must-be-available-for-school-lunch-rules-french-court">violated religious freedom</a>. The court found the menu <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2017/08/28/chalon-sur-saone-la-justice-annule-la-fin-des-menus-sans-porc-dans-les-cantines_5177551_3224.html">violated the children’s rights</a>.</p>
<p>France’s founding commitment to equality under the law likewise forestalls meaningful social debate on <a href="http://tupress.temple.edu/book/1122">racial discrimination</a>; its census does not even collect information on race. Although France’s biggest minority is mostly composed of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/02/world/europe/macron-radical-islam-france.html">nonwhite Muslim immigrants from its former colonies in Africa and their descendents</a>, Macron’s speech referenced only in passing to French colonialism.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=experts">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get expert takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em>]</p>
<h2>Blasphemy</h2>
<p>That said, I find some truth in Macron’s speech. But the “crisis” facing Islam lies in the historical and political failings of the Muslim world, not in the religion itself.</p>
<p>As my 2019 book, “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/islam-authoritarianism-and-underdevelopment-global-and-historical-comparison?format=PB&isbn=9781108409476">Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment</a>,” documents, many Muslim countries like Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia have long-lasting authoritarian regimes and chronic underdevelopment. In <a href="https://theconversation.com/execution-for-a-facebook-post-why-blasphemy-is-a-capital-offense-in-some-muslim-countries-129685">32 of the world’s 49 Muslim-majority countries</a>, blasphemy laws punish people who speak sacrilegiously about sacred things; in six countries, blasphemy is a capital offense. </p>
<p>These laws, which block freedom of expression, are more rooted in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/execution-for-a-facebook-post-why-blasphemy-is-a-capital-offense-in-some-muslim-countries-129685">interests of the conservative clergy and authoritarian rulers</a> than in the Islamic faith, my research shows. They actually contradict several Quranic verses that urge Muslims not to coerce or retaliate against people of other faiths. </p>
<p>Still, in Western countries where Muslims are a minority, extremists occasionally take it upon themselves to punish those who, in their view, mock the Prophet Muhammad. That has <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300124729/cartoons-shook-world">caused global controversies</a> over <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-theres-opposition-to-images-of-muhammad-36402">cartoons and movies</a>. At times, in France and beyond, it has led to an unacceptable outcome: murder.</p>
<p>Such killings, whether perpetrated by the state or by individuals, are tragedies. But to frame them as a purely religious problem ignores the socioeconomic and political origins of Islamic blasphemy laws, and the anti-democratic cultural consequences of authoritarianism in many Muslim countries. </p>
<p>It also overlooks the difficult reality that social alienation is an underlying factor in the <a href="https://behavioralpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BSP_vol1is2_-Lyons-Padilla.pdf">radicalization of some young Muslims in the West</a>.</p>
<h2>Multiple secularisms, multiple Islams</h2>
<p>Macron’s speech made some gestures toward greater inclusion. </p>
<p>“I want France to become a country where we can teach the thoughts of Averreos and Ibn Khaldun,” he said, referencing two eminent Muslim thinkers of the 12th and 14th centuries, and envisioned “<a href="https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2020/10/02/la-republique-en-actes-discours-du-president-de-la-republique-sur-le-theme-de-la-lutte-contre-les-separatismes">a country that excels in the study of Muslim civilizations</a>.” </p>
<p>That plural in “civilizations” is meaningful. It acknowledges that Islam is not monolithic. Neither is French secularism. Both are complex systems with varied interpretations. </p>
<p>In truth, Macron doesn’t need to “build an Islam in France that can be compatible with the Enlightenment,” because that already exists. Whether French secularism can adapt to Islam is another question.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148070/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ahmet T. Kuru does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Macron wants to ‘build an Islam in France that can be compatible with the Enlightenment.’ But that goal assumes France is compatible with Islam, says a Muslim scholar of religion and politics.Ahmet T. Kuru, Professor of Political Science, San Diego State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1384092020-05-20T12:10:35Z2020-05-20T12:10:35ZLong before face masks, Islamic healers tried to ward off disease with their version of PPE<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335834/original/file-20200518-83348-alxfyg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C2982%2C1913&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Faithful in many religions, including Islam, may turn to healing amulets like necklaces and other small objects in difficult times.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kashmiri-muslim-woman-hold-amulets-in-her-hands-given-to-news-photo/148191211?adppopup=true">Yawar Nazir/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Just as many now <a href="https://theconversation.com/masks-help-stop-the-spread-of-coronavirus-the-science-is-simple-and-im-one-of-100-experts-urging-governors-to-require-public-mask-wearing-138507">don face masks</a> and do <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-jk-rowlings-breathing-technique-cure-the-coronavirus-no-it-could-help-spread-it-135935">breathing exercises</a> to protect against COVID-19 – despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-everyone-be-wearing-face-masks-its-complicated-135548">debate around the science behind such practices</a> – so too did the Islamic world turn to protective devices and rituals in premodern times of trouble.</p>
<p>From the 11th century until around the 19th century, Muslim cultures witnessed the use of <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11255688/Amulets_Magic_and_Talisman">magic bowls, healing necklaces and other objects</a> in hopes of warding off drought, famine, floods and even epidemic diseases. </p>
<p>Many of these amulets and talismans are beautifully crafted objects, and so are of interest to <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/histart/people/faculty/cjgruber.html">art historians such as myself</a>. And while they are now largely seen as relics of folk belief and superstition, in the premodern era these ritual objects emerged from elite spheres of Islamic knowledge, science and art.</p>
<h2>Islamic personal protective gear</h2>
<p>The phrase “personal protective equipment” – or “<a href="https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/general-hospital-devices-and-supplies/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control">PPE</a>,” in hospital lingo – has become part of our daily lives as we watch frontline health workers don gowns, face shields and gloves to protect themselves from COVID-19. </p>
<p>Before the germ theory of disease, in Islamic lands epidemics were often conceptualized as a pestilential corruption of the air, through which <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3632188?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">“humid” spirits entered the human body</a>. Some medieval Islamic thinkers also thought the plague was caused by <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3632188?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents.">black angels shooting invisible arrows</a>.</p>
<p>The Arabic language still reflects this historic understanding of disease as an invading enemy: The term for “plague” – ta‘un – derives from the verb “ta'ana,” to pierce or strike. </p>
<p>Protecting its wearer against a range of assaults, the quintessential premodern Islamic PPE was the talismanic shirt – a cloth garment inscribed with holy text and often worn in warfare. Featuring circular designs on the chest, shoulder pad roundels and a fringed lapel, the talismanic shirt may sound like something out of the disco era – but in practice it more closely recalls the body armor of war.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335547/original/file-20200517-138644-1wvpf5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335547/original/file-20200517-138644-1wvpf5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335547/original/file-20200517-138644-1wvpf5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335547/original/file-20200517-138644-1wvpf5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335547/original/file-20200517-138644-1wvpf5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335547/original/file-20200517-138644-1wvpf5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335547/original/file-20200517-138644-1wvpf5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335547/original/file-20200517-138644-1wvpf5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Talismanic shirt made in India in the 15th or 16th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/453498">Metropolitan Museum of Art</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Covered in squares, numbers and designs, the shirts were “<a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/arab/64/3-4/article-p673_673.xml">amuletically charged</a>,” meaning they were thought capable of physically protecting the wearer against disease and death. </p>
<p>One <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/453498">group of South Asian talismanic shirts</a> from the 15th and 16th centuries displays the entire text of the Quran as well as all God’s names. Read aloud, these names would turn the shirt into a kind of “textile rosary,” <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/arab/64/3-4/article-p673_673.xml">according to religious studies researcher Rose Muravchick</a>, allowing its owner to recite a pious litany in God’s honor.</p>
<p>Other talismanic shirts, from India, included a <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/fabric-of-india/guest-post-a-warriors-magic-shirt">protective panel on the back</a> inscribed with a Quranic verse calling God “the Best Guardian and the Most Merciful of the Merciful Ones.” </p>
<h2>Anti-plague design</h2>
<p>Other common medieval Islamic PPEs included the miniature <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/452893">talismanic scroll</a> – a tiny roll of Quranic verses on affordable block-printed paper – and amuletic designs like the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society/article/seal-of-solomon/EF8A70326592F0FC40A30D6DD5A723DE">six-pointed seal of Solomon</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335847/original/file-20200518-83380-10vrgcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335847/original/file-20200518-83380-10vrgcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335847/original/file-20200518-83380-10vrgcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335847/original/file-20200518-83380-10vrgcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335847/original/file-20200518-83380-10vrgcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335847/original/file-20200518-83380-10vrgcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335847/original/file-20200518-83380-10vrgcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335847/original/file-20200518-83380-10vrgcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eleventh-century talismanic scroll from Egypt (left) and pendant with the ‘Garden of Names’ anti-plague amulet for sale online today (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/452893">Metropolitan Museum of Art/Screengrab, www.dilekbora.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Quranic scrolls and amulets were worn around the neck or otherwise attached to the body, suggesting that physical contact with the object was thought to unlock the enclosed blessings or life force, <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/baraka">known as “baraka” in Arabic</a>.</p>
<p>Perhaps most germane to today’s pandemic was the Islamic anti-plague talisman known as the “Garden of Names,” used across the Islamic world and especially popular in Ottoman lands.</p>
<p>The Garden of Names, or Jannat al-asma’ in Arabic, is a circular amuletic design that contains 19 letters and numbers, verses from the Quran and several names of God. Some painted images of this device show controlled smudges, suggesting that people <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-plague-quarantines-and-geopolitics-in-the-ottoman-empire-hb.html">kissed, rubbed or made potions out of the design</a> to activate its baraka.</p>
<h2>Healing water</h2>
<p>Water has important healing properties in Islamic traditions, too, being associated with cleanliness and godliness. The Quran credits it as the source of “every living thing.” </p>
<p>Since the seventh century, Muslims visiting the holy city of Mecca, located in Saudi Arabia, have visited the Zamzam well, whose water is thought to have curative properties. There, religious pilgrims still <a href="https://research.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=214909&partId=1">fill flasks</a> with the holy liquid, which is then drunk straight or mixed with other liquids into therapeutic potions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335831/original/file-20200518-83397-1f5tmw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335831/original/file-20200518-83397-1f5tmw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335831/original/file-20200518-83397-1f5tmw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335831/original/file-20200518-83397-1f5tmw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335831/original/file-20200518-83397-1f5tmw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335831/original/file-20200518-83397-1f5tmw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335831/original/file-20200518-83397-1f5tmw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335831/original/file-20200518-83397-1f5tmw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Muslim pilgrims drinking Zamzam water upon arrival in the holy city of Mecca in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/saudi-men-offer-muslim-pilgrims-zamzam-water-upon-their-news-photo/1160106847?adppopup=true">Fethi Belaid/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, you can buy a plastic bottle <a href="https://www.amazon.com/JarZamzam-Water-Zamzam-500-Ml/dp/B00IK35N6K/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=zamzam+water&qid=1589651424&sr=8-7">of Zamzam water online for about US$14</a>. In earlier centuries, however, Zamzam water was carried home in <a href="https://agakhanmuseum.org/collection/artifact/ablution-basin-akm722">ceramic jugs and basins</a> for use in ritual cleaning before a meal or prayer. </p>
<p>Alternatively, regular water could turn curative if a folk doctor poured it into special metal bowls decorated with talismanic words and images while praying. Some of these talismanic bowls specify the reason for their creation, so <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/594826?seq=1">historians know</a> they were used to heal everything from poison and dog bites to intestinal problems, “pain of the heart” – that is, heartbreak – and the plague. For centuries, Muslim women in labor were also cooled with water from these bowls. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335843/original/file-20200518-83352-9bgikc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335843/original/file-20200518-83352-9bgikc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=235&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335843/original/file-20200518-83352-9bgikc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=235&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335843/original/file-20200518-83352-9bgikc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=235&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335843/original/file-20200518-83352-9bgikc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335843/original/file-20200518-83352-9bgikc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335843/original/file-20200518-83352-9bgikc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A metal magico-medicinal bowl, left, and a ceramic ablutions basic inscribed with the word ‘taharat,’ meaning purity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Michigan Hatcher Library/Aga Khan Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Islamic healing today</h2>
<p>Traditional Islamic protective and healing arts have <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/iran-confronts-coronavirus-amid-battle-between-science-and-conspiracy-theories">largely ceded the way to modern medicine and technology</a>. </p>
<p>But amuletic objects and homeopathic practices still exist in the Islamic world, as they do in <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-buddhists-handle-coronavirus-the-answer-is-not-just-meditation-137966">many faith cultures across the globe</a>. Some Muslims still use magico-medicinal bowls at home; they’re <a href="https://www.ebay.com/b/islamic-brass-bowl/bn_7024807378">sold on eBay</a>.</p>
<p>Like prayer or meditation – which can have something of a placebo effect, bringing <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/relaxation-techniques-breath-control-helps-quell-errant-stress-response">real benefits for both mind and body</a> – Muslims facing sickness or other crises found strength and solace in religious objects for nearly a millennium. </p>
<p>As art objects, too, these artifacts speak to a human desire to seek comfort and cure in creativity and design. That is a <a href="https://news.ucsc.edu/2020/04/art-in-time-of-covid.html">feature of today’s pandemic</a>, too. </p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138409/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christiane Gruber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From magic bowls to holy shirts, Muslim cultures used various devices to protect the user from harm starting in the 11th century. Many of these objects were beautifully designed, too.Christiane Gruber, Professor of Islamic Art, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/900072018-01-23T22:44:39Z2018-01-23T22:44:39ZA year later: The mosque massacre & rising Islamophobia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202466/original/file-20180118-158531-ruopyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Political dignitaries attend the funeral for three of the six victims of the Quebec City mosque shooting in Montreal in February 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 29, 2017, <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-city-mosque-attack-alexandre-bissonnette-1.3958559">a man entered a Québec mosque during evening prayer</a> and opened fire on the backs of 53 congregants. Six died immediately. </p>
<p>A funeral service was held at a Montréal hockey arena for three of the victims. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Québec Premier Phillippe Couillard and other dignitaries delivered heartfelt speeches. <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/montreal-funeral-quebec-city-mosque-attack/article33876484/">They affirmed that an injustice towards Canadian Muslims is an injustice towards all Canadians.</a> Muslims are Canadians and their pain is our pain, the politicians exclaimed.</p>
<p>“Vive le Québec! We love Canada!” the stadium replied.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6obxk2i88c4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>One year later, it’s time to look back at the funeral and listen carefully to what was said. Why affirm the Canadian-ness (and Québecois-ness) of grieving Muslims? </p>
<p>It couldn’t possibly be to discourage the public from Islamophobia. That would be like declaring “Don’t be racist” — futile. </p>
<p>Rather, their declarations were directed at Muslims across the country: Don’t let this brutal act persuade you into thinking you don’t belong. The views of the accused killer, and others like him, are wrong. Muslims <em>do</em> belong to Canada and Québec.</p>
<h2>Ultimate expression of Islamaphobia</h2>
<p>Imagine public attitude towards Muslims on a continuum, however. On one end, we find the mass murder, the ultimate expression of anti-Muslim sentiment. On the other, we find the loving embrace of Muslims as our own, like a family welcoming an adopted child. </p>
<p>When growing anti-Muslim sentiment —no thanks to politics — resulted in a massacre, the political good will at the funeral accomplished one thing: It reminded Muslims that they do, in fact, belong to Québec. Their speeches therefore never escaped the continuum’s trajectory.</p>
<p>Rather, political declarations of solidarity — well-intended as they may be — remained fixed on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/10/muslim-question-anne-norton-review">what American scholar Anne Norton calls “the Muslim question,”</a> a reference to <a href="https://www.philosophersmag.com/opinion/30-karl-marx-s-radical-antisemitism">Karl Marx’s</a> <em>On The Jewish Question</em>.</p>
<p>“The Muslim question” defines the political centricity of Muslims as the archetypal threat to democratic nation-states. It’s the thematic summation of all moral panic surrounding Islam and Muslims, from civic integration to the war on terror. In short, the Muslim question is the inevitable “othering” of Muslims as foreign entities within the national body.</p>
<p>The politicians did not unpack the Muslim question at the funeral; they did not bring to our attention the unremitting oscillation between “good/accepted” and “bad/rejected” Muslims on the aforementioned continuum. </p>
<p>They simply positioned themselves favourably along its path. In doing so, the politicians legitimized the continuum’s <em>raison d'être</em>: <a href="https://theconversation.com/radical-islam-and-the-west-the-moral-panic-behind-the-threat-43113">The moral panic surrounding Islam and Muslims.</a> </p>
<h2>Moral panic</h2>
<p>Their statements catered to the tacit anti-Muslim attitudes endemic in society, where Muslims are perceived as integration-resistant and threatening. They might as well have exclaimed: And as to the eternal question of whether Muslims belong in this country, Muslims are Canadians! </p>
<p>It should come as no surprise, then, that the niqab reappeared in the political limelight with <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec-women-who-wear-the-niqab-fear-impact-of-bill-62/article36753623/">Bill 62, Québec’s Religious Neutrality law.</a> </p>
<p>The sentiments shared at the funeral remain relevant <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-link-between-quebecs-niqab-law-and-its-sovereignty-quest-86200">as the niqab is hoisted</a>, once again, as the symbol of religious defiance of secular sanctity. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202479/original/file-20180118-158546-1050mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202479/original/file-20180118-158546-1050mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202479/original/file-20180118-158546-1050mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202479/original/file-20180118-158546-1050mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202479/original/file-20180118-158546-1050mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202479/original/file-20180118-158546-1050mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202479/original/file-20180118-158546-1050mwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marie-Michelle Lacoste, who now goes by Warda Naili after converting to Islam, left, and her lawyer Catherine McKenzie take their seats at a news conference in November 2017 in Montreal. The National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have announced the launch of their constitutional lawsuit filed in Québec Superior Court against Bill 62.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our inability to question why Muslims have come to represent the “other” shows how little we are able to manoeuvre in our discussion. Bill 62 is the perfect example of this. The sensationalizing of a <a href="http://nationalpost.com/opinion/marni-soupcoff-quebecs-niqab-ban-is-probably-unlawful-and-certainly-nonsensical">societal non-issue</a> — niqab-wearing women who number perhaps <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/ishmaeldaro/quebec-niqab-estimates?utm_term=.hsMaG9dLV#.goXaLQv2p">no more than a few hundred in Québec</a> — took centre stage only months after we’d buried the victims of the mosque massacre. </p>
<p>Political gestures of solidarity are comforting, but they remain fixed within the parameters of the Muslim question.</p>
<p>The root causes of why we’re asking the Muslim question run deep within the fabric of a society interlaced with financial, political and existential insecurities. And politicians continue to campaign on platforms that pander to the Muslim question — because it works. </p>
<p>The moral panic is real; <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-blame-islamophobic-anti-muslim-ban-hate-crime-numbers-southern-poverty-law-center-a7582846.html">it elected Trump.</a> </p>
<p>Moving forward, if we are to make any progress, Canada and other countries must tackle the issues underlying the perception of Muslims in public consciousness. </p>
<p>Directly combating discrimination has proven to be insufficient. We cannot allow Muslim representation to oscillate incessantly. We cannot persist with the irony of proclaiming: “Don’t hate Muslims … but the niqab poses a national concern.”</p>
<h2>Not an outlier</h2>
<p>The accused killer was not a racist outlier. Racists are the product of the Muslim question somewhere along the end of the continuum where <em>all</em> Muslims are unequivocally <em>bad/rejected</em> . </p>
<p>What have we learned from the Québec City shooting a year ago? Very little, it seems. At the time of this writing, Québec political parties have refused to acknowledge Jan. 29 as a <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-mosque-shooting-islamophobia-1.4478861">National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia. </a></p>
<p>The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-mosque-shooting-islamophobia-1.4478861">says</a> “[the shooting] is the intolerable act of a single person and not that of an entire society. Québecers are open and welcoming, they are not Islamophobic.” And yet Québec City anti-Muslim hate crime <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-city-hate-crimes-1.4434028">doubled</a> in 2017.</p>
<p>The 29th of January should serve as a reminder then that we are — to this day — still trapped in the Muslim question’s awful continuum.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90007/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tarek Younis is a Newton International Fellow and receives funding from the British Academy. </span></em></p>A year after the Quebec mosque shooting, it’s clear that little has changed for Muslims in Canada. They’re still almost unequivocally rejected.Tarek Younis, Newton International Postdoctoral Fellow, UCL Division of Psychiatry, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/711112017-01-30T12:10:42Z2017-01-30T12:10:42ZFor too long, the West has expected Muslims to defend their faith from labels of violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154423/original/image-20170126-30419-kxr9hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is a practice that has become all too familiar in recent years: in the wake of a terrorist attack Muslims scramble to distance their faith from the violent acts being carried out in its name. They feel compelled to defend Islam from accusations that it is inherently violent or anti-modern. </p>
<p>This tendency to explicitly connect Islam with violence has had very real consequences, most recently with <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-what-legal-obligation-does-the-us-have-to-accept-refugees-72007">Donald Trump’s executive order</a> banning refugees and immigrants from multiple Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. This act has caused outrage among Muslims across the globe as they again reiterate that Islam is not the cause of extremism. </p>
<p>But this phenomenon is hardly a recent one. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, writers from across the Islamic world felt the need to defend Islam to a European audience. This period saw the popularisation of supposedly scientific explanations for the racial and cultural superiority of Europe. Muslim writers of the time vigorously challenged the prevailing sentiment among many <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/history-ideas-and-intellectual-history/arabic-thought-liberal-age-17981939?format=PB&isbn=9780521274234">European thinkers</a> that Islam was backwards and incompatible with reform. </p>
<p>These Muslim writers were part of a generation of modernisers that emerged across the Islamic world in the 19th century who believed that their societies would benefit most from reform along broadly European lines. Yet they maintained that this did not require a rejection of their Islamic identities. Like their <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/10/islamophobia-racism-dresden-protests-germany-islamisation">counterparts today</a>, these writers knew that whatever their personal beliefs about religion, to accept this narrative of Islam’s inherent backwardness would be to accept a narrative of European supremacy. </p>
<p>One of the most well-known examples of this was an article in May 1883 by the Muslim thinker Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani in the French <a href="http://blogs.histoireglobale.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Renan-al-Afghani.pdf">Journal des Débats</a>. It was in response to a lecture delivered by the French scholar Ernest Renan in which he stated, among other things, that Islam was incompatible with science. In his response, al-Afghani pointed to the scientific advances of the early Islamic period, arguing that rigid orthodoxy could be overcome through education and <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2006/05/200849133356486185.html">development</a>. </p>
<h2>The answer isn’t always Islam</h2>
<p>But this was just one example of a common trend during this period as Muslim writers worked to respond directly to European writers who were critical of Islam. </p>
<p>One such figure was the Ottoman intellectual Ahmed Rıza, a member of the Young Turk movement that opposed Sultan Abdülhamid II in the late 19th century. Rıza was a positivist who believed in the supremacy of rational and scientific knowledge, but strongly defended Islam and its compatibility with reform. He criticised those European writers that blamed Islam for all of the problems of the Islamic world. He felt that the Ottoman Empire could fully embrace reform without rejecting its essential Islamic character.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154725/original/image-20170130-7685-jerrye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154725/original/image-20170130-7685-jerrye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154725/original/image-20170130-7685-jerrye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154725/original/image-20170130-7685-jerrye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154725/original/image-20170130-7685-jerrye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154725/original/image-20170130-7685-jerrye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154725/original/image-20170130-7685-jerrye.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1043&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ahmed Rıza, an early opposition leader in the Ottoman Empire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_R%C4%B1za#/media/File:Ahmed_Riza_Bey.png">Edward Frederick Knight: The Awakening of Turkey. J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia 1909.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rıza echoed many of the same points made by commentators today in an 1896 article <a href="http://confucius.chez.com/clotilde/etexts/riza/tolerance.xml">La Tolérance Musulmane</a>. He asked why European writers insisted on solely blaming Islam for violence in the Ottoman Empire, but refused to see Christianity as a cause for violence in their own countries. He also blamed the European press for fanning the flames of anti-Islamic prejudice to serve their own interests. </p>
<p>Like many of his contemporaries, Rıza highlighted the accomplishments of Muslim scientists and intellectuals and the important contributions made by Islamic civilisation over the centuries. He also pointed out the Islamic roots of consultation and representation that underpinned many Ottoman reforms in the 19th century. </p>
<h2>The colonial context</h2>
<p>In French North Africa in the early 20th century similar defences were presented by the Algerian essayist <a href="http://www.academieoutremer.fr/academiciens/fiche.php?aId=975">Ismael Hamet</a> and the Tunisian writer and politician Abdelaziz Thaalbi. Both refused to accept that their countries’ Islamic character presented a barrier to full equality with France. </p>
<p>In his 1905 book, <a href="https://archive.org/details/LespritLiberalDuCoran">L’Esprit Libéral du Coran</a>, Thaalbi declared that the idea of tolerance was the leitmotif of the Qur’an. Like commentators today he stressed the importance of the political context that produced certain actions done in the name of Islam. For him, the “wars of early Islam had purely political reasons”. Islam itself was not inherently violent or opposed to modernisation and was, as he showed, perfectly compatible with the values of pluralism and tolerance. </p>
<p>Hamet held the same beliefs and saw education as the key. In <a href="http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k206937h">Les Musulmans Français dans le Nord de l’Afrique</a> in 1906 he stressed that Islam was not the problem. Rather, the problem lay in the manipulation and distortion of Islam by certain religious leaders. Superstition and ignorance had warped Islam beyond recognition. Only through education and equality could these elements be eliminated.</p>
<h2>Talking in circles</h2>
<p>All of these writers sincerely believed in the benefits of societal reform and they refused to accept the characterisation of Islam as fundamentally opposed to this aim. A final quote from Thaalbi highlights how, in many ways, we are still having the same conversation <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/26/obama-brussels-attacks-rejects-stigmatize-muslims-trump-cruz">today</a> as we were in 1905:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At the moment when the railroad, the post and the telegraph create bonds between all peoples, at the moment when men are sympathetic to the pains of other men, at the moment when universal peace is demanded and demanded by society as a whole, to bring all the elements of humanity closer together, will this hateful, intolerant, anti-liberal and fanatical interpretation of the Qur’an be a cause that will prevent this universal rapprochement?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps it’s time that we appreciate the exasperation that many Muslims feel when they are constantly called upon to defend the decency of their faith to the West. They have been doing it for a very long time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71111/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Beamish does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Islamic writers are having the same conversations today as they were in the early 20th century.David Beamish, PhD Candidate, Modern Middle East History, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/700452017-01-15T19:01:17Z2017-01-15T19:01:17ZWhat can the medieval King Roger teach us about tolerance?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152216/original/image-20170110-17003-1b2uuym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mosaic of King Roger II: we should celebrate his 12th-century example of inter-cultural collaboration.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthias Süßen/Wikimedia commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For serious opera lovers, <a href="https://opera.org.au/whatson/events/king-roger-sydney">the new production of Karol Szymanowski’s 1926 opera Król Roger</a> (English: King Roger), never before performed in Australia, is quite an event. One of only three operas Szymanowski composed, it is considered his masterpiece. </p>
<p>A co-production between Opera Australia and the Royal Opera House, the opera - which opens in Sydney this week - was staged at Covent Garden in 2015 to universal acclaim. The Danish director of the production, Kasper Holten, has described the theme of the work as one of “identity”, the perennial battle between mind and body, duty and desire.</p>
<p>Szymanowski had been influenced by his travels to Sicily (in 1911 and 1914), where he came to terms with his own homosexuality. He was fascinated by the figure of Roger II, a 12th century Norman king who battled his own issues of identity. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152219/original/image-20170110-16990-a62yjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152219/original/image-20170110-16990-a62yjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152219/original/image-20170110-16990-a62yjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152219/original/image-20170110-16990-a62yjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152219/original/image-20170110-16990-a62yjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152219/original/image-20170110-16990-a62yjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152219/original/image-20170110-16990-a62yjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cast of the Royal Opera House’s production of King Roger.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bill Cooper/Opera Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The opera is loosely based on historical evidence, and is more a spiritual and philosophical journey than a plot-driven drama. The main protagonists are few: there is Roger, his wife Roxana, the Muslim scholar Edrisi and the mysterious Shepherd, an exquisite youth preaching the relinquishment of worldly matters for sensuality and pleasure. Roger is at first sceptical, and with Edrisi as his advisor, resists the Shepherd’s call. As Roxana falls under the Shepherd’s spell, Roger too abandons himself to the ecstatic dance of the youth. Edrisi provides an anchor to the real world, eventually leading Roger back to his court in the third act.</p>
<h2>A Muslim-Christian collaboration</h2>
<p>The real story of Roger and Edrisi is just as compelling, although it shares little in common with Szymanowski’s opera. The establishment of the Norman kingdom in Sicily was a protracted and bloody process and Roger was hampered as a leader, straddling east and west. The Holy Roman and Byzantine Empires regarded the king as religiously suspect, and indeed rumours abounded that Roger had secretly converted to Islam.</p>
<p>In 1112, Roger’s capital was established at Palermo, a majority Arabic-speaking and Muslim city, also with a substantial Greek community. Roger cleverly co-opted Islamic and Graeco-Byzantine culture into his administration. His closest advisors were Muslims and Greeks, and he undertook a program of administrative reform and architectural commissions that brought together all that was best in Mediterranean culture. </p>
<p>This hybridity is starkly apparent in Siculo-Norman art. Roger has been depicted both as a Byzantine emperor, crowned by Christ himself, and as a Muslim caliph, with a dark complexion and kohl painted eyes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150056/original/image-20161214-18890-hj5xoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150056/original/image-20161214-18890-hj5xoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150056/original/image-20161214-18890-hj5xoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150056/original/image-20161214-18890-hj5xoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150056/original/image-20161214-18890-hj5xoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150056/original/image-20161214-18890-hj5xoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150056/original/image-20161214-18890-hj5xoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Roger II crowned by Christ, Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio, Palermo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.wikicommons.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150057/original/image-20161214-18906-phywo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150057/original/image-20161214-18906-phywo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150057/original/image-20161214-18906-phywo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150057/original/image-20161214-18906-phywo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=709&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150057/original/image-20161214-18906-phywo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150057/original/image-20161214-18906-phywo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150057/original/image-20161214-18906-phywo6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Roger in Muslim garb, Cappella Palatina, Palermo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.wikipedia.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Szymanowski’s opera, Edrisi is the close advisor of Roger, but in fact their relationship was based on intellectual collaboration rather than political counsel. Roger invited the North African, Muhammed Ibn Al-Idrīsi, to Palermo around 1139. He commissioned the scholar to compose a world geography, known appropriately as the Book of Roger. </p>
<p>In the book’s preface, Idrīsi writes that Roger wanted to know the “the true nature of his lands” and to put them into context with the rest of the world. For the next 15 years, Idrīsi and Roger interviewed travellers who visited Palermo, gleaning the most precise information about the regions of the world. </p>
<p>As such, the book is very large in scale, providing detailed descriptions of regions stretching from Ireland to Java. Below is the world map found in the book, with south placed at the top of the map. The “southern lands” – namely Australia – were described as too hot for habitation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150060/original/image-20161214-18902-16igxk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150060/original/image-20161214-18902-16igxk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150060/original/image-20161214-18902-16igxk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150060/original/image-20161214-18902-16igxk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150060/original/image-20161214-18902-16igxk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=674&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150060/original/image-20161214-18902-16igxk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=674&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150060/original/image-20161214-18902-16igxk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=674&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">World map found in the Book of Roger, with south at the top.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.wikicommons.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seeing diversity as an opportunity</h2>
<p>At a time when Europe was charged with the crusading spirit and fear of the “Muslim threat”, Roger displayed a curiosity and openness to the wider world that was ahead of his time. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150052/original/image-20161214-18873-1iwybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/150052/original/image-20161214-18873-1iwybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150052/original/image-20161214-18873-1iwybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150052/original/image-20161214-18873-1iwybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150052/original/image-20161214-18873-1iwybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150052/original/image-20161214-18873-1iwybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/150052/original/image-20161214-18873-1iwybel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Roger’s coronation mantle showing lions overpowering camels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Roger_II_of_Sicily#/media/File:Weltliche_Schatzkammer_Wienc.jpg">www.wikicommons.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This vision, however, was short-lived. After Roger’s death in 1154, the situation for Sicily’s Muslim, and later Greek, communities deteriorated. Increasingly, mosques were converted into churches and large-scale Christian immigration was stepped up.</p>
<p>Following serious outbreaks of inter-confessional violence, including an anti-Muslim riot in 1161, there began a steady flow of Muslims out of Sicily, many settling in North Africa. Seeing the writing on the wall, a perspicacious though anonymous person rescued the manuscript of the Book of Roger, taking it to North Africa, where it became something of a classic.</p>
<p>Szymanowski’s opera presents Roger as a conflicted figure, uncertain of his place in the world; the composer clearly drew parallels between the issues of identity that plagued Roger and his own.</p>
<p>It can be argued that Roger displayed a remarkable assurance – he saw diversity as opportunity rather than something to be battled against or feared.</p>
<p>In a world in which Islam and the west are yet again at odds, this 12th-century example of inter-cultural collaboration is indeed one to be celebrated.</p>
<p><em>King Roger is playing at the Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House from January 20 to February 15, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine Jacka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new production of the opera King Roger will open this week. At a time when Europe was charged with fear of the ‘Muslim threat’, this 12th century king collaborated with an Islamic scholar on an extraordinary project.Katherine Jacka, PhD Student, Department of Arabic Language and Cultures, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/531472016-02-15T10:40:59Z2016-02-15T10:40:59ZFrom washing machines to computers: how the ancients invented the modern world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111363/original/image-20160212-29190-zrvoq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Beards: powering tech startups since 813 AD.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Istambul_observatory_in_1577.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>True innovation is hard to find, as few things come out of nothing. Take the now ubiquitous selfie, for example. The format may have changed but the concept of making self-portraits is hundreds, <a href="http://www.everypainterpaintshimself.com/blog/an_intriguing_self_portrait_c.1345_bc">if not thousands</a> of years old. The same is true of many inventions that we typically think of as modern, some of which actually have precedents dating back over 1000 years.</p>
<h2>A Roman washing machine</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111357/original/image-20160212-29202-1maeo64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111357/original/image-20160212-29202-1maeo64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111357/original/image-20160212-29202-1maeo64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111357/original/image-20160212-29202-1maeo64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=865&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111357/original/image-20160212-29202-1maeo64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111357/original/image-20160212-29202-1maeo64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111357/original/image-20160212-29202-1maeo64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1087&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Did the Romans have machines like this?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulling#/media/File:Fulling_mill_bockler.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Fulling” was a <a href="http://libaniusredux.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/fullers-canal.html">major occupation</a> in the Roman world that involved cleaning cloth by trampling it in tubs containing an alkaline solution, such as water and urine or the mineral known as fuller’s earth. But in ancient Antioch, in what is now Turkey, evidence suggests the process may have been mechanised, meaning the Romans may have effectively created the world’s first washing machine as far back as the 1st century AD.</p>
<p>Traditionally thought of as a medieval invention, the mechanical fulling mill would likely have consisted of a waterwheel that lifted a trip-hammer, which would then drop to press the cloth. A fullers’ canal <a href="http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/kamash_2006/download.cfm">mentioned in an inscription</a> in Antioch would have supplied an estimated 300,000m<sup>3</sup> of water at almost a metre per second, far in excess of what was needed for regular foot-powered fulleries. The power this could generate means it could have supported fulling on an industrial scale with maybe 42 pairs of mechanical hammers.</p>
<h2>An ancient Greek computer</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111356/original/image-20160212-29180-1azl1ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111356/original/image-20160212-29180-1azl1ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111356/original/image-20160212-29180-1azl1ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111356/original/image-20160212-29180-1azl1ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111356/original/image-20160212-29180-1azl1ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111356/original/image-20160212-29180-1azl1ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111356/original/image-20160212-29180-1azl1ha.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Antikythera mechanism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism#/media/File:NAMA_Machine_d%27Anticythère_1.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1900, divers off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera discovered something that changed our view of ancient science. The <a href="http://www.antikythera-mechanism.gr">Antikythera mechanism</a> is a bronze system of 30 gears that models the cycles of the sun and moon. It is effectively the first-known analogue computer, dating back to the 1st century BC. Set in a wooden box, the internal gears would have turned dials on the outside that showed the position of the sun and moon, as well as the rising and setting of specific stars and possibly the positions of Mars and Venus, too. Another dial could be moved to take into account leap years. </p>
<p>Although we now know that the Babylonians discovered how to use geometry to track the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35431974">course of Jupiter</a> in around 1800 BC, the Antikythera mechanism is the earliest known device that automatically calculates astronomical phenomena. We know of no other similiar devices for several hundred more years until the 8th century AD, when mathematician Muhammed al-Fazari is said to have built the <a href="http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/BEA/Fazari_BEA.htm">first Islamic astrolabe</a>. And nothing as mechanically sophisticated <a href="http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/444534a">would appear again</a> until the European astronomical clocks of the 14th century.</p>
<h2>The Great Roman Bake-Off</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110672/original/image-20160208-2637-1kvapzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/110672/original/image-20160208-2637-1kvapzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110672/original/image-20160208-2637-1kvapzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110672/original/image-20160208-2637-1kvapzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110672/original/image-20160208-2637-1kvapzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110672/original/image-20160208-2637-1kvapzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/110672/original/image-20160208-2637-1kvapzq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tomb of Eurysaces the Baker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Eurysaces_the_Baker#/media/File:Tomb_of_Eurysaces_the_Baker.jpg">Livioandronico2013/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bread was big business in the Roman world. It was given out by the state as part of a dole known as <a href="http://fee.org/articles/poor-relief-in-ancient-rome/">the annona</a>. This meant that it was possible for people to make substantial amounts of money as bakers. One such person was <a href="http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article879727.ece">Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces</a>, a freedman (ex-slave) from Rome, who was so proud of his successful baking business that he commemorated it on his tomb. Today it is one of the most striking monuments from ancient Rome.</p>
<p>The top of the monument is decorated with a series of scenes that show a range of baking activities including the mixing and kneading of dough, the forming of loaves and the baked loaves being stacked in baskets. The most curious part, however, is the cylinders that make up the bulk of the monument. These features have baffled scholars for quite some time. One convincing <a href="http://rachelsromewritings.com/2011/05/03/the-tomb-of-eurysaces/">theory argues</a> that it is likely that these cylinders are related to baking and may well represent an early dough-mixing machine. The idea is that a rotating metal arm would have been attached to each cylinder in order to mix the dough.</p>
<h2>The first state space project</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111360/original/image-20160212-29172-wlaw0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111360/original/image-20160212-29172-wlaw0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111360/original/image-20160212-29172-wlaw0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111360/original/image-20160212-29172-wlaw0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=934&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111360/original/image-20160212-29172-wlaw0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1174&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111360/original/image-20160212-29172-wlaw0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1174&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111360/original/image-20160212-29172-wlaw0r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1174&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Starmen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_in_the_medieval_Islamic_world#/media/File:Taqi_al_din.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ninth-century Baghdad in what is now Iraq saw the rise of a growing scientific community, particularly in astronomy, centred around a library known as the “<a href="http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/abbasids%E2%80%99-house-wisdom-baghdad">House of Wisdom</a>”. The problem for these new scholars was that their books were written many centuries earlier and came from a wide range of different cultures – including Persian, Indian and Greek – that did not always agree. The Caliph al Ma’mun decided the only solution was to build an astronomical observatory so the city’s scholars could determine the truth.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/observatories-islam">Observatories</a> weren’t new but a state-sponsored scientific institution was. It’s hard to be sure exactly which instruments were used in the al-Shammasiyya observatory, but they probably included a sundial, astrolabes and a quadrant set on the wall to measure the precise position of objects in the sky. The quadrant may have been the first of its kind to be used in astronomical observations. The scientists used these instruments to reassess Ptolemy’s Mathematical Treatise from the 2nd century AD, and to make numerous astronomical observations, including the latitudes and longitudes of 24 fixed stars.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53147/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zena Kamash does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many “modern” inventions actually have precedents dating back over 1000 years.Zena Kamash, Lecturer in Roman Art and Archaeology, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/431022015-07-13T10:22:25Z2015-07-13T10:22:25ZA new weapon of Islamist extremists is…poetry?<p>Militant Islamist groups have a number of strategies for recruiting vulnerable young men to their cause. They <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/alqaeda-video-shows-public-execution-of-woman-accused-of-adultery--and-has-disgusted-even-isis-supporters-9980813.html">produce videos</a>, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-isis-propaganda-20140831-story.html">tap into social media</a> and <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-using-pamphlets-graffiti-influence-indias-pakistans-youngsters-1464393">write fiery pamphlets</a> with overblown rhetoric.</p>
<p>But they’re also <a href="http://www.academia.edu/10175119/Yemens_al-Qaida_and_Poetry_as_a_Weapon_of_Jihad">increasingly turning to poetry</a>: with its rich vocabulary, the Arabic language lends itself easily to rhyme and rhythm, which can have a mesmerizing effect. </p>
<p>Poetry is also deeply ingrained in pre-Islamic and Islamic Arab culture, and it’s this literary tradition that contemporary militants hope to mine as they attempt to lure new members into their ranks.</p>
<h2>Pre-Islamic tribes engaged in wars of words</h2>
<p>The tone and tenor of militant poetry mirrors verses from the period known as the <em>Jahiliyya</em>, in Arabic, which refers to the era before the rise of Islam in the seventh century. </p>
<p>Pre-Islamic tribes often had their own special poet – a <em>sha‘ir</em>, in Arabic – who was believed to be endowed with magical verbal powers, and whose poetic virtuosity could be used to defend tribal honor. Their poems sought to vilify the enemy, while praising and lifting the spirits of their own tribes. Often, these pagan Arab poets and poetesses would recite warmongering verses before crowds to rouse the passions of their own warriors. </p>
<p>Despite the Islamic terminology contemporary composers carefully deploy, today’s militant poetry often draws upon the same pre-Islamic vocabulary and themes, which included the glorification of violence to defend tribal or masculine honor. </p>
<p>Here are some fire-breathing verses penned by a poet connected with al-Qaeda who goes by the name of al-Shaykh al-Jaburi:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Bid them farewell – with bullets, just as you received them<br>
Bid them farewell with rockets, just as you received them…<br>
Strike them and curse them and curse those who ally with them…<br>
Destroy the palatial mansions and destroy them<br>
Flog every wrong-doer, flog them –<br>
Bid them farewell and scatter rose petals on the ground where you fought them </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Compare al-Jaburi’s verses to those of Shanfara, a pre-Islamic poet from the sixth century. Shanfara lived on the margins of society; he similarly exalted violence as a way of life, while boasting about his ability to impart fear:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>O how many a night of ill luck when the hunter burns his bow<br>
For fuel, and his arrow wood,<br>
Have I trodden through darkness and drizzle, on fire with hunger,
Grinding inside, shivering, filled with dread<br>
Then have I widowed women and orphaned children<br>
Returning as I began, the night a blacker black</p>
</blockquote>
<p>(<a href="https://books.google.co%20m/books?id=z-I_Rws68bgC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=michael+sells+%22for+fuel,+and+his+arrow+wood%22&source=bl&ots=CYQgwzmWc0&sig=QW48d48oLTjUa_epDDvdcQ1C5zI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0hucVav_M8yMNsmFgMgG&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false">translation</a> by Michael Sells)</p>
<p>Both poems are imbued with grandiose expressions of brutal power and destruction. Ironically, because the <em>Jahiliyya</em> was a period characterized by ignorance of Islam and tribal blood feuds, militant Islamists today often invoke this era as the very <em>opposite</em> of the pristine Islamic values for which they supposedly stand.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87684/original/image-20150707-1306-1o7cit4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87684/original/image-20150707-1306-1o7cit4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87684/original/image-20150707-1306-1o7cit4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87684/original/image-20150707-1306-1o7cit4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87684/original/image-20150707-1306-1o7cit4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87684/original/image-20150707-1306-1o7cit4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87684/original/image-20150707-1306-1o7cit4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 19th-century tattooing pattern depicts pre-Islamic Arab poet Antarah ibn Shaddad (left) and his lover Abla (middle) riding horses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Antarah_ibn_Shaddad_%26_Abla.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Poetic vitriol</h2>
<p>Stinging satire – <em>hija’</em> – directed against the enemy was another hallmark of pre-Islamic poetry, and poetic denigration of the opponent was meant to contribute to the demoralization of the enemy. Some pre-modern peoples in other parts of the world had such poet laureates. The Irish <em>filid</em>, for example, served a similar role for the Gaelic ruling elite and were feared particularly for their wounding satire.</p>
<p>The prophet Muhammad disapproved of the character defamation that the pre-Islamic poets indulged in, although he’s known to have allowed poetry that defended Islam against its critics. </p>
<p>The Qur'an also denounces tribal poets who used their linguistic talents for ignoble purposes. For this reason, satirical poetry was frowned upon and experienced a decline in popularity during the very early Islamic period.</p>
<p>But it began to make a gradual comeback during the Umayyad period (656–750 CE), when the worldly Umayyad rulers began celebrating some aspects of pre-Islamic Arab culture that were otherwise at odds with Islamic values. This included a revival of political, vitriolic poetry that delighted in lampooning one’s rival and openly proclaiming his faults. The famed Umayyad poets al-Farazdaq and Jarir traded poetic insults with considerable malevolent eloquence at the courts of the Umayyad rulers, even as the pious clucked their tongues in disapproval. </p>
<p>Despite the Islamicizing rhetoric of today’s militant versifiers, they also employ the satirical aspects of pre-Islamic poetry. The aforementioned al-Jaburi lampoons his perceived enemies, the Muslim majority:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Most of the people are miserable wretches<br>
They are those who sleep in the pockets of the rulers and sing their praises night and day…<br>
Most of the people are miserable wretches,<br>
They befriend the oppressor who takes food from the mouths of the poor…
Even though they see the umma [Muslim community] grieving and lying prone…<br>
Most of the people are miserable wretches, whether learned or ignorant</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s interesting that the <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/01/islamic-state-kjarijites-continuation.html#">Kharijites</a>, a violence-prone, extremist minority in early Islamic history, were also fond of pillorying the majority of Muslims, whom they denounced as sinners for not joining their ranks. </p>
<p>If our 21st-century militants sound a lot like them, it’s because they’re very similar in this regard. Al-Qaeda members have been known to use Khariji poetry as part of their linguistic arsenal, while strenuously denying any genealogical connection between their ideology and that of the seventh-century Kharijites, who are regarded as a deviant, intolerant sect by the majority of Muslims. </p>
<h2>The hypocrisy of militant poetry</h2>
<p>Poetry – the lyrical, romantic kind, the type that extols the mystical life and that speaks to universal human concerns – remains very important within Arab-Islamic culture. Schoolchildren in Arab societies typically memorize extensive selections of the classics of pre-modern Arabic poetry. Recitation of the Qur'an is poetic in effect because of its rhyming prose. </p>
<p>Militants are therefore tapping into entrenched literary tastes among Arab populations and appropriating them for their own inglorious ends. </p>
<p>Like many of the pre-Islamic poets, they consider poetry a weapon, one used to actively promote their own ideological goals and simultaneously destroy their enemies. Contemporary extremist groups accuse mainstream Muslims of having lapsed into pre-Islamic paganism for not recognizing the “truth” of their bloody cause. At the same time, these groups cynically adopt and exploit certain practices that clearly hearken back to the pre-Islamic period. </p>
<p>Such irony would be amusing if it were not for the tragic consequences of such self-serving eclecticism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43102/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Asma Afsaruddin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Militants are tapping into centuries-old literary tastes, appropriating them for their own nefarious ends.Asma Afsaruddin, Chair, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/430512015-07-09T20:07:07Z2015-07-09T20:07:07ZMuslims need to counter violent jihadists’ claim to represent Islam<p>A struggle is underway for the heart and soul of Islam. At its core is a question of credibility. What is the “true” Islam? Who are the “real” Muslims? </p>
<p>Lessons of the past tell us that religions are open to interpretation, that the history of religion is one of contests for power and, the old truism, that the victors write history. Right now, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-whether-islam-is-a-religion-of-violence-or-peace-32437">peaceful Muslims</a>, as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/cultural-muslims-like-cultural-christians-are-a-silent-majority-32097">majority</a>, determine the mainstream credibility of Islam as a religion <em>for</em> peace. But this could easily change.</p>
<p>Moderates need to push for their view of Islam so the extremist view does not prevail. Australians also need to be made aware that Islam is as complex a religion as Christianity and its history is no less intricate. This is not just about Australian Muslims striving to represent their version of Islam, but about Australian non-Muslims making the effort to look beneath the surface of shallow representations of Islam.</p>
<p>Islam is not and has never been a homogeneous phenomenon. Certain universal beliefs define the religion, but the ways in which these are practised and applied to the everyday can vary quite significantly.</p>
<p>The demographics of the <a href="http://www.movingpeoplechangingplaces.org/locations/muslim-diasporas.html">Muslim diaspora</a> actually demonstrate the large-scale success of integration of Muslims in non-Muslim countries. The perception of a tension between “Islam” and “modern democracy” is simply that: a contrived notion that serves fear-mongering advocates.</p>
<h2>What does it mean to be Muslim?</h2>
<p>It is Muslims who define what Islam means to them. This I take to be true about religion in general, but it particularly applies to Islam.</p>
<p>The Islamic tradition comprises a number of different communities within the sectarian – <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-16047709">Sunni and Shi’a</a> – divide. In Australia, Muslims are a largely integrated group, with those holding moderate views in the majority. Some, however, espouse a more hardline view. </p>
<p>These “Islamists”, or advocates of political Islam, maintain the necessity of Islamic doctrine as a basis for guiding social and political, as well as personal, spheres of activity. Their view is controversial and the subject of much debate within Islam. Muslims do not all agree, for instance, on whether Islamic doctrine requires that one should live one’s life as closely adhered to Islamic values as possible, or on whether Islamic values should determine social, political and personal action to the letter. </p>
<p>Muslims who hold these views seek a narrower definition of religion legitimised in a literal reading of the classical sources. Advocating for stricter Muslim life is the agenda of revivalist groups. They may form a significant portion of the global Muslim community but are by no means in the majority. </p>
<p>Still, none of this makes for an extremist jihadist Muslim. These jihadists are a product of a politicised group that aims to bring about change by force of arms. They are an even smaller percentage of Muslims around the world, but are highly visible through media exposure. </p>
<p>The Muslim mainstream sees radical militant jihadists as a perversion of Islam and groups such as the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Taliban">Taliban</a>, <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/al-Qaeda">al-Qaeda</a> and <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Islamic-State-in-Iraq-and-the-Levant">Islamic State</a> (IS) as altogether divorced from Islamic tradition. Still, the issue unavoidably concerns the religion of Islam.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85846/original/image-20150622-8993-p8nj2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85846/original/image-20150622-8993-p8nj2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85846/original/image-20150622-8993-p8nj2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85846/original/image-20150622-8993-p8nj2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85846/original/image-20150622-8993-p8nj2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85846/original/image-20150622-8993-p8nj2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85846/original/image-20150622-8993-p8nj2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85846/original/image-20150622-8993-p8nj2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Radical jihadists invite comparison to the Crusaders who waged war for the defence of the Christian faith.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk#/media/File:Siege_of_Tripoli_Painting_(1289).jpg">Wikimedia Commons/The Fall of Tripoli 1289, British Library, London [Ms Add 27695 Fol. 5]</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Extremists may be branded as perversions of the faith, but they cannot be denied their view of what Islam might mean. They base their version of “Islam” on the same sources as moderate, liberal and mystical Muslims. The extremist jihadist view of Islamic identity, though, perpetuates its own idealism and historicism.</p>
<p>In a historical context, jihadists are no different to the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Zealot">Zealots</a> of Roman Judaea and <a href="http://www.britannica.com/event/Crusades">Crusaders</a> of medieval Europe. Jihadists advocate a purist return to a caliphate – perhaps best defined by what they allege to be a time when a more “authentic” form of Islam was practised.</p>
<h2>The historical context of violence</h2>
<p>The idea of warfare in seventh-century Islam is couched in a defensive psychology. A new community was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Muhammad_in_Mecca#Opposition">defending itself</a> against the Meccan elite. So the earliest sources, Qur'an and <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Hadith">Hadith</a> literature, or classical sources as they are called, contain verses that espouse a level of violence.</p>
<p>In their proper historical context, however, these are not originally understood as offensive edicts. So, for example, the following verses and many others like them commend striving in the name of God, but set out parameters for doing so.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors. – 2:190</p>
<p>And when the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakah, let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. – 9:5</p>
<p>Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled. – 9:29</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Institutional processes</h2>
<p>Jihad is an Islamic institution. It has a history and a process that needs clarification.</p>
<p>It’s important to understand that Islam has an embedded legal tradition. This demonstrates the crystallisation of Islamic thought as part of a historical evolution from theological to legal debate from the ninth century onward. Islam is anything but an arbitrary religion interpreted indiscriminately by just anyone.</p>
<p>This also means that through the right understanding of legal processes, Muslims can justify particular readings of their religion within specific contexts. So the outcome of a fatwa (which simply denotes a religious scholar’s legal opinion) for or against violence in a particular situation can be substantiated, but it certainly is not decisive. The interpretation of the law and the decision to apply an opinion have to endure a rigorous process in any official capacity.</p>
<p>Another important point is that Islamic history defines a religion in which religious and political significance are closely interwoven. In the thousand years of Islamic history, political applications of Islamic doctrine typically manifest in militarised expeditions tied to the faith. This can be seen in activities of the Prophet’s community in Medina until 632 and, following this, in the period of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquests">Muslim conquests</a> under the reign of the caliphs.</p>
<h2>Working out what jihad means</h2>
<p>Military expeditions can be legitimated by a defensive logic or as a justified offensive in gaining political territory. So we arrive at jihad. The idea of jihad made synonymous with “suicide killing” is in fact prohibited by classical sources:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>O you who have believed, do not consume one another’s wealth unjustly but only [in lawful] business by mutual consent. And do not kill yourselves [or one another]. Indeed, Allah is to you ever Merciful.</p>
<p>And whoever does that in aggression and injustice - then We will drive him into a Fire. And that, for Allah, is [always] easy. – 4:29-30</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet historical examples of killing oneself in the cause of religion can be found early on. </p>
<p>Death for the “glory of God” was an attitude that developed in reaction to assaults both externally and from within. External threats meant Muslims were eager to wage Holy War in the 11th century, in retaliation to the Crusades. Internal threats led to the rise of an elite group of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins">Assassins</a> (an offshoot of the Ismaili branch of Shiite Islam) who specialised in suicide missions. </p>
<p>Working out what jihad actually means, however, and how it should be applied has much to do with terminological debates.</p>
<p>Jihad is a typical Arabic word. It is agreed to mean striving against another. In a religious context, referenced from the Qur'an, the term takes on a meaning that is interpreted as “religious striving against polytheists and non-Muslims”.</p>
<p>This seems straightforward, but various interpretations arise because:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Muslims rarely derive instruction directly from the Qur'an. They usually rely on analyses by the ulama, the learned class, who rationalise Qur'anic verses in combination with other Islamic sources.</p></li>
<li><p>Scholars generally agree that when jihad is waged it is understood as “warfare aimed at spreading Islam”.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>But this too is problematic:</p>
<p>(a) Is spreading Islam a bid for political power over others?</p>
<p>Or</p>
<p>(b) Is spreading Islam a bid for gaining converts to religion?</p>
<p>The general assumption that prevails settles on a combination of both. In most cases, though, conversion to Islam takes priority – political power is a stepping stone to conversion.</p>
<p>Another generally agreed concept among the ulama is that jihad is a duty of the community. But again this is freely interpreted; most Muslims are left to pursue their own jihad according to what it means to them.</p>
<p>A majority of the ulama adopt a generous view of jihad and tolerate a wide range of groups (different kinds of Muslims and non-Muslims). On the other end of the spectrum, extremists view non-Muslims and Muslims who disagree with them as infidels.</p>
<p>Finally, the key issue remains whether it is incumbent upon Muslims to initiate jihad, or whether it is only to be utilised as a reaction to external provocation.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the Roots of Radicalisation series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/roots-of-radicalisation">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Milad Milani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A struggle is underway for the heart and soul of Islam. Moderate Muslims need to engage in the contest to ensure their view of Islam is the one that prevails.Milad Milani, Lecturer, History and Political Thought, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/415212015-07-02T04:19:48Z2015-07-02T04:19:48ZCaliphate, a disputed concept, no longer has a hold over all Muslims<p>According to the Arabic lexicon, <em>khilāfa</em> (caliphate) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mufradat_fi_Gharib_al-Quran">literally means</a> taking the position of others in order to perform the legal and religious rights behalf on them. It is also used in the meaning of <a href="http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=2&verse=30">vicegerency</a> and <a href="http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=35&verse=39">successor</a> in the Qur’an.</p>
<p>In Islam, the Prophet Muhammad is the <a href="http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=33&verse=40">Seal of the Prophets</a> and no-one can take the place of the Prophet in his position as Messenger of God. However, other Muslims can represent his position as a ruler, for the Qur’an <a href="http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=4&verse=59">states</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>O you who believe! Obey God and obey the Messenger, and those from among you who are invested with authority.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The first ruler for Muslims in Islamic history was the Prophet Muhammad. He became the head of state for a cosmopolite society, which consists of Jews, paganist Arabs and Muslims. However, the Prophet did not state who would be head of state after his death, nor did the Qur’an assign anyone for this job. Choosing a ruler for Muslims is a political issue; therefore it is left to people.</p>
<p>After the death of the Prophet, Muslims of Makkah <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=SGG1ngEACAAJ&dq=Kitab+al-Tabaqat+al-Kabir+Volume+3&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WieCVdaLMsXUmAXLtoDwBA&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAg">gathered</a> around Abu Bakr and Muslims of Medina around <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa'd_ibn_Ubadah">Sa’d bin Ubada</a>. After long discussions, Abu Bakr <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Prophets-Biography-As-sirah-Nabawiyyah/dp/B007IGZII8">was elected</a> as the first ruler of the Muslim population. His title was Khalifatu Rasul al-Allah (Successor of Messenger of God), which can be understood as the ruler who comes after the Prophet.</p>
<p>The first four caliphs, <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Abu-Bakr">Abu Bakr</a> (632–4), <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Umar-I">‘Umar</a> (634–44), <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Uthman-ibn-Affan">'Uthman</a> (644–56) and <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Ali-Muslim-caliph">'Ali</a> (656–61) have been called <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Ow-mV50c2TUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=God%27s+caliph&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GCuCVdPEJYaimQX41rqAAw&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=God's%20caliph&f=false">“the rightly guided caliphs”</a> (Khulafa Rashidin) by Sunni Muslims.</p>
<p>The determination of a title for the new leader was difficult, for prophethood would not be used for other Muslims. Therefore, the Muslim community adopted two titles for Muslim rulers after the Prophet: the ruler of believers (amir al-mu’minin) and the deputy of God (Khalifah Allah). From the second term (Khalifah), the English term caliph is derived.</p>
<h2>Views diverged on choosing a caliph</h2>
<p>Choosing a caliph in the case of the first four personalities (Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthman and 'Ali) established three different methods: public election, designation by a previous caliph, and assigning a caliph by a council. </p>
<p>In the historical context, two different visions for choosing a leader for the Muslim community emerged: Abu Bakr was the best candidate for caliphate due to his seniority in Islam and being the most respected Companion of the Prophet, according to Sunni scholars. The Shiite claim was that 'Ali was the most suitable candidate for he was the closest relative of the Prophet and was designated as successor by the Prophet.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85497/original/image-20150618-23256-ea5nhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85497/original/image-20150618-23256-ea5nhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85497/original/image-20150618-23256-ea5nhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85497/original/image-20150618-23256-ea5nhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85497/original/image-20150618-23256-ea5nhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=834&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85497/original/image-20150618-23256-ea5nhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1049&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85497/original/image-20150618-23256-ea5nhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1049&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85497/original/image-20150618-23256-ea5nhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1049&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Since ‘Ali, the fourth caliph, the issue of who can be caliph has been divisive – some argue the caliphate ended with him.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hakob_Hovnatanian_-_Ali_ibn_Abi_Talib.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/'Ali by Hakob Hovnatanian</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Because of the political conditions in the Arabian Peninsula, the first four caliphs were chosen from among the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Quraysh">Quraysh</a> clan. For the first time in the political history of Islam, the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Kharijite">Kharijite</a> sect, who separated from ‘Ali, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Milal_wa_al-Nihal">chose their own caliph</a>. Choosing a caliph from outside the Quraysh bloodline is a controversial issue among Muslim scholars.</p>
<p>There are two views on this matter. According to the <a href="http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/ibn-hazm-gleanings-his-thoughts-philosophy-and-science#003">first view</a>, any person who has necessary qualifications and knows Islamic principles can be a ruler and a caliph. The Kharijite and <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Mutazilah">Mutazilate</a> sects hold this view. The second group (the majority of Sunni scholars) holds that a caliph must be from the clan of Quraysh.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Ibn-Khaldun">Ibn Khaldun</a> (1334-1406 CE) holds that the issue of politics and caliphate is related to representing God’s justice among His servants. Therefore whoever is capable of providing justice when ruling Muslims <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/4744.html">can be elected as a caliph</a>. He argues that, at the beginning of Islam, caliphs were chosen from the bloodline of Quraysh and they all tried to provide justice for all the citizens in the Islamic state. Then it became a kingdom where obeying a caliph was <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/4744.html">accepted as one of the pillars</a> of the Islamic creed.</p>
<h2>Sacred and essential, or baseless and redundant?</h2>
<p>The institution of caliphate had been used by various Muslim nations throughout history and it was abolished by the secular Turkish government in 1924. </p>
<p>There are three views among Muslim scholars regarding the caliphate. The first is that the caliphate is a sacred institution – it is universal and necessary for all Muslims. The second is that it is a political institution and was established according to the needs of Muslims. The third view is that there is <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/4744.html">no such institution in Islam</a>, nor is there a need for it.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.worldbulletin.net/islamic-history/115375/the-last-ottoman-shaykh-ul-islam-mustafa-sabri-effendi">Mustafa Sabri Efendi</a> (1869-1954), the last Ottoman <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaykh_al-Isl%C4%81m">Shaykh al-Islam</a> (the head of religious affairs), <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Hilafet_ve_Kemalizm.html?id=4t07nQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y">holds that</a> caliphate is religious and political leadership, and a caliph is a person who represents the Prophet. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.academia.edu/3626943/Seyyid_Bey_and_the_Abolition_of_the_Caliphate">Mehmed Seyyid Bey</a> (1873-1925), a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey between 1923 and 1925, agreed with Mustafa Sabri on the definition of caliphate but argued that the institution of caliphate came to an end after 'Ali ibn Abī Tālib, the fourth caliph of Islam. He based his argument on a <a href="http://quranx.com/Hadith/AbuDawud/Book-42/Hadith-51/">prophetic tradition</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The caliphate will last 30 years, then it will turn into kingdom.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Seyyid Bey believed that the caliphate has a wise purpose but it follows the requirements of the time, therefore it is an issue of administration and politics. He maintained that when the Prophet died, he did not mention anything about caliphate to his Companions, nor is it in the Qur’an.</p>
<p>Contemporary scholar <a href="http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e8?_hi=0&_pos=16">Ali Abd al-Raziq</a> holds that there is <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00263200902853355?journalCode=fmes20">no basis for the caliphate</a> in either the Qur’an or in prophetic traditions.</p>
<h2>Political revival taps into Muslim longing</h2>
<p>However, many Muslims are <a href="http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/apr07/START_Apr07_quaire.pdf">looking for a just ruler</a> or a caliph who can unite all Muslims and end all the conflicts among them. The conflicts and wars in the Muslim world probably caused them to think about the notion of caliphate.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85501/original/image-20150618-23217-1phd8s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85501/original/image-20150618-23217-1phd8s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/85501/original/image-20150618-23217-1phd8s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85501/original/image-20150618-23217-1phd8s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85501/original/image-20150618-23217-1phd8s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85501/original/image-20150618-23217-1phd8s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85501/original/image-20150618-23217-1phd8s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/85501/original/image-20150618-23217-1phd8s0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hizb ut-Tahrir has devoted the 62 years since its founding to an elusive global goal of reviving the caliphate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hizb_ut-Tahrir#/media/File:Hizb_ut-Tahrir_demo_kbh.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/EPO</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many terrorist organisations in history have exploited the desire for the unity of Muslims. For example, in mid-2006, al-Qaeda <a href="http://catholicjustwar.blogspot.com.au/2007/09/is-surge-working.html">declared</a> that the Iraqi city of Ramadi was to be the capital of a new Islamic caliphate. In 1953, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiuddin_al-Nabhani">Taqiuddin al-Nabhani</a> (1909–79), established the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-hizb-ut-tahrir-37963">Hizb ut-Tahrir</a> (Party of Liberation) to <a href="https://www.cna.org/research/2007/struggle-unity-authority-islam-reviving-caliphate">revitalise the institution</a> of caliphate but he could not succeed.</p>
<p>In 1996, Taliban leader <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-13501233">Mullah Mohammed Omar</a> announced himself as the Commander of the Believers (Amir al-Mu’minin) and tried to revitalise caliphate in his person. His attempt was <a href="http://www.jamestown.org/programs/tm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=515&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=238&no_cache=1#.VYI2rVWqpBc">recognised</a> by Osama bin-Laden pledging his personal loyalty to him as the legitimate ruler of the state of Afghanistan. </p>
<p>More recently, Islamic State <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/30/isis-announces-islamic-caliphate-iraq-syria">declared a caliphate</a> in an area straddling Iraq and Syria and announced its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph.</p>
<p>The strong view on a caliphate is that it cannot be revitalised because of the establishment of nation states and the development of ideas of independence. Additionally, the caliphate has lost its effectiveness. Prominent contemporary scholar Fethullah Gulen <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1478-1913.2005.00104.x/abstract">holds that</a> the revival of the caliphate would be very difficult and that making Muslims accept such a revived caliph would be impossible.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other articles in the Roots of Radicalisation series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/roots-of-radicalisation">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41521/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Recep Dogan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Caliphate has inspired disputes among Muslims for centuries, but attempts at revival in modern times are unlikely to succeed. Most of the world’s Muslims would not accept its authority over them.Recep Dogan, Lecturer in Traditional Islamic Studies, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.