In East London, I examine the emaciated boy. His pigeon-chest rasps with each mechanical breath. Finely etched features remind me of Saudi camel sellers, once my patients. Wisps of hair peep through his unbuttoned thobe, betraying a still-lingering puberty. An untrimmed beard and skullcap are final clues: my patient is an Arab Muslim.
X-rays show a ferocious pneumonia. I go in search of family, expecting to see other Arabs. Instead, I encounter four robust Pakistani women. Pockmarked acne and gap-toothed smiles unite them as family. As a Muslim of British-Pakistani heritage and a physician, I am amazed at the extent of his racial transition. He has fooled me entirely.
Many British Muslims, like my patient, fervently erase their ethnicity with ritualistic religiosity, deliberately choosing distinction from that of their parents'. They do so in a desperate search of politicized Muslim identity, with little understanding of either Islam, or politics.
Raised on a virtual Ummah made vivid through satellite TV and YouTube, these young Muslims seek to relate to a Palestinian neighbor they will never know, in preference to the Londoner next door. In a digital mirror, they identify with pixilated distortions symbolizing a manufactured Muslim identity. Choosing Nablus over Newham, they dress in thobes, a keffiah thrown in for Gaza Strip panache. In austere, imagined Arab dress, they ride the District line, unaware how removed they are from their Hilfiger-and-Hi-top-wearing Saudi counterparts.
Increasingly, first and second generation British Muslims shun their ethnic heritage and cultural frameworks in favor of a perverse, exaggerated narcissistic compassion for worlds of which they can never be part. It is among such youth that martyrdom operations find Muslim sympathizers. The resurgent Arab dress code is integral to what psychologists describe as Terror Management Theory. Dr. Jose Liht at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues have studied Islamic extremism in Britain. Earlier this year he explained the theory to me, and its role in radicalization during my time in the Templeton-Cambridge Fellowship in Science and Journalism.
Foreknowledge of death is unique to humans and exists in parallel to a fundamental drive to survive. This tension forms a circular connection between meaningfulness and death. Crises (whether political, environmental, or other) heighten the desire to become part of a 'meaningful' universe; something bigger than self; something worth dying for. Failing to find meaning in day-to-day existence erodes psychological protections against the inevitability of death. An unavoidable awareness of a meaningless finality triggers desperate attempts to find meaning, often found only by participating in something of epic dimension. Vulnerable British Muslims retreat into chosen Islamist group identities with alternate worldviews. Theirs is a deadly roulette: trading individual identity in exchange for the group's. As the invisible Islamist croupier spins the wheel of deception faster and faster, self identity spins and spins. Soon the Muslim has lost all boundaries of self, arriving to a new, highly malleable manufactured one. He cannot remember whom he once was, having irretrievably left his 'self' somewhere behind on the roulette wheel. Becoming part of an extreme group assuages the individuals anxious search for meaning while demonizing the 'other' against which he seeks real or imagined refuge. A valuable new focus has been provided.
Muslims who are feeling increasingly disengaged from both surrounding British society and that of their parents' heritage are particularly vulnerable. Wearing 'Arab' clothing is externally emblematic of this dissolution. Quite simply, when ideology changes, people change their clothing. Accepting terrorist operations, including suicide martyrdom, may now take root, as the group identity builds on this fertile, distorted worldview.
Islam reviles suicide, designating the taking of life tantamount to the killing of all mankind. Yet many Muslims privately condone, or openly admire suicide martyrdom operations particularly when deployed as a weapon against Americans or Israelis. This is a direct function of disordered terror management psychology: the American, the Israeli, the Jew, the 'other' is now an amorphous, legitimate target for destruction.
As a Diaspora Muslim I must belong to the real societies around me, not virtual ones networked-in. My belonging is physical and psychological. Belonging is inclusive, not exclusive. I must belong, even if in doing so I am aligned with groups increasingly repugnant to the discourse of mainstream Muslims. I am aligned with Americans, Jews and Israelis, all targets of suicide operations, because I share their revulsion for suicide operations and the desecration of land and life. I share these values, as a human being, as a physician, as a Muslim.
Wherever I am, the fabric of society is more important than any fabric of my clothing. As Muslims, that can be our only authentic identity: one where we are human beings first, People of the Book second, this can be our only cloth.
This article was first published in The Guardian on December 11th 2010 in the Face to Faith section and can be found here.
Follow Qanta Ahmed, MD on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MissDiagnosis
Here is link to a book just released yesterday by a Pakistani scholar entitled "Civilisational Narcissism "... it is written in Urdu (title being "Tehzeebi Nargisiyat")
Link to article describing the book: http://tribune.com.pk/story/94812/civilisational-narcissism/
Free download @ https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B1tq3-RjRr-hYzZjYTJkMTctNGNjOC00MDMyLWIyYjAtNDRmYjllNTVmM2Mw&hl=en
From the first link:
"The other day Dr Mubarik Haider was in Islamabad speaking about the thesis of his book Tehzeebi Nargisiyat . Luckily the book, which is written in Urdu and therefore not confined to the English-speaking crowd, talks about the Muslim civilisati on and its inability to question itself because of its self-image . In Islamabad, the author spoke about the flawed manner in which we have always read and interprete d our history which itself is one of the major causes of this narcissism ."
"Women Protection Act: Top Islamic court rules against law"
@ http://tribune.com.pk/story/93167/shariat-court-terms-women-protection-act-clauses-repugnant/
and http://tribune.com.pk/story/94211/media-watch-shariat-courts-orders/
The Shariat court has things to say not just on issues pertaining to women, but a whole host of issues pertinent to society. How this battle goes might mark an important point of departure for Islam in Pakistan, and perhaps elsewhere in the world. This of course is all about what identity Muslims will carry forward.
"Just as the nation was getting ready to face the onslaught of religious parties and their jihadi adjuncts on the question of the blasphemy law, the Federal Shariat Court has ruled sections of the Women Protection Act (2006), among other legislations, to be violating the Constitution and given the government till June 2011 to remove the flaws in it. It has asserted its remit over the matter saying it is expressly permitted by the Constitution to review all legislation in the light of Quran and Sunnah."
Rest @ http://tribune.com.pk/story/93868/law-and-extremism-in-pakistan/
This is the standard explanation given by all the muslims and they would LIKE the non muslims to accept. It is stale and is against ground reality.
Glad to hear that "Islam reviles suicide", many have missed the memo. Cut off from their traditional victims in Israel, Islamic suicide bombers have thrown themselves primarily at other Muslims, and the liberal societies which welcomed them in.
Keep writing, this is fascinating work.
teachings of Islam. This might be due to the influence in mosques built and funded by the petrodollars.
It is slowly spreading in the USA as well. Many among the sub continent Muslims do not have indepth
and through knowledge of their religion and think that others (Arabs) know more about Islam as the Prophet of Islam was an Arab and Quran was revealed in Arabic so they must be followed both in
attire and views.
I am /was not shocked at all to know that many prominent Islamic scholars of repute were non Arabs than Arabs. Do not take for granted that others are not aware of facts pertaining to Islam or for that matter any subject under the sun.
I can understand that you might have not come across even one Muslim who calls himself
a so called 'Wahabi" - does it mean that there are none whatsoever ? There are many many mosques in USA which are catering to a particular Ideology and it is an open secret that quite a few are funded by special groups or countries.
We should not get personal as it is a sign of weakness and immaturity.
Yes you are right people should have deep and not superficial knowledge of the subject before
speaking and this applies to all of us including me.
Qanta Ahmed is a not a self hating Muslim - she is one of the sane voices who does not fear to call spade a spade and is showing us the mirror to look at our irregular features and do something about it. (Don't take it literally) . You can think what you want but you won't be able to change what is right and true. Period.
His aggressive anger is in stark contrast to your calm but resolved politeness. Maybe I am over-analyzing, but these emotional states seem to be symbolic of something in the mindsets of Islamist and non-Islamist Muslims in general.
I have encountered a wide variation in what is the "proper" sort of Islamic dress, even among the extremists. For example, one Bedouin young lady claimed that any Muslim lady who showed her hands or feet to any male (including family members) after the age of 7 was a bad Muslim and therefore should be killed. It is like a devoutness contest.
I have friends who have embraced the Chabad version of Judaism, in what might be a similar phenonemon. Thankfully, Chabad does not revolve around doing violence to other Jews or nonJews, however. That is why this sort of bizarre Islamism is so disturbing.
If Muslims, even very devout Muslims, wanted to pursue their faith without imposing on anyone else or affecting anyone else, no one would care. But that is not the case, unfortunately.
I have given a list of what I consider to be objectionable freedoms of speech which included citations and references, but they refuse to post it.
I have no clue whether you will even get this.
My objections to freedom of speech includes calls to violence against anyone, and especially calls to destroy Americans, bomb them, or calls to destroy Israel. I cited a university professor as an example.
My objections are calls to sexually assault children, call it love, and the alleged free right to do so.
I also might add that I am about disgusted with this web site.
"In 2001 the Indonesian army evacuated hundreds of Christian refugees from the remote Kesui and Teor islands in Maluku (province) after the refugees stated that they had been forced to convert to Islam. According to reports, some of the men had been circumcised against their will, and a paramilitary group involved in the incident confirmed that circumcisions had taken place while denying any element of coercion. [38]"
@http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_conversion
In Pakistan: "Hindu women have also been known to be victims of kidnapping and forced conversion to Islam.[100] Around 20 to 25 Hindu girls are abducted every month and converted to Islam forcibly."
"On October 18, 2005, Sanno Amra and Champa, a Hindu couple residing in the Punjab Colony, Karachi, Sindh returned home to find that their three teenage daughters had disappeared. After inquiries to the local police, the couple discovered that their daughters had been taken to a local madrassah, had been converted to Islam, and were denied unsupervised contact with their parents."
@ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus#Forced_Conversions
Have you observed what is going on with Muslims in Europe right now? And you think that is not trying to force their beliefs on others? Really?
And even in the US we find:
(a) http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/de_facto_shariah_law_in_americ.html
(b) a constant stream of articles about how wonderful Sharia Law is and how the US should have Sharia Law (even in HP!)
(2) Sure, Christians and others have done it in the past, but it is not really a current major aim of mainstream Christianity as far as I can tell, and it has not been for centuries.
(3) So you think that Iraqis would have preferred Saddam Hussein? How many Iraqis have told you this that you know personally? I know several that would disagree with you, venehemently (but I was not in favor of saving them from their own Islamic hell).
(4) So you think there are a lot of Christians and Jews blowing up Mosques in the West Bank? Really? And Christians and Jews blowing up Mosques in Florida and Ohio? Really?
Wow. Just wow.
First, let me say that I love your essays, they have broad application, not just for Muslims. And so, thank you so much for writing.
I am Christian by heritage and of late choice. That choice comes from my decision to reexamine the scriptures and really try this time to understand what they were trying to impart.
My greatest discovery was that Jesus was not an extremist, and taught specifically against extremism of any kind. I find many of the very ideas contained within the constitution of the USA in the parables and stories. I find freedom of religion in the story when Jesus takes back the Sabbath from religion and gives it to man, for example.
I feel blessed to be able to live in the present and reinterpret scripture not just from the times, but in comparison to the present and how those very scriptures shaped and formed our present society, perhaps often subliminally.
While we in the West value the right of "freedom of religion" and it's inclusive, "from" religion, we fail to extrapolate that same knowledge to "freedom of speech".
Freedom of speech by default includes freedom from speech. We have an internal conflict that we must resolve as rational, enlightened people.
====================
Tolerance and understanding are commonly seen as the proper response to the problems faced by the author. Not so.
All Muslims who have found the honesty and courage to reach the stage in self-awareness the author has reached need one final thing. Decision. They see that there are two possible futures for Islam. They have to make a decision that will become more and more important and irrevocable as time goes on.
We non-Muslims are essentially on the sidelines in this fight, but we can let all Muslims know that we are allies with those Muslims who reject political, Salafist Islam and its goal of domination. We can offer a safe haven to Muslims who want to rid Islam of those teachings that destroy freedom of speech, gender equality, gay rights and the recognition of other religions as valid paths to righteousness.
We can tell Dr. Ahmed that she is not alone in rejecting Islamism as Islam's future.
If they say anything out of turn they are either being politically seditious or irreligious.
Bin Laden and friends have a strategy. They think if they attack the West enough to trigger an all out response against all Muslims, this divide within Islam can be overcome by the predictable uniting of all Muslims in response to an unmodulated attack by the West.
As Muslims decide which side to join, it becomes crucially important for Westerners to be able to discriminate between Muslim friends and foes. We are not there yet, and the longer this remains true the greater the possibility of all out war.
23%]of British Muslims believe that last year's 7/7 attacks on London were justified...
30% of British Muslims would prefer to live under Sharia law than under British law.
28% hope for the U.K. one day to become a fundamentalist Islamic state.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/14/opinion/main1893879.shtml
But the holy scripture says differently:
"When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. ... If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them...." (Sahih Muslim 19.4294)
Over the centuries, there have been repeated efforts to encourage the ulema to prefer allegorical hermeneutics instead. All of them unfortunately have failed so far. The biggest impediments are two:
(1) The claim that the Koran is the literal words of Allah
(2) The claim that Mohammed was the perfect human that all must emulate
There are many other problems, like the lack of careful study and critical analysis of the text and its origins, but they cannot take place unless these first 2 problems are addressed by Muslims.
These words are prophetic and just as relevent today as when first written.
"Islam is in its origins an Arab religion. Everyone not an Arab who is a Muslim is a convert. Islam is not simply a matter of conscience or private belief. It makes imperial demands. A convert's worldview alters. His holy places are in Arab lands; his sacred language is Arabic. His idea of history alters. He rejects his own; he becomes, whether he likes it or not, a part of the Arab story. The convert has to turn away from everything that is his. The disturbance for societies is immense, and even after a thousand years can remain unresolved; the turning away has to be done again and again. People develop fantasies about who and what they are; and in the Islam of the converted countries there is an element of neurosis and nihilism. These countries can be easily set on the boil."
V.S. Naipaul, (1999) Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples, Vintage, New York,, p. 1.
http://www.themodernreligion.com/prophet/prophet_lastsermon.htm. Naipaul sound likes some anti-Muslim bigot which doesn't surprise me. As a West-Indian I know Hindus of the Brahman caste that think they are better than other Hindus because the other Hindus are from a lower caste. They also thought they were better than their fellow Indian Muslims in the Caribbean until the Muslims of Trinidad & Tobago and Guyana were able to achieve economic prosperity.