PDF One month ago this morning, I was in Phoenix, Arizona, sitting inside a church on the other side of the pulpit for a change. It was six in the morning, temperatures had already reached past the 80s in this early hour – despite the cloud cover – and my body was screaming for water continually in a way I’d never experienced even in this desert climate. The cathedral was packed to overflowing, and we were singing “De Colores” over and over again as we welcomed in the families who’d been sitting vigil outside the state capitol building for the last 98 days. In less than an hour, we’d be leaving the church together to march down to the city center to protest the beginning of the enforcement of Arizona’s now notorious SB1070 immigration law. It was hot, I was tired, and I couldn’t understand half of what was being said, despite my sub-Kindergarten level skill in Spanish, and I found myself wondering that morning, “What am I doing here?”
What could have possibly possessed me to travel to Phoenix, Arizona so that I could spend the day standing outside in the height of the summer heat, and risk dehydration and possible arrest? Why do this?
The easy answer is that I was there to follow my conscience, to speak out against something I believed was unjust. Not everyone agrees with me on this point. So let me give you a more complete answer. Get comfortable, it’s a long one. Read the rest of this entry »
Twenty years ago this week, my freshmen year orientation week at Marquette University kicked off with Stevie Ray Vaughn dying in a helicopter near Alpine Valley outside Milwaukee. A maudlin start to my college years.
Good night, Stevie. Goodnight, everybody.
Bronx man arrested for urinating in a mosque.
I suppose it’s preferable to stabbing, but still . . .
Aasif Mandvi, The Daily Show‘s best correspondent IMHO:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Tennessee No Evil | ||||
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I feel dumber having listened to that lady.
w/apologies to Andrew Sullivan.
Enough intolerance angst for one day. Time for some guitar.
G’night, everybody.
Recently, former Sen. Rick Santorum had this to say on the subject of Imam Faisul Rauf:
“He’s a jihadist, he’s just not a violent jihadist.”
Well, Senator, technically you are correct. In your obvious ignorance, you’ve managed to stumble on some truth. Congratulations. Of course, you’re right for all the wrong reasons.
When the talking heads on the TeeVee say “jihad” or “jihadist” they are trying to strike a note of fear in the public. That’s because the word “jihad” is one of those religious terms that everyone in this country thinks they know the meaning of, while there are few actually do. In America, a “jihadist” is a “scary brown person who wants to kill me.” We’ve come by this definition because, as every good elementary and high school social studies text will tell us, “jihad” is the Arabic word for “holy war” — or, as we understand it, a war waged by Muslims against non-Muslims. This is what Santorum implies with his use of the word “jihadist,” and he’s mostly wrong because (a) our understanding of the concept of “holy war” doesn’t square with the way most Muslims understand it and (b) “holy war” is the lesser meaning of the word.
To clarify: “holy war” is not the primary definition of jihad.
Jihad, in strictly literal terms, is an Arabic noun meaning “struggle.” It appears frequently throughout the Qur’an and its commentaries, most in often in the context of “struggling in the way of Allah.” In this sense, jihad is the struggle every Muslim goes through to live a correct life as prescribed by God, most especially in the observance of Islam’s five pillars: submission to Allah, five daily prayers, charitable giving, the Ramadan fast, and the pilgrimage to Mecca (Note: jihad is NOT a pillar of Islam, as much as Muslim extremists and American xenophobes might wish it to be). Depending on the Islamic tradition you’re coming from, there are different forms of the struggle. Most notably in the majority Sunni tradition there is the spiritual struggle within the self, the struggle to improve the community, or the struggle of the holy war.
The first two are the struggle of the individual and the gathered community to live up to its ethical obligations. In the Sufi tradition, this is known as the “greater Jihad.” This is the constant, ongoing struggle of a person of faith, and it applies to all Muslims. In this sense, all Muslims are “jihadists.” Thus we have the means by which Sen. Santorum accidently stumbles upon truth in his attempt at nefarious implication. Imam Rauf is a jihadist, and not a violent one. So is your average Muslim on the street. In fact, the idea fo jihad is not limited to Muslims in the Arabic language. Living up to the ethical expectations of any religion is a struggle. It is no small thing that the Arabic language translates the concept of Gandhi’s non-violent practice of satyagraha as . . . wait for it . . . jihad. Sen. Santorum is a Roman Catholic, a religion with fairly strict ethical expectations. If the senator is trying to live up to the expectations of the faith he professes, and considering his penchant for public moral grandstanding let’s hope for his sake that he is, then Mr. Santorum is, in effect, a jihadist (all people of the Book struggle).
Where the senator gets it all wrong is in attempting to imply, and as we Americans on the whole believe, that jihad means “holy war” period. Of course it doesn’t help that in Arabic, one who struggles is called a mujahid, or in the plural, mujahideen, a term familiar to anyone familiar with recent history, as it was the name given to the anti-Soviet militia in Afghanistan, including one Osama Bin Laden. Confusion is understandable. Doesn’t make it any less wrong, however.
In the Sufi tradition, holy war is known as the “lesser jihad.” Physical war is intended as a last resort, and even then, there are ethical demands placed upon those who wage war in the name of Islam, including prohibitions against harming women, children, and other noncombatants. By that measure, terrorists could be said to have shirked the title of jihadist.
In every classic sense of the word, Sen. Santorum has told the truth. The Imam is a jihadist, and not a violent one. Don’t think, however, for one second that this was the senator’s intention. Jihad is a word that scares us, and when men like Rick Santorum speak it, that’s their intention. There are those in this country who want us scared of Muslims, and of Islam. It is unnecessary, indeed counterproductive, to live in fear of an entire people and their religion. There are elements of Islam that we’re right to be frightened by, but for that matter there are elements of any faith carried to the extreme that are worthy of our fear.
Jihad is not one of them. Terrorism is. We put ourselves and others in danger when we confuse the two.
BTW, much of this information is readily available if you care to look. I highly recommend Stephen Prothero’s Religious Literacy
I asked in the previous sermon post how much longer it would be before worse harm was done given current anti-Mosque/Muslim hysteria.
The answer?
UPDATE: The attacker’s apparent background makes this story a little weirder. Meanwhile, the cabbie speaks.
delivered at the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos, 8/22/2010
I had originally planned to preach on the topic of heroes and heroism today. It was a topic picked out of desperation, and I had no idea what I was going to say on the subject. As the day approached, I had even less of an idea. Occasionally, when faced with a situation like this, the universe hands you the ideal teachable moment. In the last several weeks, that moment has come in the guise of the furor over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” – the Islamic community center, now known as Park51, planned for development a few blocks from the World Trade Center site.
The controversy over Park51 has dominated news cycles for several weeks now, to the extent where you might think there was nothing else of significance going on in the world. It has engendered fierce debate and argument. I’ve been arguing quite a bit, myself. I’ve argued with my extended Facebook network. I’ve argued with colleagues. I’ve argued with myself, to the point where I realized that I had been engaged in a non-stop two-week-long internal monologue – no, let’s call it a rant. So, when the time came to write this week’s sermon, heroes were out the window. All I had was this.
And so, I’d like to talk this morning about a most dangerous game we seem to be playing in this country of late. If you’d like an alternative title, we can go with the comment of one of my more waggish Internet friends: “Mosque Ado About Nothing.” Read the rest of this entry »
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