Farish in the Madrasahs

Congratulations to Farish Noor who this week launches his new book Qur'an and Cricket : Travels Through the Madrasahs of Asia and Other Stories at Silverfish.

Catch the event at 7.00pm on Friday, 6th November, 2009 at Silverfish Books, 58-1 Jalan Telawi, Bangsar Baru, Kuala Lumpur. Tel: 448 449 37 Email: info@silverfishbooks.com. Admission: Free

Here is the blurb :

Farish A Noor, academic, activist, traveller extraordinaire, visits, lives and interviews students (and others) in 'jihad factory' madrasahs (Islamic seminaries) from Patani to Pakistan and from Kashmir to Cairo, and comes away dazed and confused. In attempting to make sense of it all, he ends up confronting his own demons and nightmares.

and a taster from the book :

However, in the course of the same research I have also visited some rather dodgy institutions that can hardly be called madrasahs. Once in Pakistan I had to interview some students while in the corner of the room played a videotape of the gruesome murder and decapitation of the American journalist Daniel Pearl. The boys I was speaking to were between seven to ten years of age, and were smiling and laughing -- while others lay asleep. I tried to look away as long as I could, resisting the urge to puke.

Farish is one of my favourite writers. I really value his intelligence, his calm rationality and careful research.

Silverfish was kind enough to send me a copy, and I am really looking forward to reading it.

The Lingering Chill of Rushdie's Fatwa

How far has the fall-out from the fatwa chilled the literary muse in Britain? asks Boyd Tonkin in The Independent today, the latest in a succession of writers to consider the knock-on effects ahead of the twentieth anniversary on February 14th. He finds ;

From time to time, extreme reactions from self-appointed guardians of faith do hint at a tinder-box mood of outrage without and caution within.

Other authors also contribute their views, including Hanif Kureishi :

One of the effects of Obama is that people are more aware that the white phase is over. In the future, we'll all be in nations made up of a number of minorities. Everything is going to have to be argued for: questions of language, honour and insult. Literature is the space where all of this can be taken seriously and thought about deeply... The problem is, if you become too respectful, there's no real contact...

and Suhayl Saadi :

The Rushdie Affair was a wholly negative phenomenon... It empowered both Islamism and liberal imperialism and set up the "straw man" dualism in which, globally, writers of Muslim origin are perpetually expected to display loyalty to one or other of these extremist positions... All novels are political, but this book became a political football in which the only winners were the hooligans.

Twenty Years of the Satanic Verses

The Satanic Verses remains a book about the struggles of migration and the frictions of cultural exchange. It pokes fun at all manner of targets, not least America and Britain. Above all, perhaps, it dramatises the conviction that there is nothing more sacred than the freedom to question what is sacred. Twenty years on, it's a principle that urgently needs to be remembered.

In an excellent piece in the Observer Andrew Anthony describes how the book, first published twenty years ago, ignited a cultural war across the globe - the repercussions of which are still being felt, especially in terms of greatly increased censorship in Britain :

Who would dare to write a book like The Satanic Verses nowadays? And if some brave or reckless author did dare, who would publish it? The signs in both cases are that no such writer or publisher is likely to appear, and for two reasons. The first and most obvious is fear. The Satanic Verses is a rich and complex literary novel, by turns ironic, fantastical and satirical. Despite what is often said, mostly by those who haven't read it, the book does not take direct aim at Islam or its prophet. Those sections that have caused the greatest controversy are contained within the dreams or nightmares of a character who is in the grip of psychosis. Which is to say that, even buried in the fevered subconscious of a disturbed character inside a work of fiction - a work of magical realism fiction! - there is no escape from literalist tyranny. Any sentence might turn out to be a death sentence. And few if any of even the boldest and most iconoclastic artists wish to run that risk.

Postscript :

Literary Saloon pointed me in the direction of another article worth reading on the same issue : Twenty Year's On : Internalising the Fatwa by Kenan Malik. Particularly interesting :

The lesson of the Rushdie Affair that has never been learnt is that liberals have made their own monsters. It is the liberal fear of giving offence that has helped create a culture in which people take offence so easily.

Another Postscript :

Screech left this link to Christopher Hitchens Vanity Fair essay on the same theme in the comments. Very well worth a read.

More Jewel of Medina Kerfuffle

The latest in the saga of The Jewel of Medina.

The Serbian publishers of the book were forced to pull copies after protests.

A Danish publisher hopes to publish it.

An American book prize, The Langum Charitable Trust, has decided to blacklist Random House until the book is published. In a statement, founder David Langum said :

No one should expect that publishers print every piece of trash that comes into their offices, and The Jewel of Medina may be neither good literature nor good history. ... That is beside the point since Random House had already paid a $100,000 advance, arranged for book club publication, and foreign publication. It changed course and self-censored solely on the political grounds of fear of offending Muslims or fomenting violence. ... That form of cowardice will only lead to more and more of this form of self-censorship and is an attack on the integrity of literary publication. ... We must stand up to it, in whatever ways are available to us. The form that was available to our small foundation was to put Random House out of the running for our prizes.

I agree with what Langham says about self-censorship and cowardice and how we musn't bend to it - but must say I would prefer to be fighting on behalf of a novel which was better written!

11 More Books on Islam Banned

11 more books on Islam have been banned by the Internal Security Ministry (KDN) the Star reports today. The ban order was gazetted on Jan 17 under Section 7(1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984.

The titles are listed below. And so you can make up your own mind about whether these books should have been taken out of circulation or not, and look for patterns, I've put in links and footnotes wherever I could find information. (I found nothing at all on the Bahasa Malaysia books.)

Secrets Of The Koran: Revealing Insights Into Islam’s Holy Book by Don Richardson (1)

Qur’an and Women Rereading the Secrets Text From Woman’s Perspective by Amina Wadud (2)

The Two Faces Of Islam: Saudi Fundamentalism and Its Role in Terrorism by Stephen Schwartz (3)

Woman In Islam by Margaret Speaker-Yuan

Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About The World’s Fastest Growing Faith by Robert Spencer (4)

What Makes Me A Muslim by Catherine M. Petrina

The Importance Of Muhammad by Marilyn Tower Oliver

Faiths - Islam : Worship, Festival and Ceremonies From Around The World by Trevor Barnes

Amalan Kemurahan Rezeki by Lifa Karimah (I can find no information on this one.)

Rahsia Jalan Yang Lurus and

Islam & Pluralisme by Al-Mustaqeem Mahmood Radhi

(1) Don Richardson is a Christian missionary who accuses writers like Karen Armstrong (some books by whom are also banned) of "whitewashing" the reality about Islam.

(2) Amina Wadud is an African- American professor of Islamic studies and has won awards for her work.

In 2005, (according to Ali Eteraz on the Guardian website) :

Wadud led the first publicly-held, mixed gender, Friday sermon and prayer in history. Wadud's book and leadership opened the door to the first feminist translation of the Quran, by a woman named Laleh Bakhtiar, which removed the permission for wife-beating from the translation by choosing one of the alternative meanings of an Arabic verb. It would appear that Wadud had quite an impact.

(3) Stephen Swartz is interviewed here about his book on Saudi fundamentalism, and a review appears on the Atlantic.com website.

(4) More about Robert Spencer here and on Youtube.

If there's no space for intelligent public debate on these bannings, at least let me give it a little room in the comments to this post. (Please let me stress that word again - intelligent - no slagging off allowed!)

Postscript:

Fathi Aris Omar has put up a very useful list of links about this (and other incidents of) book banning.

And I thought this comment from Zaharan Razak particularly apt:

How are we going to grow up wise and worldly if we are prevented from knowing what the "other side" is saying? How are we going to grow up big and strong and take our place on the world stage if we don't know our weaknesses?

Copies of Qur'an Banned in Malaysia!

Don't know how I managed to miss the news about yet another batch of books being banned here, including translations of the Qu'ran the other day, but was most surprised when I read about it at the Complete Review! (A bit miffed am I that an overseas literary website got to this story first, but I am glad that it made international news even if only the Malay Mail found this story newsworthy locally!)

(An up-to-date list of banned books for 2007 is now up on the KDN's website.)

From Bernama:

The ministry's Publication and Quranic Text Control Division secretary Che Din Yusoh said some of the books were found to contain facts that deviated from the Islamic teaching to the extent of possibly endangering the moral of readers and causing public disorder.

He said the rest were banned because they contained explicit sexual descriptions and were not suitable for public reading.

"If the publications are allowed it can give rise to confusion and anxiety among the Muslims and hence can endanger public moral* and order," he said in a statement Thursday.

The banned books include a number of locally written small-press publications dealing with subjects like the "secrets" of women, how to perform better in the bedroom, and men's sexual problems. Sex manuals in other words.

• Al-Kafilah Siapakah Yang Dikatakan Gadis by Mohamd Abdul Hamid
• Rahsia Di Kamar & Kunci Wanita and Rahsia Nombor 1 Untuk Wanita II by Tok Nujum. (Both published by Usnie Publisher from Setapak)
• Rahsia Kenikmatan Rumahtangga published by Tabib Haji Anwar (Khan Enterprise)
• Masalah Seksual Lelaki & Rawatan Alternatif published by Teguh Ringgit Publishing House
• Pendidikan Seks Rumahtangga Kemuncak Rahsia Kebahgiaan, Kasih Sayang Sejati Rahsia Menguatkan Tenaga Batin, Teknik Bercumbu dan Berjimak by Jaafar Salleh and published by Al-Hidayah Publisher

but as we've come to expect, most of the books deal with religious issues. I do hope that you will follow the links I've put in and ask yourselves why should each of these titles be banned what is there about them that could cause "confusion and anxiety"? Your thoughts on any of the titles would be very much welcomed.

• Onward Muslim Soldier: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West by Robert Spencer.
• Islamic Aesthetics: An Introduction by Oliver Leaman
• Islamic Fundamentalism Since 1945 by Beverley Milton-Edwards;
• Who Can Be Saved? And World Religions by Terrance L.Tiessen
• War, Terror & Peace In The Quran And In Islam: Insights For Military & Government Leaders by T. P. Schwartz-Barcott
• The Qoran: Selected Suras by Arthur Jeffrey (Spelling error is the KDN's!)
• The Qur'an (Oxford World Classics) by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem
• The Koran by M. H. Shakir

citizens who might get confused and anxious otherwise! Almost makes you wish for a Publications and Quranic Text Control Division in every country !

Protesting Rushdie

Perusing in the Guardian about the piece on the break-up of Rushdie's marriage (which interests me not at all and probably you guys even less) I came across a mention of anti-Rushdie protests in Malaysia. Funny how our local papers didn't mention this!

The Herald Tribune picked up the story as did Channel News Asia. Apparently 30 (or was it 50) members of PAS turned up at the gates of British High Comm and began chanting Destroy Salman Rushdie, Destroy Britain! and demanding that London withdraws the knighthood. (More on the demonstration and more pics on the Pemuda PAS Willayah blog.)*

Maybe those of us in favour of Rushdie receiving the award should write a letter of support and deliver it in similar fashion!

Though something tells me that the IHT and other international news agencies wouldn't be interested in a group of people who weren't propagating an intolerant stereotype for convenient western consumption.

Postscript:

This is an interesting opinion piece about Rushdie's knighthood in the New Straits Times by the vice-chancellor of Universiti Sains Malaysia, Dzulkifli Abdul Razak. He points out:

... to knight or not to knight is a sovereign prerogative of the nation concerned. It is not an international recognition and as such need not overtly concern any outsider. ... (but) to protest or, worse still, to riot is a misplaced action. The question is this: Why did some Muslim communities react the way they did?

This needs to be raised now so that Muslims are not constantly subjected to harassment each time a nation decides to do something that is not to their liking. Otherwise, this would eventually render the community to be somewhat like a Pavlovian dog that "salivates" at will.

Postscript:

How very ironic that a comment (politely worded, considering) that I left on the PAS Pemuda blog this morning got wiped off. I pointed out that I found their cry of "Destroy Britain" deeply offensive, Any remnant of respect I might have had for this organisation is now in the dustbin.

Karen Armstrong ... Recorded Elsewhere

Sick at heart I am (still) that I had to miss Karen Armstrong's talk on Saturday. Vision they say is always 20/20 in retrospect, and I realised that although I felt I had to keep a promise I'd made earlier, in actual fact MPH could have managed perfectly well without me - though that event was also useful and I will write about it later. (Note to self: sometimes own needs must be put first and stop saying yes to everyone!)

Anyway, the next best thing to being there is a trawl through blogs to see what those who did go have written. And everyone who is anyone was there. ('Cept me.)

According to Dina it was a pretty mixed bunch that turned up:

... young people, old people, professionals, locals, foreigners, ambassadors and ceos, writers, priests, men in kopiahs, nuns, women in hijabs, it was a great crowd. i've been to a few conferences and usually i'd be yawning away because everyone's so quiet and serious, but today's energy was good.

A Voice came away enthralled, and gives an excellent account of the talk.

Hafiz Noor Shams (from whom I have nicked the photo above) found what happened in the Q and A session particularly interesting:

A person came to the microphone and call for the government to undo the ban on Armstrong’s book. The crowd immediately gave the person a resounding round of applause. Armstrong completely agreed with the person and continued to say something to the effect that when freedom is suppressed, the human spirit sours and so too religion with it. The call for freedom is all the more impressive because this event was organized by the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, an arm of the Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Syed Hamid Albar, the Malaysian Foreign Minister, was there, sitting by the former PM’s side. Furthermore, since the restriction* on the book began in 2005, the remark is a direct comment against the Abdullah administration.

The book referred to here is A History of God which isn't even the only one of Armstrong's books banned! Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet was banned in the same year and The Battle for God: Fundamentalism is Judaism, Christianity and Islam, was gazetted as banned last year. (Severe penalties in place for even possession of banned books - up to 3 years jail or a fine of RM20,000!). No explanation for the ban has ever been made public.

Marina Mahathir asked the question I would have wanted to ask: what Armstrong thought about her books being banned in Malaysia:

... she said that she wasn't losing any sleep over it and indeed there were many in the West who would like to see her books banned there primarily because of her defense of Islam. But she added that banning books does nothing to further the cause of Islam. "Malaysians are grownups, "she said, and are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves what to think about anything, including religion, a remark which won her great cheers from the crowd.

There's a bit more consolation to be gained from the extensive coverage in the Star yesterday, including a report of the event, a Q&A and a lengthy interview with the author by Shahanaaz Habib. The Star has also put up a video of part of the interview which is well worth watching.

For those who'd like a bit more, you can find the documentary version of A History of God here and an excellent interview with Armstrong on salon.com here.

Am convinced I need to read Armstrong and never mind the bloody ban!

Geraldine Brooks Banned and 36 Others

A book by Pulitzer prize winning author and journalist Geraldine Brooks has joined the ranks of books with a religious theme now banned in the country. The latest list of publications banned by the KDN was made public today. The New Straits Times has the list.

Brooks spent six years covering the Middle East for the Wall Street Journal. Nine Parts of Desire (1994) is her first book, and is "an exploration of the daily life of Muslim women and the often contradictory forces that shape their lives". The books was an international best seller and has been translated into 17 languages.

The book has been available in Malaysian bookshops since its publication (I bought it here). So now of course one wonders just what is behind its banning? And more than that, what the further implications for this society are when information and viewpoints and that have been hitherto been considered a perfectly acceptable part of the country's intellectual discourse are now considered "haram".

(I read the book way back and can still remember her harrowing descriptions of genital mutilation ... time to reread it, I suppose.)

Several other English books are on the list. I've put in links where I can find them.

Unveiled At Last - Bob Sjogren

The Last of the Giants - George Otis Jr

Inside the Community: Understanding Muslims Through Their Traditions - Phil Parshall

Now You Can Know What Muslims Believe (Ministries to Muslims, US = 28 page booklet)

Blind Following of Madhhabs - Shaykh Muhammad Sultaan (Al-Hidaayah Publishing, UK);

My Journey from The Christianity of Ahlul Sunnah Wal Jamaah To The Islam Of The Prophet - Saim Bakar

Answering Islam The Crescent in Light of the Cross - Norman L Geisler, Abdul Saleeb

Islam in Context Past, Present and Future - Peter G. Riddell, Peter Cotterell

Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism, The Limit of Postmodern Analysis - Haideh Moghissi

Islam At The Crossroads Understanding Its Beliefs, History and Conflicts - Paul Marshall, Roberta Green, Lela Gilbert

Glad News! God Loves You My Muslims Friend - Samy Tanagho

The Fifth Pillar A Spiritual Pilgrimage - David Zeidan

Heart of the Koran - Lex Hixton

The Life and Times of Muhammad - Sir John Glubb

Inside Islam The Faith, The People And The Conflicts of the World's Fastest Growing Religion - John Miller,

Jesus and Muhammad Profound Differences and Suprising Similarities - Mark A. Gabriel

Nine Parts of Desire The Hidden World of Islamic Women - Geraldine Brooks

Introducing Islam (The Basics) - Kim Whiteheads

Introducing Islam: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism - Dorothy Kavanaugh

Murder in the Name of Allah -Hazrat Mirza, Tahir Ahmad

The New Paths in Muslim Evangelism, Evangelical, Approaches to Contextualization - Phil Parshall

The full list also includes locally published titles in Malay, and others published in Indonesia.

Postscript:

Australian blogger Happy Antipodean comments on this story.

(Thanks Amir letting me know.)

I Am Muslim 2 - Over to You!

Dina Zaman is planning a sequel to her very successful I Am Muslim ... but it's going to be written by YOU!

She's inviting contributions from both Muslims and non-Muslims about Islam and faith for a new blog, I Am Muslim, and the best pieces will be compiled into the second book.

Everything you need to know about the project is here.

I Am Muslim

I am a great Dina fan.

I first discovered her through her first blog The Gongkapas Times and was totally beguiled - by the honesty of the writing, by the humour, by the colourful characters who inhabit Dina's world, by the fact that she has a gift for writing dialogue which reflects how Malaysians really talk (switching constantly between languages), and by the gossipy readability of it.

We became friends when she asked me to read some of her stories and give her feedback. I'm a very reluctant editor, since most people are extremely sensitive about what they write. But when I sit with Dina in Starbucks, wielding a pen over her work, I feel I can be absolutely honest about what works and what doesn't: to go back to the washing instructions analogy I love to use, Dina is hot wash, fast spin, line dry. But she's also crinkle free, no iron, shrink proof and colourfast. A real pleasure to work with.

I was familiar with quite a lot of the material in Dina Zaman's I Am Muslim long before the book was published. I'd read some of the columns on the Malaysiakini website, some on Dina's previous blog (now defunct), and heard some of them in readings at Borders and at Seksan's.

Least folks be put off the book by the title, expecting a heavy religious tome, let me hasten to add the book reflects all that is best about Dina's writing. Her writing displays a lightness of touch, but is never lightweight in terms of the value of the discussion. It's also written with warmth, humanity and humour.

Raman's website describes the books as "a selfish journey of faith" and I really do take issue with the word "selfish" to describe this very personal search for meaning and truth because, although Dina describes an inward journey, she opens the book outward to record the voices of a whole range of individual voices working through their own (often very difficult) questions about Islam and what it means to be a Muslim. Dina, to her credit, doesn't set herself up as any kind of an expert to answer them, but in this self-censoring society it takes a great deal of courage even to raise issues (particularly about relationships and sex) publicly.

The portraits are often deeply affecting, the characters as fully realized as in any piece of fiction. The episode I most love for its lyrical beauty and narrative flow is The Student and The Teacher.

I Am Muslim is also an intriguing exposé of the urban middle-class Malay in Kuala Lumpur: Dina is a lady with her ear firmly to the ground. I didn't know about the expense of keeping up with appearances with designer telekungs (prayer shrouds), costly religious classes and "jet-set umrahs" andam now much enlightened. And there is an eye-popping account of the sexual prefences of boarding school educated Malay men which is going to be very hotly denied, I think. (But Dina has her informants ...).

My only criticism of the book is that there are places where I'd have loved her to escape the short article format and developed arguments further, and some form of afterword would have drawn the book together rather better. Having proofread the book towards the end, I'm glad that the ouchy bits have gone, and commend Raman on doing a good job with the editing.

Copies can be bought online from Silverfish and shipped anywhere in the world. I would love to see I Am Muslim in the hands of readers outside Malaysia, particularly as so much of the world equates Islam with terrorism and extremism and the oppression of women and this book presents a refreshing counterbalance to the stereotypical images.

And Dina, you gotta autograph my copy!

Banning Books

According to the DAP website the Internal Security Ministry has banned 11 titles dealing with religious topics as being “detrimental to public order”. (Whatever that means!) The DAP of course wants to know why. As should we all.

These were books that were previously available here and one of them Great Religions of the World has been in circulation for more than 30 years and is published by National Geographic. (How subversive can you get?)

Another, A History of God by Karen Armstrong is a study of monotheism over 4,000 years and has been widely used by students of religious studies here. (Armstrong in fact has been honoured by the Islamic Center of Southern California as a bridge builder who promotes understanding among the three faiths.)

The other titles were Mercy Oceans’ Lovestream by Sheikh Nazim Al-Qubrusi, The Cross and the Crescent by Phil Parshall (I bought a copy of it more years ago than I care to remember, at a bookstall in Subang airport!), Messiah War in the Middle East and Road to Armageddon by Grant R. Jeffrey, The Sterling Dictionary of Religion by Amrita Sharma, The Word of Islam by John Alden Williams, Mysterious Facts: Strange World by Richard O’Neill, Mysterious Facts: Gods and Demons by Amanda O’Neill, Women and Islam by Fatima Mernissi, and Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet by Karen Armstrong.

A society that bans books is surely a society in trouble.

Convergent ideas always will present a challenge to conventional thinking. But isn't that challenge best met by equipping ourselves intellectually? Isn't this what a knowledge-based society is about - inculcating the ability to think issues through clearly and logically, and to debate rationally? Or is this all just so much lip-service?