November 12, 2001
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Varsha Bhosle
No path to reformation
L ast week, many readers wrote in asking what I had
meant by 'Don’t Christians have a New Testament?' I admit, that closing paragraph
is inscrutable. The reason being that the original one was felt to be too
'hot,'
and so was changed – with my consent. For, toning it down would have
required
considerable space. Now, by no stretch of imagination am I well-versed in
scriptures – any scripture. Nor have I ever been inclined to study religion.
But as one travels down the bumpy road of journalism, it becomes obligatory
to
pick up some essentials here and there, however tiresome the route may be.
On reading up about the Bible, I found that a humungous amount of research
and
reformation has been part of the process that's led to the
current versions of the book accepted by the different Christian
denominations. The dating of the ancient papyri and parchments, the
palaeographic analysis, the scientific tests conducted on the manuscripts
and
– most significantly – the examination and criticisms of the
manuscripts' authority, have been a continuous process going on since
centuries. As one contemporary critique states, "The final aim of
Christian study of the New Testament is the better understanding of the
revelation which it contains, and here the resources of human knowledge
can be fitly employed, because the books of the New Testament were written
and
copied by men who were fallible like ourselves and under the
influence of their human environment."
I was shocked to discover that the Hebrew Scriptures (ie, the Old
Testament),
contains 613 commandments, including 365 prohibitions, given by
God to Moses. For instance, The Holiness Code in the Torah – the Hebrew term
for the first five books of the Bible, also known as the
"Pentateuch," consisting of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers,
and Deuteronomy – permits slavery (Leviticus 25:44), and
requires that a child be killed if s/he curses the parent (20:9), persons
guilty of adultery be killed (20:10), the daughter of a priest who engages
in
prostitution be burned alive (21:9), and, a person who takes the Lord's name
in vain be killed (24:16). Thanks to Charlton Heston, I'd thought that
God gave Moses only ten.
Christians have many conflicting attitudes about the Bible. In fact, the
beliefs of the conservative starkly contrast those of the liberal wings,
with
Roman Catholics and mainline Christians often holding intermediate views.
For
instance, whereas the conservatives believe that the writings of
the New Testament are inspired by God, the liberals hold they are the
beliefs
or opinions of the authors and their faith group. While the
conservatives hold that the book's accuracy is inerrant, the liberals feel
it
contains some errors, religious propaganda and fictional material.
While the conservatives deem that all scripture is useful for guidance and
spiritual development, the liberals think passages referring to
slavery, the role of women, etc, do not reflect the will of God.
Point is, do we see any adhesion to the aforementioned Leviticus
commandments
by even the orthodox Christians and Jews...? Why and how
were the majority-Christian states able to separate religion from
governance,
and tuck away the obsolescent commandments, while none of the
Islamic states are inclined to do so? Forget about the Islamic terrorist
groups and individual "miscreants," why is the "peaceful" Muslim citizenry
of Islamic states – and that of secular ones – supportive of even the
anachronistic and, yes, barbaric codes contained in the Quran?
Such questions have always foxed me. For instance, I've never understood why
my otherwise-perfectly-rational Muslim friends living in the West
consider the eating of pork a "sin." I mean, the pigs bred in Denmark feed
on
swill cleaner than the food consumed by humans in Pakistan! (I
add for the benefit of Hindu veggie-nazis: herbs and leafy vegetables
produced
in India often contain traces of human faeces.) Or, why do
educated British-Muslim women, if not in burqas, cover their heads and necks
with scarves? It says to me that my brothers, my uncle and my
boyfriend are rampant sex-maniacs just waiting to rape the first attractive
woman they see on the street!
It is my considered opinion that there exists an iron curtain between the
Muslim's faith and his power of reasoning – a curtain drawn by how the
Quran is read and taught, whether at home or in the madrasas. There
was a time that when I had set down some offensive verses of the Quran in my
column, the sainted editor had wrinkled his sainted nose at the outré -ness
of
it all – and it had actually shamed me into self-censorship. And what do we
see today...?
Andrew Sullivan, in The New York Times of October 7: "Most
interpreters of the Koran find no arguments in it for the murder of
innocents.
But it would be naive to ignore in Islam a deep thread of intolerance toward
unbelievers... There are many passages in the Koran urging mercy toward
others, tolerance, respect for life and so on. But there are also passages
as
violent as this: 'And when the sacred months are passed, kill those who join
other gods with God wherever ye shall find them; and seize them, besiege
them,
and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush.' And this: 'Believers! Wage
war against such of the infidels as are your neighbors, and let them find
you
rigorous'."
Eminent British historian Paul Johnson, in The National Review of
October 15: "Islam is an imperialist religion, more so than Christianity has
ever been, and in contrast to Judaism... Sura 9, verse 5, adds: 'Then fight
and slay the pagans wherever you find them. And seize them, beleaguer them
and
lie in wait for them, in every stratagem [of war].' Then nations, however
mighty, the Koran insists, must be fought 'until they embrace Islam'...
These
canonical commands cannot be explained away or softened by modern
theological
exegesis, because there is no such science in Islam."
He's right. Yesterday, I watched a BBC debate on the concept of jihad in the
Quran, with a panel of five Islamic scholars and John Esposito of
Georgetown University. The hapless anchor was trying his best to elicit from
the panel the view that it's possible for the jihad verses to be
abrogated or lowered in value. None agreed – the Quran is infallible and
must
be taken in its entirety, they said. They spoke about Greater Jihad
(of the soul) and Lesser Jihad (of the sword) and of the "context" in which
the martial jihad should be viewed. But the essence was: Palestinians
are right in declaring jihad against Israel. If Kashmir had been brought up,
you can be certain the answer would be the same.
The "communalist-divisive-fundamentalists" of India have been struggling
against such aspects of Islam since decades. But the "secularists"
and pinkos waged such a war to protect their minority vote-banks that they
all
but drowned the Hindutva movement. The very same happened in
Britain – resulting in its Islamists becoming bolder. Farooq Dhondy writes
in
City Journal: "The general depression of the mill-and-mosque towns
[of Britain ] reflected itself in run-down, restless schools,
without
ambition or excellence. The activists and ambulance chasers of the Left
demanded more multiculturalism in these schools – which gave cover to the
ex-peasant community's demands for the Islamization of the schools' ethos
and
curriculum. They demanded – successfully, in some cases – that girls and
boys
be taught separately, that girl pupils cover their heads and limbs, that the
schools serve halal meat, that Arabic and the Quran be taught, that British
history classes depict Britain primarily as an exploitative, demonic nation.
Principals who resisted these demands were branded racists."
How different is that from India...? The rejection of the
Constitution-directed Uniform Civil Code, the enjoying of the Haj subsidy,
the
demand for
SC/ST status for "Dalit Muslims," the salaries to mullahs by the state...
what
are these if not the imposition of twisted Islamic laws on a secular
State...?
Rafiq Zakaria says in his essay, The Quran does not preach violence, that
"Each verse [on jihad ] mentioned aggression, tumult, oppression as
the reason for fighting the disbelievers and each one cautioned that
hostility
should cease as soon as the threat receded. The verses are clear; but they
have been twisted by fanatical Muslims on the one hand and inimical
non-Muslims on the other to give their own interpretation, which violate the
doctrine of freedom of worship and the basic features of the Quran. To take
such verses out of context has been a regular pastime of Muslim theologians
and non-Muslim detractors, who have proved to be experts in the art of
selective and out of context quotation-mongering."
True, perhaps. Unfortunately, his argument falls flat on its face when
accosted with Arif Jamal's: "The real objective of jihad in the life of
Prophet
Muhamad was to defeat the infidels and establish an Islamic state in Mecca,
Medina and the Arabian island later on. This essential meaning of
jihad remains even today. The main objective of jihad even today is to
defeat
the infidels and establish Islamic states all over the world. Muslims
believe that the Earth belongs to Allah and they should establish the system
of Allah on Allah's Earth. The infidel system must go" (Asia Times,
October 10).
Arif Jamal, journalist and scholar, and born, educated and living in
Pakistan,
is accepted as the leading Asian expert on jihad. Whereas Zakaria,
though also a scholar, is a Congress politician of pseudo-secular India. So
who's going to buy Zakaria's line...? It would be more honest – and
thus, more effective – to admit to the widely-accepted meaning of jihad. For
only then can some progress be made in the reformation of held
Islamic beliefs. As Salman Rushdie puts it: "...there needs to be a thorough
examination, by Muslims everywhere, of why it is that the faith they
love breeds so many violent mutant strains. If the West needs to understand
its Unabombers and McVeighs, Islam needs to face up to its bin
Ladens."
One Muslim reader asked me, what could the moderates do to bring about a
change in Muslim society? Frankly, I don't have a clue – I'm still
struggling with the infusing of some spine in our oh-so-secular Hindus! But
as
I think of it, when the government of the land that holds the holy
places of Mecca and Medina, itself goes about stoning women to death and
chopping off limbs and beheading men in public places, what are
the chances of establishing a peaceable Islam elsewhere, anywhere...?
Varsha Bhosle
