No Man-Istan

One post I’ve been waiting a long time to put it is about my confusing, and unfortunately, largely disappointing, experience with Sufism in Pakistan (I’ll relate a specific story about that in a later post). For those who don’t know, Sufism is considered the mystical core of Islam, without which Islam can be relegated to an outwardly-focused, politisized and law-based edifice. Indeed, Wahhabism, the ruling ideology of Saudi Arabia (which houses Islam’s holiest sites, including Mecca, which is a required pilgrimmage site for all able Muslims), condemns Sufism and is one of the strictest and puritanical (read: intolerant) branches of this religion. That’s the Islam I never wanted to experience in Pakistan, or at least observe from a safe distance, but it is an ideology that is gaining allies (along with related political parties and doctrines, such as Deobandi Islam).

Much to my surprise, Sufism in Pakistan turned out to be little of what I expected, or what attracted me to it in the first place. Sufism, first and foremost, is supposed to be a pure expression of humility, divine love towards self, others, and God, and it often incorporates beautiful poetry and sophisticated metaphysics. I have encountered few philosophers, and even the gentlest and most open-minded make concessions to the dominant trope of machismo, nationalism and religious supremacy in Pakistan. It seems like Sufism is largely a way for otherwise devout Muslims, who harbor strong views about the superiority of Islam, to express their devotion to the Qur’an, the Prophet, his successors, different Sheiks (masters) or Qalandars,  and the glories of past Muslim empires (khalifat) with striking emotional intensity. Passion and wild exuberant displays are generally frowned upon by more conservative, and moderate, Muslims, but even many conservatives seemed to have tipped over to brazen displays of anger (obviously, at Islam’s perceived enemies). I suspect that this emotionalism is partly an expression of the general angry mood of the country, particularly towards America and the West, which naturally reflects how Muslims the worldover feel right now.

But I think this emotionalism is also part  of the culture of the subcontinent which, like many original non-Arab and non-Muslim lands that were conquered and/or converted to Islam, adapted to a foreign religion by retaining their culture and keeping much of their social structure intact (within certain limits of course).

During India’s Gupta’s empire, the last great Hindu civilization before foreign domination and splintering off into separate kingdoms, devotional mysticism, based on the rise of illiterate folks and simple workers and peasants, expressing their devotion to Bhagwan (God) in poetry, song, and dance. One of Hinduism’s most popular scripture – the Bhagavad Gita (song of the God-man Krishna) – inspired a movement of Yoga (spiritual discipline) through Karma (action) and Bhakti (devotion to a deity). The links to later Islamic development, and folk Islam in particular, is evident to me. It’s not hard to see symbolic parallels between romantic love stories, and the idea of “falling in love” with God. (I wonder if the higher meaning of love stories is remembered in today’s Bollywood, beyond the obvious sociological trope of yearning for ”forbidden love” in a climate of arranged marriages, casteism, and Romeo and Juliet type family feuds). 

Below I am reprinting a letter I wrote to Dawn newspaper concerning a feature and interview they did on Tariq Ramadan. It address what I feel is one of the most central problems in Muslim countries, and that is the lack of a spiritual-focus in the resurgence of Muslim piety. Looking back, I think I made an error.  For Muslims, Islam’s holiest scripture, the Qur’an, is considered not just a text, but a means to an experience that can properly be called “spiritual.” To Muslims, the recitation of the Qur’an (the word in Arabic literally means “recitation”) is indeed a spiritual act because of a metaphysical injunction, as a response to rationalist philosophy, determined by a consensus of theologians over 800 years ago who decided that the words of the Qur’an are the literal speech of Allah (God) and that it must be considered literally sacred, pure, and uncreat. So hearing/reciting this text literally puts Muslims into direct contact, or as close as they can come in this life, with Allah. This perspective also means, incidentally, that contextualism, historicism, or any relativizing of the Qur’an vis-a-vis other texts and cultures is virtually impossible.

Anyway, here is the letter-to-the-editor:

What is Spirituality?

I found your piece Author: Walking the Tightrope (July 27^th issue), which featured a Tariq Ramadan interview, quite interesting. While I find his philosophy and historical perspective rather myopic, I can appreciate the difficulty of his chosen task – bridging two seemingly opposed civilizational spheres.

However, my disagreement in this particular case is more subtle. Ramadan talks about spirituality in a way that I believe is common, but flawed.

It should be noted that “spirituality” is one of the most difficult words to define. It should be so, as it describes a reality beyond the limitations of semantics, and it is this very word that confronts us with the inadequacy of language to represent the world in its entirety. Indeed, I sometimes feel spirituality is bandied about too frequently and carelessly in popular discourse, and would rather avoid using the term altogether.

Many sages, East and West, have had a different take on the issue than orthodox religion, which tends to limit spirituality to a certain idea of holiness, or so-called New Age thought, which tends to equate spirituality with good feelings. Tariq Ramadan’s definition of spirituality is something between a thought and feeling, or a balance of rationality and emotion. In Greek, this would be a marriage of mythos and logos, the values of Dionysus and Apollo, respectively. For Muslims to be spiritual means that they should study the sacred texts of Islam, and should be passionate in applying these teachings to the world. This makes sense, but I feel it misses the point entirely.

First, let’s look at the etymology of the word. In Latin, spiritus means “life animating force” and is related to the Greek pneuma, which means “breath” (the actual respiration process, as well as a life-sustaining ether connected with it). Spiritus is the root of the English words: spirit, spirituality, and sprite.

Spirit is a force that moves through us – but is itself not a vehicle. Normally, energy (potential or kinetic) is conserved or converted into another form, but Spirit is not bound by this principle. For example, a person at a football match might be said to have “spirit” for his or her favourite team. More than one person rooting for the same team adds to that spirit, and thus the group can be said to have “team spirit.” Unlike material resources, if one person gains team spirit, it does not mean that another must lose some. Further, team spirit does not seem to “go” anywhere after the game ends. We perceive that this phenomenon, whatever it is, can only be explained through analogy, because it is better known through experience (in Greek, gnosis).

Here is what mystics generally report about Spirit: 1.) It is real. 2.) It is boundless. 3.) It is immaterial, but it matters. 4.) It is a paradox – transcendental and inclusive 7.) It is pure consciousness (doesn’t have consciousness, but simply is). 8.) It is all that we humans truly desire.

Here is what spirituality is not: 1.) Sensations or perceptions, though it involves them. 2.) Emotion, though it is emotional to have a spiritual experience. 3.) Ideas, though it includes them too. 4.) A monopoly of any one religion.

What is the implication? Religion without spirituality is shallow at best, fanatical at worst. Without a spiritual core, morality devolves into rigid penal codes, philosophy into unquestionable (and often irrational) dogma, and art into propaganda. If people are poor on the inside, they will seek control from without through power, conquest, and greed. In short, when religion looses touch with its spirituality core it becomes bad politics. And it is largely because there is so much narrow ideology masquerading as wisdom that religion gets a bad image, and many good people give up on it altogether.

But there is a solution. Whether we engage in dhikr, meditation, Yoga, or any tried and true contemplative method, we will find treasures buried within that can sustain us, free us, and make life beautiful.

Indian-American commentator and Newsweek editor/writer Fareed Zakaria wrote a poignant and sobering piece in a recent issue: http://www.newsweek.com/id/187093

Sadly, inevitably, he concedes that liberals (and capitalists) of all stripes in the West must face the reality that Islamic extremism is not going away any time soon; it’s growing actually, and non-Muslim countries (particularly their governments) can’t really do much about it. But he makes a distinction that, at first blush, seems like needless hair-splitting, but is actually quite clarifying. Extreme Islam (as a nativist phenomenon) must be separated from global jihadism, which represents Al Qaeda’s transnational use of violence to destroy and topple governments in Muslim and non-Muslim countries alike. The latter’s danger is obvious enough, particularly with the prospect of loose biological and nuclear material in the hands of bloodthirsty fanatics bent on mass destruction. He concludes, optimistically, that if Bin Laden’s ideology dies, and his cadres are shutdown, then the lesser threat posed by native Islamic extremism will die down on its own, as its political program will later prove itself inadequate to its current supporters and subjects. As he says – they [political Islamists] can’t meet the needs of people in the modern world, but we [free countries] can.

He’s probably right. But how long will that take? How long can we sit back, be patient, and watch it happen? How many innocent women, minorities, and non-Muslims must suffer in the process? And how will it change, exactly? Revolutions against authoritarian regimes are rarely smooth or peaceful, and the more authoritarian the regime, generally, the bloodier the conflict. These are not easy matters, but my reservations aside, I don’t see any realistic or alternative compelling vision to Zakaria’s insights.

I tried to put my own comments on the NW site, but you have to be a subscriber. I saved my comments and decided to post them here:

” Groups like the ones in Pakistan who attack others (non-Muslims) like the recent Sri Lankan cricket team, whether for religious or socio-political reasons, indeed ARE the same type of global jihadists we need to overcome! But merely implementing sharia-law in their own country, as disgusting as it is, itself is not enough to justify military action. And groups like the Taliban often use the same terrorist methods (i.e. suicide bombings, kidnappings and be-headings, attacks on foreigners, destroying buildings, etc.) as global jidhadists. The article doesn’t say we should do absolutely nothing about it. There are other, if “weaker,” ways we can help victims/refugees of extreme Islam in terms of said countries’ internal despotism. And even if we just do nothing more than wait for women and minorities to rise up against their oppressors, we must consider this as a triage situation, with Al Qaedism as the biggest pathology facing America and global stability.

Military action against outright aggression toward other nations is clearly justified internationally (hence the large support for Iraq War I). Genocide confined within a state’s own borders is a murkier area, but there is general recognition that such a phenomenon is severe enough to warrant armed action by foreign bodies if the population under attack is totally defenseless. But simply for bad regimes, theocratic authoritarianism, and lack of democracy alone, war is clearly not the right tool. War (as it is an invasion by an outside, occupying force) can even work against such humanitarian efforts (think Iraq II).

Still, when all is said and done, I don’t know if extreme Muslims, such as the Pakistani Taliban, can be trusted not to use WMD’s if they hold power in state governments. Is there not a close connection between their internal tyranny and their external violence/hegemony? This is especially true for those whose worldview does not recognize:  the modern nation-state system, the UN and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or the inherent right of non-Muslims to believe in/practice their religions, follow non-Arabic cultural practices, and implement religiously neutral governments (not to mention the inherent irrationality of those with fundamentalist-literalistic, supernatural, and apocalyptic beliefs).”