the Sawyer Seminar Nationalists and Salafis: Second Session: Orthodoxy and the Un-Orthodox

In the second session of the Sawyer Seminar Nationalists and Salafis, Jamsheed Choksy and Ellen McLarney presented papers on Orthodoxy and the Un-Orthodox.  Jamsheed Choksy’s paper entitled, “Religious Minorities and the Iranian state” examined how Iran views and deals with Minorities both new and those with an accepted heritage.  Ellen McLarney in contrast, presented her paper “Safinaz Kazim: Submission to Islam and the Subject of self,” which focused on one particular author’s submission to Islam.

Jamsheed Choksy’s paper focused on the impact of the religious theocracy in Iran has on religious minorities, which is often overlooked.  Pulling information from the Islamic constitution, Jamsheed examined the differences in how religious minorities are treated depending on their status as officially recognized or not.  While recognized minorities have some autonomy over their organizations, those that are not recognized do not.  Along with this, recognized religious minorities can have communal associations, but they have to adhere to Islamic doctrine in coming together.  Along with this, Choksy highlighted the fact that often, in spite of certain minorities being official recognized in the Iranian Theocracy, both recognized and unrecognized, face discrimination, both from the public and from Iranian officials. Often Minorities are seen as the traitors that are helping foreign interference , despite the fact that minority groups seem themselves as loyal Iranians .

Ellen McLarney paper focused on the writings of Safinaz Kazim, an Egyptian author and literary critic.  Specifically MacLarney focuses on the writings that are Dowa narratives.  Much of what McLarney focused on was the religious transformation of Safinaz Kazim after being imprisoned in 1982.  Safinaz Kazim, after the Secularism of the state, and the forbidding of veiling focuses on the discussion of veiling.  Kazim valorizes the practice of veiling, and equates Liberation in Islam with Veiling and being unveiled with lacking freedom.  For her, veiling is a public display of religiosity, rather than a silencing.  She sees her veiling as not a contradictory to her feminism, but rather see’s the use of both the veil and feminism as her ability to present a unified self.  Thus, her submission to Islam is not contradictory to her feminist ideas, but rather her bodily expression of the practice of Islam creates a sacred space safe from Secularism.

During the discussion, how these two papers are connected came to light.  Both address the problems of constituting either self or community within specific dominating Regimes.  The first paper focuses on the communally self defined, whereas the second paper focuses on the individual.  While a third author, Wilson Jacob,  with his paper “Regarding a Sayyid, Regarding History: Empire, Religion, Sovereignty” was not able to present, it was stated that this paper provided the middle ground by tracing movements/spheres of sovereignty The sayyid, Fadl bin Alawi in between Indian and the Ottoman Empire.  All three papers address the issues of Sovereignty of the Un-Orthodox in relation to the Orthodox.

Seminar: Ebrahim Moosa “Mullas, Madrasas, and Militants in South Asia.”

Ebrahim Moosa presented his article for the Boston review on his own personal history inside the Madrasas of South Asia.  This article’s primary focus was to present some of the history of Madrasas, as well as to address Western views on the Madrasas system as depicted primarily through the media, through the authors own experience as a young man in the Madrasa system.

In presenting this essay, Moosa laid out the following points that he wanted to get across:

The first, the Materiality of Madrasas, addressed that these schools are not primarily breeding ground for terrorist networks, by focusing on the intense experience students go through.  Moosa pointed out that Madrasas are places where senses are utilized for salvation and self-fashioning.  Stating that Madrasas are places for people “crazy/passionate” about salvation and the afterlife, these groups are not only concerned about individual salvation, but also the salvation of the entire community.  This struggle for salvation plays out on the individual body.  According to Moosa, the Body is a sensorium, through which all pupils experience the struggle for salvation.  All actions, from prayers, to rituals, to even eating are all supposed to be done with a focus on salvation and require a life of intense self-discipline.  Part of this is to sanctify the body and through doing so, remove sin and allow in knowledge.  Madrasas, as spaces where knowledge is formed, see knowledge as that which removes sin, and sin as that which removes knowledge.  Knowledge, as light from god, is the embodiment of truth and ethics and thus acquirement of knowledge is the primary focus of Madrasa students. With this intense focus on knowledge, Madrasas attract a certain type of individual; primarily one concerned with spiritual enlightenment and reason.

The second aspect of Moosa’s discussion focused on the context of Madrasas in Geopolitics.  Primarily his focus was on the portrayal of the Madrasa system as a breeding ground for terrorism both on the part of foreign policy and the western media.  Moosa went on to explain madrasas are portrayed as linked to terrorist networks, Jihad, and the Taliban, and are used to drum up Islamaphobia.  However, according to Moosa this is wholly untrue.  By addressing his own experiences within the Madrasa system, Ebrahim Moosa did two things: One, he was able to present the history of each of the madrasas he attended (as opposed to the single deobandi school shown in most of western media and grossly portrayed out of context as the most dangerous), and also present his own experience within each.  By doing so, he addressed not only how madrasas came to be portrayed as such, but provide personal experience that spoke directly against the slanderous claims of western media prone to Islamaphobia.

The last point Ebrahim Moosa addressed was the Melancholy now found within the Madrasas system.  Madrasas are under the threat of extinction as a result of Globalization and democratization, along with a variety of other forces.  As such there is much debate over the proper way to continue the Madrasa system: The forces of tradition and Islamic romanticism vs. modernization efforts.  Despite the resistance often observed within the Madrasas to change, Moosa points out that there have been many changes, especially concerning the curriculum.

Notes from 1/28 Class

Today’s Discussion Leaders: Ali and Brandon

A. Fadl article.  Discussion of causes of rise of ‘fundamentalism’.

–Brandon: Fadl says there are four factors in identity crisis in middle east: modernity, failed dev’t projects, authoritarian regime, israeli belligerence.  These create political/fundamentalist Islam.  is there evidence to back this up?

–Banu: gelvin explains that there is not necessarily a causal relationship between terrorism as a phenomenon and other events, but that certain conditions exist (i.e. globalization) that allow for the al-qaeda message to find followers.

–Daniel: technology more than globalization caused this

–Banu: look at South America, similar situation

–Ali: fadl says that these are contributing factors, not that there is a causal relationship.

possible map?

Medieval ——————->    colonialism————–>  resistance—————>Salafism

(jurisprudence discourse)     unequal power

(no fundamentalism)

–Hazi: this map doesn’t fit all muslim countries.  in SE Asia, many Muslims do not feel anger toward west, and simultaneously, many Muslims engage with Wahabism because they see it as an alternative to hierarchical islam.

–clayton: even though the factors he gives apply to almost the whole world, this part of the world is unique because they feel like they “fell further” from classical islamic civilization.

–colleen: what about incans, mayans, aztecs, etc? maybe its the specific time period during which middle east was colonized- at same time as development of nation state and fall of the great empires

–sarah– how do you even begin to ascribe causes to any movement, let alone one so recent?

–banu: need some definitions:

jihadi

muhajideen

muharib

wahabism– emphasize reading and following texts, no use of “interpretations” or contextualization, focus on muhammad’s life, puritanism.  Abd al- wahab, 18th cent Saudi scholar

salafism– less literal than wahabis, focuses on prophet and companions, but allows for some diversity of thought. emphasis on sunna and qur’an, must use reason to make their own interpretation

B. How these movements function

–hazi: important role of concept of golden age in islam, role of nostalgia as powerful political tool

–clayton: there are incredible similarities b/w islamic fundamentalist and christian reformation rhetoric, aided by significant changes in and spreading of technology

–Sarah: sees salafi movements as equivalent to nationalist movement, both trying to impose orthodox ideology onto heterogeneous populations, as way of making sense of complex world

–Daniel: need to define fundamentalism, extremism, terrorism.  cannot group all of these people together.

terrorist: can be defined by perpetrator- when perpetrator is not a gov’t

victim- when victim is not a gov’t (victims are civilians)

technique- terrorism when using suicide bomb vest, not guns

goal- terrorism as an intention to create fear

1. Yemen

–clayton: rise of sufism stems from decentralized (tribal) nature of yemeni society

–colleen: role of extreme poverty?

–sarah: what about literacy? do you have to be literate to be fundamentalist if they are based almost entirely on text?

–sarah: possibility of dual rise of sufi and salafi movements to replace lack of nationalist identity in Yemen. in other places, salafi and nationalist are not mutually exclusive

Spaces and Subjects of “Veiling Fashion” in Turkey

Sawyer Seminar Talk by Banu Gokariksel.

Research Overview

•             Neo-liberalism and modernity
•             In mall spaces and veiling fashion industry->new urban

2008 +2009(summer) more research-> recent findings

• New urban emerged over the last 30 years

We need to keep in mind the country’s secular founding. The scarf was discouraged but maintained casual occurrence but immigration of rural areas made the scarf associated with lower classes.

The new Muslim bourgeois

• 1980s new modesty-overcoats and draping scarves, muted colors, worn by young urban women who wanted to attend university.
• became associated with protests over the headscarf ban

New veiling fashion vs. traditional wear

• 1996-2008, numbers in the tesutter industry went up
• Need to analyze how the body is produced as a particular space. 

Banu’s paper:

-How moving from one spatial regime to another affects one body.

On Research Subject-Nurmandi:

• Subject didn’t grow up religious then decided to wear the headscarf upon entering the University but then couldn’t complete with the ban. She dropped out and began to work in NGOs.
• Subject planned to change dress to demonstrate her religious progression. 
• Subject began facing hair/scalp problems. She kept shaving her head, said her body was reacting to her past secularity.
• Subject expressed discomfort in malls and university-> Banu began thinking about spatial regimes.

—

The relationship between dress, religion and piety

• Some reject the tesuttor fashion because it was “selling Islam.”
• The rebuttal- “we make fashion in tesuttur, not other way around.” They saw it was objectable but still negotiable.

Catalogues:

• Portraying the modals in upscale background
• Usually always vertical, unbroken except by a hand-bag
• or in ottoman heritage (seen as cosmopolitism)
• Gaze directed off to the side
• Full make-up but not lipstick or nail polish
•  White skin, colored eyes

->complex set of aspirations being modeled, not just clothing

The difference between covering and tesettur

• Tesettur is chic and drawing attention. 
• “tesettur has gone haywire
• One woman expressed how the fashion tesettur industry has caused her to dress fashionably (i.e. she follows the industry as it shifts to the realm of tesettur).

__

Q&A

Q-maybe adding religion/secularity to the holy trinity of gender, class and race in the formation of identity?

A-(fyi- paper is written specifically for geography students. it is a call to geographers that studies have been limited.)

We need to move beyond the study of religion in a sacred space, it extends beyond the boundaries of those built walls. Therefore, secular/religiosity are bound up with one another, not necessarily in contrast with each other, they form on another, they intersect in the intimate spaces of the body. Those who engage in Tesettur fashion recognize they are multi-dimensional people. took into account their families, class status, whether they are working, will they have to use the bus several times a day? 

• religion does not dominate all dimensions of life.

The symbolic affects the embodiment because it is politicized, because it is a symbol, but the 2^nd paper shows that it represents so many things that it cannot be capitalized under one symbol.

Key point: *we don’t want to conclude that these identities are commodified and therefore useless*

a few links from Der Speigel…

Please find below a few recent links from Der Spiegel Online that I thought might interest some of you, both in terms of the topics themselves and in terms of the voice in which they are presented through this particular publication:

German-Turkish Author Seyran Ates:  ‘Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution’ — http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,654704,00.html (about Seyran Ates, whom Claudia Koonz mentioned, I believe)

The Gay Sons of Allah:  Wave of Homophobia Sweeps the Muslim World — http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,647913,00.html

Victim of Immigration Policy:  The German Forced to Become a Turk —
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,665060,00.html

Opinion:  Swiss Minaret Ban Reflects Fear of Islam, Not Real Problems — http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,664176,00.html (and a related essay by Mark LeVine for Al-Jazeera — In fear of ‘Eurabia’? — http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/12/20091229223658221.html)

Fears of Eurabia:  How Much Allah Can the Old Continent Bear? — http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,666448,00.html

man-Turkish Author Seyran Ates

‘Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution’

Notes from the Seminar with Akram Khater

“Constructing a Christian Identity in the Religious Landscaping of Bild al-Sham in the 18th Century.”

November 5th

In the 18th century, Christian identities were reformulated, and the idea of Maronite as a separate ethnic identity came into being. Professor Khater identified two major influences in the time period causing this shift:

1) Movements in Aleppo:

• Economics: Commercial inflow due to trade in the Christian and Jewish populations led to wealth being displayed in very conspicuous ways, and the development of new architectures and manners of dress.
• Missionaries: Vigorous Latin missionary work centered in Aleppo, the “proselytizing center,” starting in 1600.  Especially French missionaries wanted the Eastern Christians to come back into the Catholic fold.
• The simultaneous Arabization of Christian culture and Christianized Arab culture.  Missionaries used education such as teaching French, Italian and Latin as a way to reach people. Therefore, missionaries began to enter homes, into a more intimate space where women were raising children.
• Literary revival: This begins a dramatic shift towards Arabic, which is now implicated in identity.  Christian works on saints’ lives, hymnals etc. were translated into Arabic.  There were printing presses in Aleppo and Mt. Lebanon.  Art also focused on a new kind of Christianity concerned with hell instead of salvation (an Eastern focus). Arabic = authenticity.

2) Mt. Lebanon as a holy place:

• the articulation of the Holy Land
• mountains considered close to God
• this natural wilderness was specifically suited for Christians
• a sanctified place
• construction of the Christians (who lived there) as naturally good and specially religious
• cedars, a recurring symbol
• an area not subject to limitation on church bells and other Christian religious displays
• In the process of narrating Mt. Lebanon as paradise, Christians “pretended” there was discrimination in Ottoman cities.

During this time, Christians were resistant to attempts to Latinize their culture. There was a need to “claim” a quickly growing population, so histories were produced as orthodoxy.  Maronites were not always attached to Rome. Claims of Phoenician heritage are also dubious.  As with so many, their identity was a mixed bag.  This idea of a pure, fixed and unchanged identity that is specially theirs is fiction in a way.

Gender
While clerics were fighting over identity, a group of women used the paradox that they were “simple women” to diffuse the idea that they were engaging in a radical transgression.

Hiniyaa al’Ujaimi (1720-1798): “She drove the Vatican insane.”

• subject to 2 inqusitions
• her private experience of Christ becomes very public
• focused on the Sacred Heart of Christ
• follows the pattern of many mystical women

The Maronite patriarch has mixed feelings about her.  In one way, she was affirming that Mt. Lebanon was the (new) center of the Christian world.  On the other hand, she caused problems with the Vatican.  al-Ujaimi helped shift the weight of Christianity East, resisting the Enlightenment impulse to textualize everything. She affirms that Christianity is still a bodily, sensual experience.

Gender and Sexuality in Muslim Societies

October 28, 2009 Gender and Sexuality

Two themes arose in discussing Sahar Amer’s Crossing Borders, Scott Kugle’s “Sexuality and Sexual Ethics in the Agenda of Progressive Muslim,” Michael G. Peletz’s “Transgenderism and Gender Pluralism in Southeast Asia since Early Modern Times,” and Katherine Pratt Ewing’s Stolen Honor: Stigmatizing Muslim Men in Berlin. Maryam and Marriane led discussion and divided the readings so that the class first discussed Ewing and Amer and then discussed Peletz and Kugle. Highlights of the discussion include:

1) THE PROBLEM OF CATEGORIES AND IDENTITY:

The class discussion began with a focus on the artificial and legal separation between the public and private that generated questions concerning competing identities and scholars ways of categorizing people’s behaviors and beliefs. The class had much to say about Ewing’s deconstruction of the public/private binary. Ewing placed gender performance and behavior in relation to the German identity and a non-German Turkish “other” identity that at times competed with one another, at other times co-existed, and in a younger generation created a symbiotic identity. At the same time, Ewing also showed how beneficial some idea of public/private spheres was in analyzing gendered behavior and performance in interviews with Turkish men in Germany. Many questions centered around the construction of national identities and how those constructed national identities intersected with gender identities and the performance of identities.  The class grabbled with many of the key themes of masculinity including generational divisions, constructions of honor, gender performance and the lived experience of men while keeping an eye on how constructions of ethnicity and class intersected to create an individual’s identity. A key problem that kept on coming up was how to analyze and treat these themes in a generation of immigrants while not essentializing the identity categories of “Turk,” “German,” “Muslim,” “Islam,” “man,” “woman,” etc.

2)  THE PROBLEM OF “WESTERN” CONCEPTS OF FEMINISM AND SEXUAL LIBERATION MOVEMENTS IN “NON-WESTERN” SOCIETIES

Perhaps I was drawn to this more so than other students, but all the readings grabbled in some way with how to liberate women and gay men from a patriarchal muslim society in which men sought to control women’s bodies and to enforce heteronormativity. Many scholars addressed the problems of critiquing Muslim societies using sexuality theories and feminist theories from scholars in the United States and Europe. Scholars like Foucault responded to and reacted against a specific “Western” construction of sexuality into “Normal” and “Deviant” that then through imperialist measures spread to and continues to spread to the Muslim world. The work on the Medieval Middle East particularly highlighted this problem because Muslim societies at the time acknowledged a spectrum of sexuality and gender performances, but in describing those behaviors today, scholars invent new language and terminology. Thus, the class questioned how effective Judith Bennett’s move from “Lesbian” to “Lesbian-like” was in Sahar Amer’s Crossing Borders. This discussion also came up in reference to contemporary political movements in which Muslim societies view gay rights struggles as part of a Western imperialist agenda that they react against. Further complicating this dilemma is the recognition of victims of domestic abuse, honor killings, rape and hate crimes today.

It should also be noted that the class highlighted again the nostalgic and romantic view of the Medieval Middle East. In this weeks readings, even though scholars attempted to complicate it, a nostalgic view arose over sexual practice and acceptance in the Medieval Middle East.

Jews in Muslim Societies

Hello all!

Below is the handout for tomorrow’s class; it’s a lot of material, so if you could look it over before then, it’d be great. This and the other short reading will be on Blackboard, under the discussion board, as well.  See you tomorrow!

Jews in Muslim Societies, October 8^th

Our authors this week:

Maria Rosa Menocal (Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, 2002) was born in Cuba.  She received her PhD in Romance Philology in 1979 from the University of Pennsylvania, and taught there for a few years before moving to Yale.  For the past 23 years she has taught at Yale, where she is currently the R. Selden Rose Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and director of the Whitney Humanities Center.  Her research interests include comparative medieval lyric; the intellectual history of the study of the Arabic and Hebrew aspects of medieval Spanish identity; the formation of Castilian culture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.  Besides Ornament of the World, her books include The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage (1987), Writing in Dante’s Cult of Truth: From Borges to Boccaccio (1991), and Shards of Love: Exile and the Origins of the Lyric (1994).

Amy Mills (“Narratives in City Landscapes: Cultural Identity in Istanbul”, The Geographical Review 95, 2005) received her PhD in Geography from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004.  She has been an assistant professor in the department of Geography at the University of South Carolina since 2005.  She describes her research (which focuses on Turkey, specifically Istanbul) as “studies of geographies of identity at various scales. These scales include: the individual body and its gendered and ethnic identities; the neighborhood as a social space of community and belonging and/or exclusion; the city and its urban landscapes; and the nation and nationalism within a global context” (Mills, Personal Website, “Research”).

Jews in Islam

Islam and non-Muslims

–Dhimmi (“people of the dhimma”): this term refers to non-Muslim peoples under Muslim rule whose rights were explicitly protected by the state.  For the most part, this applied to the People of the Book (Ahl al-Kitab, i.e., Jews and Christians), though in some areas it was extended to Zoroastrians and Hindus.  In return for state protection, dhimmi were expected to pay the poll tax or jizya.

-Jizya: poll tax paid by non-Muslim subjects of Muslim rulers

Jews in Medina- large population of Jews in Medina when Muhammad arrived in 622

-Constitution: drafted by Muhammad shortly after his arrival in the city.  Laid down the social bases of Jewish-Muslim interaction: mutual toleration and self reliance.

-“(25) The Jews…are one community with the believers (the Jews have their religion and the Muslims have theirs), their freedmen and their persons except those who behave unjustly and sinfully, for they hurt but themselves and their families.”

-“ (37) The Jews must bear their expenses and the Muslims their expenses. Each must help the other against anyone who attacks the people of this document. They must seek mutual advice and consultation, and loyalty is a protection against treachery. A man is not liable for his ally’s misdeeds. The wronged must be helped. “

The Quran- what is said about Jews? Overall, the Quran shows a marked preference for Christianity over Judaism.  Furthermore, Jews in the Hadith are portrayed negatively, though Bernard Lewis says that this appears “less so in discussing his [Muhammad’s] beliefs and practices, more so in reference to Jewish relations with the Prophet and Muslims” (59).

-5:82- Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans; and nearest among them in love to the believers wilt thou find those who say, “We are Christians”: because amongst these are men devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant.

-5:59- Say: “O people of the Book! Do ye disapprove of us for no other reason than that we believe in God, and the revelation that hath come to us and that which came before (us), and (perhaps) that most of you are rebellious and disobedient?”

-9: 29-32- 29. Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.  30. The Jews call ‘Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah’s curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!  31. They take their priests and their anchorites to be their lords in derogation of Allah, and (they take as their Lord) Christ the son of Mary; yet they were commanded to worship but One Allah. There is no god but He. Praise and glory to Him: (Far is He) from having the partners they associate (with Him).  32. Fain would they extinguish Allah’s light with their mouths, but Allah will not allow but that His light should be perfected, even though the Unbelievers may detest (it).

HISTORY, 8^th c.-19^th c.

-Under the Caliphate, Jews were generally accorded fair treatment as dhimmi, though there were periods of repression (particularly associated with the era of Abu Mutawakkil in the mid 9^th century)

–Muslim Spain: Timeline

-711: Umayyad Invasion of al-Andalus (the Iberian peninsula)

-756: After Abassid overthrow of Umayyad dynasty in 750, last Umayyad, Abd ar-Rahman I, flees to Spain where he establishes himself as emir

-929: Abd ar-Rahman III (912-961) proclaims himself Caliph; Umayyad caliphate in Spain reaches greatest point

-1090: after years of civil war and disunity after the fall of the Umayyads (1030), the conservative African dynasty the Almoravids conquer al-Andalus

-1147: Almohads replace Almoravids, Muslim control of al-Andalus decreasing with every dynastic change

-1212: Almohads suffer crushing defeat at hands of the combined Christian kingdoms (Castille, Navarre, Aragon, and Portugal)

-1228: last Muslim state in Spain, Grenada (under the Nasrid dynasty), is established; survives as client of Castille until Catholic conquest in 1492

–Ottomans Jews were most important community in Muslim world

-first, most numerous; Ottomans actively encouraged Jewish immigration from around the Mediterranean, transporting Jews from areas where they were persecuted and settling them in Ottoman territory

-the presence of so many minorities (many varieties of Christianity) made Jews a less obvious target

-Jews, unlike Christians, had no attachment to the Ottomans’ enemies (Christendom)

–Persia was generally the worst place for Jews in Muslim world

-most visible minority and only one across Iran (others were regional, e.g.  Armenians)

-stricter standard of Shi’a Islam: Jews not just infidels, but “ritually unclean- people whose very touch brought pollution” (151)

Balfour Declaration, Mandate, and establishment of the State of Israel

-1917- Balfour Declaration by the British government, stating that “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”, formed the basis for the 1922 British Mandate over Palestine

-Jewish immigration to Palestine increased in the 1930s as a response to Nazi persecution, though the British tried to put a cap on immigrants to Palestine

-with the establishment of Israel and the ensuing war between Israel and her Arab neighbors in 1948, Jews in Arab countries faced both domestic (persecution or outright expulsion) and international (Israeli efforts to get Jews to move, and often logistic cooperation between Israel, Western nations, and Arab countries in order for the latter to get rid of their Jews) pressure to leave

-Aliya (Hebrew for ‘ascent’): the immigration of Jews to the State of Israel, or Eretz Israel

-over 800,000 Jews from Arab countries came to Israel in the decades after 1948; today almost none remain

Islamic Anti-Semitism: A Historiographical Debate

-One view: “There is little sign [in the Muslim world] of deep-rooted emotional hostility directed against Jews- or for that matter any other group- such as the anti-Semitism of the Christian world” (32); that anti-Semitism in the Muslim world is essentially a product of European anti-Semitism, transferred to the Middle East via imperialism and European media (Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Nazi propaganda, etc.)

-Opposing view: “During the last fifteen years, certain Western scholars have tried to argue that, first, Islamic anti-Semitism- that is, hatred of Jews- is only a recent phenomenon learned from the Nazis during and after the 1940s, and, second, that Jews lived safely under Muslim rule for centuries, especially during the Golden Age of Muslim Spain.  Both assertions are unsupported by the evidence.  Islam 1, that is, the Islam of the texts, as found in the Qur’an and hadith and in the sira, and Islam 2- that is, the Islam developed or elaborated from those texts early on by the Qur’anic commentators and jurisconsulists, and then set in stone more than a millennium ago- and even Islam 3, in the sense of Islamic civilization- that is, what Muslims actually did historically- have all been deeply anti-Semitic.  That is, all have been anti-infidel, so that Christians too are regarded with disdain and contempt and hatred, but the Jews have been served, or been seen to have merited, a special animus.” (22) 

Country	1948	2008
Afghanistan	6000	0
Algeria	140000	0
Azerbaijan	30000?	6,800
Egypt	75000	100
Iran	50000	10800
Iraq	105000	120
Lebanon	25000	0
Libya	40000	0
Morocco	250000	3000
Syria	20000	100
Tunisia	66000	1000
Turkey	80000	17800
Yemen	55000	200
	912000

Muslims in Africa

Nathan and Anna highlighted the diversity of muslim societies in North Africa by focusing the discussion on the social construction of race and ethnicity, divergent religious practices and competing and parallel cultural expressions. There were three key points for this class.

1) THE MIDDLE EAST IS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF ALL MUSLIM SOCIETIES

Nathan started class with a power point presentation that challenged students understanding of the Middle East as representative of Muslim Societies. His use of maps showed that Islam is predominate in North Africa, but also that North Africa has some of the most populous Islamic countries in the world. For instance, the class was much surprised to find out that Nigeria was the fourth most populous Muslim country in the world and that in fact, no Middle Eastern State was in the top five most populous Muslim countries. His presentation reminded the class that the Middle East is not representative of all Muslim Societies and it could be argued that it is more exceptional than representational.

2) RACIAL CONSTRUCTIONS ARE COMPLEX IN MUSLIM SOCIETIES

The class discussion of El Hamel’s “Blacks and Slavery in Morocco” raised several questions. First, students asked “What is race and how is El Hamel approaching it?”  The discussion noted that El Hamel, rather than assuming race, shows how a centralizing Moroccan kingdom used a racial ideology to establish its authority and power over and against competing groups and to thwart European incursions. Prof. Shields then asked, “Why were ‘black’ people vulnerable in 1673 instead of other members of the Moroccan population?” The class then moved on to discuss El Hamel’s claim that Western Scholars have a soft analysis of slavery in Muslim societies as well as his challenge to Islamic Scholars who ignore slavery. At the end of this discussion, I had one unanswered questions: “What is the context of Morocco in the larger Atlantic World, which also associated  and then enforced racial categories with slavery at the same time?”

3) TENSION BETWEEN ORTHODOXY AND HETERODOXY IN ISLAMIC SOCIETIES

Anna gave a wonderful powerpoint presentation about the practice of Islam in Senegal. Her presentation stimulated a conversation about who has the power to define orthodoxy and what is authentic Islam.  The case of Senegal shows how Islam can syncretize with local cultural customs and/or coexist side by side with divergent religious practices.

Southern Morocco

My daughter took these two photographs at a market in Zagora, in southern Morocco at the northern end of the old trans-Saharan trade route.