Homily of A Devil's Advocate: A Response to Bashir Goth

HOMILY OF A DEVIL’S ADVOCATE: A RESPONSE TO BASHIR GOTH

Ismail Ali Ismail
February 19, 2006


Bashir Goth has tried in his article “Cartoons put a great religion to the test” (WardheerNews.com, 10 February, 2006) to be too clever by half and has in the process laid bare both the bankruptcy of his argument and his malevolence towards Islam and Moslems. The very title of his article is of course offensive to Moslems and is indicative of a schizophrenic-personality approach to treating an important and burning issue: ‘important’ because it has brought to the fore how the West and The Moslem World see each other, and ‘burning’ because it is topical but, literally, too hot an issue to play with. Islam is too great a religion to be tested by idiotic cartoons drawn by an evil person and promoted by the diabolical others who propound a boundless and therefore mindless freedom of expression. The writer would have been probably justified to choose as the title of his article words which would have reflected the view that the cartoons put the tolerance of Moslems to the test. But he chose to drag Islam into his diatribe against Moslems – a diatribe which leaves little doubt that the writer is attacking Islam itself in a roundabout way.
At the outset the writer praises Islam as a religion only to hide his contempt for it which becomes apparent in later passages. The schizophrenia is all the more clearer when he first speaks as a Moslem (e.g. “My brothers and sisters…” and then later” As Muslims we may claim…” and finally, “My fellow Muslims,”) and then in many other passages as a non-Moslem (e.g., “The holy Qur’an is said to be the greatest miracle.” “Muslims believe that….” and “…I find it beyond my understanding why Muslims always drag Jews and the holocaust into…”). In making few quotations from the Qur’an and by dropping few names of Moslem scholars he poses as someone who commands a good knowledge of Islam even though he had been previously exposed and castigated as a mere charlatan. But it seems that he never learnt his lesson. A learned Moslem knows full well that the Qur’an is not only a linguistic miracle but also a continuing miracle in the sense of having revealed scientific facts which Muhammad could not have known on his own but which become apparent with the efflux of time and in the light of scientific discoveries. Any Moslem who has familiarized himself with the life history (Sierah) of the Prophet would acknowledge the many miracles which the contemporaries and disciples of the Prophet witnessed on a day-by-day basis and attested to.

Bashir Goth states by implication ,and rightly so, (we have to give the devil his due) that we should have, in reacting to those evil cartoons, shown patience and restraint as the Prophet did when he himself suffered the indignities which were heaped upon him by his own kith and kin. Islam enjoins patience and forbearance upon us in the face of adversity and we have been told to emulate the Prophet whose character was moulded by the Almighty as the best example to follow. But to us ordinary freaks his character is inimitable. We are neither prophets nor saints. Prophets are of a different mould. When A’isha was asked about the character of the Prophet she replied that “ His character was the Qur’an”; and the Almighty has also told us in the Qur’an to exercise patience. In Aal Imran (verse 133) we are told that “righteous” are “Those who spend (freely) whether in prosperity or in adversity; who restrain their anger and pardon all people; for Allah loves those who do good”. In Ashoura (verse No. 37) it is stated: “Those who avoid the greater sins and indecencies; and when they are angry even they forgive.” Certainly therefore we have been told to suppress our rage.

Christians have similarly been told to “turn the other cheek”. But, do they? And we have all been told by our respective religions not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to bear false witness, etc. But do we, as human beings, follow these instructions? I think the answer is obvious. But, Bashir Goth needs to learn something about human nature and should see Moslems as ordinary human beings who commit transgressions and crimes like everyone else, who fight each other in their own countries and even set mosques on fire just as Christians do to their churches. Admittedly, some of these heinous acts are committed in the names of religion. But to blame these acts or the maledictions of some priests on a particular religion can only be an attempt to turn that religion on its head. The prophets are long gone and saints, if any such there are, are few. Therefore to single out Moslems and castigate them for expressing their rage in a very graphic manner while extolling what the writer sees as the “virtues” of the West is glaringly prejudicial. It is a mark of our times that virtues have been turned into vices and vices into virtues and some of us see this as modernization. A philosopher once said: “Man is a moral amphibian; he has a higher nobler nature, and he has a lower animal nature.” Bashir Goth can see Moslems only in their lower animal nature while he sees the West in its higher nobler nature. I do not wish to follow his suit by excoriating the followers of other religions - or the West for that matter – in order to show him the historical facts of their vile deeds. I should now like to answer some of his other statements which are at once startling and revealing.

He states: “… the Danish people have the right to behave the way they want to behave on their own turf.” If we apply the logic of his statement to Moslems behaving as they wish in their own countries would it not justify the kind of behaviour he is condemning in Moslems? Elsewhere, he says: “There is no doubt that the extremist groups that have hijacked Islam long ago have also hijacked the cartoon crisis.” First, Islam has not been hijacked, for it is still there. Secondly, to call criminal elements as “Moslem extremists” is an affront to Islam - a religion of peace which does not condone the killing of innocent people, wonton destruction of property, and burning of flags. As to his statement that Moslems lack the virtue of self-criticism which the West is “ blessed with” Bshir Goth will best be advised to educate himself and read the various books and listen to series of lectures which Moslem scholars give on the Iqr’a satellite channel and even on Aljazeerah in order to see the virtuous Moslems who denounce day and night the violence that has taken place, the killing of innocent people, the burning or destruction of embassies, beheadings and threatening diplomats who are accredited to and are guests of their countries. Many Moslems have condemned in the strongest possible terms the attack on the Twin Towers, but those who want to paint Islam as a religion of mindless and indiscriminate violence will cite, like Bashir Goth, the work of some rotten apples (who also kill Moslems) as an example of virtuous Moslem religiosity. And if Bashir Goth finds it beyond his comprehension “why Muslims always drag Jews and the holocaust into the agenda whenever they have a debate with the Christian world” it is only because he wants to convey a distorted picture of Islam. I do not know if and where Moslems and Christians sat together and discussed bilateral issues. But Moslems have recently pointed to the duplicity of the West which made it criminal to deny the holocaust but would not do the same for blatant and willful characterization of their holy prophet on flimsy grounds of freedom of expression. Nowhere in the world is the freedom of expression unlimited; otherwise, law as an instrument of social control would be redundant and there would be no place for laws of slander and libel. So to say to Moslem that any person is free to offend them and insult their prophet in the name of freedom of expression is foolish, irresponsible and contemptuous of the inevitably ugly consequences.

But Bashir Goth says many other things which show further his contempt for Moslems and Arabs. It is evident that he harbors a grudge against the Arabs whatever the reason may be, for he says out of the blue that they had a ‘big hand’ in the slave trade and he wonders, symptomatically, “what the life of the Arab people in the petro-dollar Gulf countries would have been today without the West exploring and bringing out oil and gas for them”. It is ludicrous to suggest that the West was so altruistic that they prospected for oil in the Middle East out of love for the Arabs. Bashir Goth should ask himself, instead, what the state of Western industry and civilization would have been like without the oil of the Middle East, and why the West is so prepared to protect this vital resource with its own blood. Furthermore, he scoffs at Moslems drawing satisfaction from seeing new converts to Islam; for he says: “It is not uncommon to read reports in newspapers from Arab and Islamic world on Islam spreading in the West like a fire on a windy day. They talk with glee about European women converting to Islam in their hoards. In fact most of such reports come from Muslims living in the West. With such vitriol rhetoric and with the stereotype of the few Europeans converted to Islam turning their back on the norms and values of their home countries, changing their attire and adopting an alien look and attitude, it is just natural for the Western people to feel their values and their free speech were under threat”. These words surely cannot be the words of a Muslim as they are, plainly and simply, an attack, not only on Moslems who pride themselves on the swelling of their ranks but also a blatant and unwarranted denunciation of those westerners who convert to Islam. Incidentally, reports of such conversions originate with the western media: in fact I read about them in The Economist and the BBC website.

As if given a monopoly of the truth and as though he just discovered it Bashir Goth states: “My brothers and sisters, truth hurts and I am hell bound today than any time before to tell the truth.” Well, by letting us read the truth between the lines he has revealed to us his true colors and his true faith; for that we should perhaps be grateful . And he says he is hell-bound. I personally would not want to go in that direction.

Ismail Ali Ismail
E-Mail:geeldoonia@gmail.com

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