On Saturday 2004-04-03 04:48, Erik Reuter wrote: > On Fri, Apr 02, 2004 at 10:04:03PM -0700, Trent Shipley wrote: > > cannot be answered without more detailed information. Also, framing > > the question an "either irreligious or very religious" is to put forth > > a false dichotomy. > > That would be your framing, not mine. I tend to think of religiousness > as as an axis, with atheists and agnostics on one end and > fundamentalists on the other, and lots in between. If you look at it > like that, then my "very religious" was shorthand for "far to one side".
Ah. Well I try to *avoid* looking at it like that. For one thing, I think it possible to be a fundamentalist athiest. Even if you accept that the phenomenon can be understood with only one dimension, you still have a middle term that in not accounted for. What if they are not far to one side nor far to the other? > > Nevertheless, the participanting population surely were in some > > meaningful sense Muslim. Therefore, understanding the desecration > > of corpses as an expression of hatred for Americans even at the cost > > of disgracing oneself before God must be understood as a reasonable > > interpretation of the recent events in Faluja. > > I still don't get it. One of the criteria I would put at the top of > determinging position on the axis I mentioned above is whether god's > (or allah's) law is the highest law for a person. The first item is that *every* credible scholar in comparative religion that I have encountered takes pains to point out that Jews, Christians, and Muslims (and most derivitive sects such as Mormons) believe in the same God. It happens that the Arabic word for God is Allah. Arab Christians also translate the word "God" to "Allah". Lah means "a god", "al" is the definite aricle so Al+lah means "The God". In pagan times this probaly refered to the supreme god of the pantheon (and you might have the linguistic production al-Allah). With the comming of Islam Allah came to exclusively mean "the one-and-only God". Thus, in this sort of conversation distinguishing between the word "Allah" and "God" appears as a strategy to mark Muslims as the enemy Other, sort of like calling German's "Huns" or Japanese "Yellow Japs" in WWII. (Alternatively, it could be taken as implicitly saying that the massively majoritarian position in comparative religion is wrong: that even in the first instance Chrisitans and Muslims have fundamentally incompatible conceptions of God.) Second, most people, not even most Muslims, work that way. Most people I know are sort of "passively" religious. For example, I think most Americans belive in God and are in some sense Christian, but in most contexts neither fact is of particular psycho-social relevance. > Do you think these > people would say that they follow allah's law above all others? Almost no one I have met *really* follows God's law above all others, especially if you ask their friends and acquainances (though rare examples do). Most people follow God's law in combination with (multiple) other "laws". In the case of Arabs almost everyone has to balance personal interest, civil law, a version of the Mediterranian honor code, and their personal understanding of Islamic piety. Of course, in an interview any given Fallujis is likely to *say* he or she follows God's law above all else. Some may even fervently believe their own rhetoric. Most (but not all) who believe their own rhetoric will be regarded as hypocritical by others. > In that > case, how would they justify breaking it? Before the fact they probably did not justify breaking Islamic morality. They were almost certainly not thinking about the fact that they were breaking with Islamic morality in the moments before during and after the events we are discussing. After the fact, I expect most would see no contradiction or only a mild contradiction between their actions and Islamic morality. Were I doing anthropological or journalistic interviews with participants my initial expectation or hypothesis would be that a typical interviewee would simply fail to address the implicit religious contradiction. INSTEAD, they would reference another source of values--the local system of honor. They would say: 1) They killed the Americans because they were Americans AND were armed rent-a-soldiers thus enemies of Fallujis, Iraqis, and Muslims. (Acceptable in both the honor code and Islam. The killings are arguably part of a just war.) 2a) They desecrated the dead to avenge their own tarnished honor. 2b) They desecrated the dead to shame America (that is to damage American honor). 2c) They desecrated the dead because they were enraged (very akin to temporary insanity). (Note: no part of #2 is acceptable under any Islamic law, except for #2c and then only as an excuse.) 3) Note well, I have no expectation that my hypothetical interviewees would address the contradiction between desecrating bodies and Islam of their own accord. The interviewer must be impolite and point out the contradiction before most interviewees will even think about it for the first time. Whereupon interviewees will take positions justifying their actions. 3a) The desecration was a sin, but was forgivable because they were extremely provoked by American evil and so should not be held overly accountable for actions committed in the insanity of the sacred passion of righteous anger. 3b) Islam accomodates the honor code; therefore, the desecration was only a minor sin. 3c) There is a folk belief that Arab culture and Islam are one and the same. Some would deny that they broke any Islamic moral code. > Temporary insanity? Sin? Extereme provocation? Take your pick. All sorts of people frequently violate their own religious standards. > The means > justify the ends? Very probably. Many Arabs think Americans are cowards. No doubt they had in mind the fact that mutalating American dead was instrumental in getting Americans to leave Somolia. > Do Muslims have an equivalent of sin and forgiveness > (confessional, etc.)? Muslims definitely belive in sin. They believe God is merciful and effectively believe in devine forgiveness. The Quran encourages Muslims to practice forgiveness and mercy. (However, Islam accomodates honor and feuding in that it also encourages martial strength. Muslims are encouraged to be forgiving and merciful, but not morally obliged to do so.) To the best of my knowledge no Islamic sect has an institution akin to confession. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
