Category Archives: Muhammad

Body Politics: Muhammad and Middleton

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, CyberOrient, Film and Video, Gender and Sexuality, Journalism and Media, Muhammad, Photography, Terrorism Issue


The offending photographs of Kate Middleton, left; an Islamic depiction of Muhammad by not showing his face, right


[Note: The following commentary has been posted to my column “Middle East Muddle” on the online website of Anthropology News, published by the American Anthropological Association. To read the entire commentary, click here. For more commentaries on “Middle East Muddle, click here.]

Two scandals have dominated the news, at least in Europe and America, over the week following the 9/11 anniversary. The first, which has yet to abate as I write this, is the widespread protests against a pathetic anti-Muslim film trailer trolled from Youtube, rhetorically warmed over in Arabic and promoted by extremist Muslims to stir up violence. The troll took a toll with the American ambassador and several other Americans killed in Libya, violent clashes in Egypt and in Yemen and a range of protests (many of which have remained peaceful) across Muslim communities. The second, which is equally absurd as a pretext, is the voyeuristic publishing by French, Irish and Italian tabloids of a long-distance photograph of the naked breasts of Kate Middleton, the newly wed wife of Britain’s Prince William. The paparazzi have once again harmed Britain’s royal family, first by chasing Princess Diana and now by turning a powerful lens on a private moment in a private home while Diana’s son vacationed in France. In both the body is all about politics…

For the entire commentary go to “Middle East Muddle” by clicking here.

Beyond Allahu Akbar: WWMD, WWJD, WWYD

"Arab Spring", Bible and Holy Land, Gender and Sexuality, Islam and Christianity, Islamophobia, Muhammad


The manipulated political fury expressed in religious rhetoric over a pathetically provocative anti-Islamic film trailer buried among the millions of needles in the haystack that is Youtube continues, now with a focus in Pakistan. It is not surprising that most Muslims should find the film’s absurd claims offensive. Yet, despite the media images of angry rock throwers holding signs in English, this does not drive the vast majority into the streets or trespassing into Western consulates. If all the cameras stopped rolling, the riots would stop cold. But, of course, now the cameras never stop and any bit of footage can appear on Youtube in a nanosecond. What should we do?

My friend Omid Safi posts on a commentary blog he calls “What Would Muhammad Do?” In his comments on this controversy, he notes that there is enough textual information to reconstruct what Muhammad did when he was insulted:

Yet we know that our Prophet himself was the target of repeated assaults and mockery, and even in his moment of triumph when he had the power to punish, he chose to forgive his enemies and set a higher moral example.

We invite Muslims from every country to raise their voice and be heard, and yet to do so in a way that honors the very example of the manners, the ethics, the path, and the being of the Prophet that we so adore.

There is no way, other than by religious faith in sacred writings, to know what the real Muhammad would do in the modern world, all those hadiths notwithstanding. So in effect Omid and everyone else must argue for what they would expect Muhammad to do if he did live today. But he doesn’t, and neither does Jesus or Moses or any of the revered prophets of the three major monotheisms. In a sense all of the commentary on the reaction to the film is WWWWMTD “what we would want Muhammad to do.”

WWMD is, of course, a take off on WWJD. Since J (as in Jesus) happens to be a revered prophet in Islam as well as Christianity, in principle a Muslim can accept that Muhammad and Jesus would do the same thing morally as guided prophets of the same God. Continue reading Beyond Allahu Akbar: WWMD, WWJD, WWYD →

Islam Without Red Lines

"Arab Spring", Islam and Christianity, Morocco, Muhammad

By Anouar Majid

The violence that erupted in the wake of the YouTube on the Prophet Mohammed is a wake-up call to all who care about the future of human civilization and, particularly, that of Arabs and Muslims living in Muslim-majority nations. (Muslims living in the United States are having the time of their lives—the land of what Iranian mullahs call Great Satan is the best place on earth for them.) Still, Muslims everywhere have been unable to unbind their ties to religious orthodoxy, clinging tenaciously to the decrees of religious scholars in mosques, as well as to the fatwas pronounced on the tube and the net alike.

I arrived in Morocco, arguably the most liberal country in the Arab world and a reliable partner of the West for decades, on the eve of the YouTube trailer controversy. As soon as I heard about the murders in Libya and the violent protests in Egypt and elsewhere, I chose not to be silent in the face of Islamist fury. I spent time explaining to cab drivers, unemployed youths, poorly educated workers, and highly educated professionals that the US government can’t control what people post on the Internet. I tried to get my interlocutors to understand that Muslims are laughably easy to manipulate—all one only has to do is draw a caricature of the Prophet or make a film about him to turn them into the world’s laughingstock. Continue reading Islam Without Red Lines →

The “Muslim” Problem

CyberOrient, Egypt, Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Islamophobia, Journalism and Media, Libya, Muhammad, Obama Administration, Terrorism Issue


The past week has seen a dramatic punctuation in the political present. This present is one in which several countries in North Africa and the Middle East are emerging from years of “stable” dictatorial rule in which human rights were ignored by the Western countries who philosophize how important human rights (or at least the right kind of rights) are. There is also a presidential election looming in the most powerful nation on earth, a nation divided in a partisan way with few realistic ideas on how to frame a way out of the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. It is raining politics and that is fire and brimstone in the current climate.

The drama starts with the anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, which like the abduction of Helen of Troy, prodded the United States to engage in two decade-long wars that have resulted in the deaths of former figure-head foes (Saddam and Bin Laden) but which are unwinnable in the old-fashioned “sign a peace treaty and let trade make us friends” sense after World War II. The spark, a most surreal one at that, is a pathetic trailer for the kind of film no one would ever pay money to see. Before Youtube, before the Internet, this would have been yet another throw-away on the huge cinematic rubbish pile already brimming with porn. But in a scenario that a producer would probably laugh away, an Islamophobic individual dubs intentionally hateful dialogue denigrating the Prophet Muhammad. For non-Muslims the main thing offended is taste; for Muslims this is hateful and hurtful, akin to throwing something sacred into a toilet.

The politics has exploded all over the media, not in spits but a massive vomit. Continue reading The “Muslim” Problem →

Mitt miffs the tweets

"Arab Spring", Egypt, Election 2012, Film and Video, Islam and Christianity, Islamophobia, Libya, Muhammad, Terrorism Issue


US Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney listens to questions on the attack on the US consulate in Libya, in Jacksonville, Florida, September 12, 2012. [Reuters]

Romney poses, as militants burn a US consulate over Islamophobic film

By Juan Cole, Al Jazeera, September 14, 2012

As Mitt Romney misfires on the campaign trail; scholar argues that the events in Benghazi are atypical of the new Libya.

Predictably, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tried to make political hay of the tiny demonstrations in Cairo and Benghazi by Muslim militants. The Benghazi mob turned violent in clashes with police and the consulate ended up being burned and an embassy staffers being killed.

Romney seized on the frantic tweets of the Cairo embassy, which condemned the sleazy Youtube videos by American Islamophobes that had provoked the ire of the crowds, as evidence that the Obama administration was sidingwith the attacking mobs. First of all, really? Romney is trying to get elected on the back of a dead US diplomat? Second of all, really? He thinks the State Department thought the attack on themselves was justified? Third of all, really? Romney is selective. When it comes to Christianity, Romney decries a ‘war on religion.’ But apparently he thinks there *should* be a war on Islamic religion. Romney’s intervention (he is just a civilian at the moment) in American foreign policy is unwise and risky, not to mention distasteful. Continue reading Mitt miffs the tweets →

The Quran as a Great Book: Muslim Perspectives, 6

Calligraphy, Islam: Introduction, Literature, Muhammad, Qur'an


The angel Israfil from the Aja’ib al-Makhluqat of al-Qazwini, Mamluk, period. Illustration in the British Museum

[The following is part six of a series on a lecture presented in the Hofstra Great Books Series on December 5, 1993. For part five, click here.].

Concluding Remarks

The most important part of any lecture, assuming one is not completely turned off in the first minute or two, is supposed to come after the words “in conclusion.” In conclusion. This means there must be a need to conclude something. Regarding the Quran as a great book, there is little need to conclude anything. The mere fact that this talk was scheduled and that you came shows that a sacred scripture commanding the attention of so many people on earth warrants consideration. Regarding how Muslims view the greatness of their Great Book, there is too much to conclude, too great a gap in experience, too challenging a call for empathy. Rather than try to tell you what the Quran is in a nutshell, I would simply ask that sometime soon you try reading it or at least a selection of excerpts. A good place to start is the superb translation of select texts by Michael Sells’ Approaching the Quran.

However, having raised the issue of The Satanic Verses in a lecture on the Quran, a final comment does need to be made. If I were to simply tell you that most Muslims approach their sacred book quite differently, as I see it, than others approach their scriptures, you would probably say “alright, so things are different, so they have a right and we have a right, so what?” Even if the statement of faith outlined in the fatiha or the line of reasoning articulated by a brilliant scholar like Ibn al-‘Arabi is instructive, you would probably still walk away tonight basically unchallenged and unchanged. Continue reading The Quran as a Great Book: Muslim Perspectives, 6 →

The Quran as a Great Book: Muslim Perspectives, 5

Calligraphy, Islam: Introduction, Literature, Muhammad, Qur'an


Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses

[The following is part five of a series on a lecture presented in the Hofstra Great Books Series on December 5, 1993. For part four, click here.].

The Struggling Believer’s Novel and the Text

I could easily continue this discussion of the views of Ibn al-‘Arabi for hours, days, or weeks (how long would it take to simply read 17,000 pages in his major work?) It is valuable to probe with a believer like this great scholar into the depths of his own meaning-rich search through the language of the Quran. But much has happened in the past 750 odd years in the Islamic World. Muslims, through no fault of their own, have been caught up in a broadening discourse defined in large part by the overtly Christian West, even though any distinctive Christianness may have largely eroded. In contrast, Ibn al-‘Arabi lived in a world in which the Quran’s detractors — those who did not grapple with this Arabic text as a revelation — were few and far away. To be sure there were debates over the form of the revelation, although these were tilted to orthodoxy rather early on. But in his day there was no viable reason in the Muslim context not to accept the Quran as revelation.

Muslims over the past couple of centuries have been compelled to defend the Quran against what they believe is a secular war aimed at the integrity of their religion. The heartland of Islam since the 16th century has been dominated by Ottoman Turks (Muslim converts, it must be remembered) up until this century, with European colonial powers nibbling away at the often frayed edges of the Sublime Porte. The more recent raw power politics of this century, be this the regimen of Western-trained military elite takeovers, the imposition of secular Israel in a predominantly Islamic Middle East, the cleric-driven drive for a militant, rejectionist radicalism in Iran and Afghanistan, the dirt-poor rage of simple Egyptian fundamentalists, the cold war Sadaamizing of Kuwait, the collective blinking as Bosnia bleeds non-Christian blood — these events have sharpened the frustration and anger of Muslims wherever they are. And at least three out of four Muslims are not in the Middle East. While we only rarely see these events on our evening news, for Muslims they are far more than ubiquitous sound bites; they are rather like pages torn without mercy, without compassion from their great book. Continue reading The Quran as a Great Book: Muslim Perspectives, 5 →