'HAPPY MUSLIMS': to be or not to be...

A CLASH OF FRENETIC HAPPINESSES

Maryam Sakeenah

While the ‘Happy British Muslims’ video would not have in itself elicited a response more than a fleeting bemused scepticism, it was impossible to get over it and move on, given the 2 million youtube views, the reams of commentary and discussion it generated. The short clip apparently became the biggest issue in the issue-ridden Muslim world, judging by social media ratings. Ardent supporters of the attempt to showcase Muslims in the West as adaptable and ‘happy’ people, as well as bitter opponents of such meaningless and inappropriate depiction of Muslims, all jumped into the fray- soon enough, there was a raging storm in a teacup.

It all signifies the contradictions, polarities, sensitivities and contentions rife in the Muslim world- like a bubbling, gurgling, steaming cauldron.

The video aims to present an image of Muslims in the West as flexible, creative, adaptable, well-integrated, cheerful and positive-minded, so as to dispel negative stereotypes that have dominated public imagination in the West since 9/11. Imam Johari Abdul Malik from the US comments on the video: ‘The narrative about Muslims is so often about being hungry and angry, people have started turning it around using the social media...’

Underlying this, however, there can also be sensed a desperate attempt to assure that ‘we are like you, too’- a desire to be accepted, owned and integrated into Western society. This desperation can be understood in the context of the consistently rising Islamophobia in these societies.

However, the problem with this appeasing, placatory attitude is not so much with Muslims as it is with Western societies. These societies seem to be growing increasingly ethnocentric, losing willingness to embrace diversity and to allow distinct ethnic, cultural and religious identities to survive and thrive without either being compelled to Westernize to be able to integrate, or being socially marginalized. This goes against the essence of the values of pluralism, tolerance and coexistence at the heart of Western liberal tradition that it prides itself in. It is ironical and interesting to note that while the ‘Happy British Muslims’ video was doing the rounds, Tony Blair reminded the leaders of the Western nations to ‘move the battle against Islamist extremism to the top of the political agenda.’ The same day that the video was released, the English Defence League held a demonstration outside London’s largest mosque against Islam in Britain. On this backdrop, given the very grave challenges that beset the Muslim world, attempts like the ‘Happy British Muslims’ video appear little more than pathetic. The efficacy of the video message as a response to a pervasive anti-Muslim campaign is highly questionable.

But that is not the only troubling thought. Equally disconcerting, if not more was the impulsive and inane, utterly dispensable video rejoinder to ‘Happy British Muslims’ video, made by some Islamic groups on the internet titled ‘Happy Muslims, HALAL version.’ This video removed the images of all women and re-released it as acceptable by Islamic standards- minus the laughing, clapping, singing females. This reflects a lopsided, immature and almost obsessive fixity on juristic intricacies of Muslim law without even a cursory understanding and appreciation of the spirit of Islam. Such fiqh-obsessed shallow-mindedness is often manifested in moral panics among Muslims over the visibility of Muslim women.

It is deplorable that the makers of the ‘Halal’ version who deservedly educed ridicule and censure utterly failed to grasp the idea of true happiness in Islam. For one, given the plethora of grave predicaments we are caught in, the despondency, frustration, defeatism, confusion and hurt, the cluelessness about the future, the directionlessness and leaderlessness, the wars, civil wars, socio-political crises and the rising monster of sectarianism- these aren’t the happiest of times for Muslims anywhere in the world. Empathy is an essential component of Islamic brotherhood- the fact that a Muslim must feel the pain of another Muslim (no matter how geographically distant) as his own. I wonder how I, as a Muslim, can clap and cheer my deep sadness away? Brecht writes,

‘Truly I live in dark times!...

A smooth forehead

 Points to insensitivity

He who laughs
Has not yet received
The terrible news

What times are these, in which
A conversation about trees is almost a crime
For in doing so we maintain our silence about so much wrongdoing!’

 The prospect of declining life and time and the impending oblivion of death, and the eventuality of accountability in the eternal life is the grave and inescapable truth one must confront. The Prophet (SAW) said, ‘If you knew what I know, you would laugh little and weep much.’

Happiness in Islam is not the be-all and end-all. It is not to be pursued, but in its deepest sense, it comes to those who discover and live out their purpose in life. Orwell writes, ‘Men can only be happy if they assume that the purpose of life is not happiness.’ Fun and entertainment as temporary relaxation have a place- and a significant one- but happiness in Islam is gained by tasting the sweetness of faith through complete self-surrender to God. It is attained by giving and selfless sacrifice. ‘By Time! Man is in Loss. Except those who believe and do righteous good deeds and exhort one another to the Truth and exhort one another to patience.’   (The Quran)

Imam Johari quoted earlier, was perturbed by the image of Muslims as ‘hungry and angry’, but one cannot wish that away or pretend that is not the case by cheering and smiling away into the camera. Yes, Muslims writhe in the throes of poverty, starvation and crippling oppression, but happiness is attainable to those who do their small bit to help alleviate some of that.

This idea was tried to be conveyed in another video rejoinder titled ‘Happy Muslims: Sunnah Version’. It is a brief, beautiful and simple message that reflects the Islamic ethos of happiness- it shows clips of Muslims rescuing and saving lives of the calamity-stricken, and ends with the line, ‘This, my friend, is happiness.’ However, this video was blurred and poorly made, and circulated briefly in a few closed Muslim circles. It never went viral. And here is the very heart of the problem: the voicelessness and disempowerment of the Muslim visionary, and that ‘the worst are filled with a passionate intensity.’ (Yeats)    

Fall Before Springtime

FALL BEFORE SPRINGTIME

Maryam Sakeenah

Nameless One!

Too soon gone,

While I, my puerile human self 

Dreamt of a welcome

Strewing rosebuds along your untrodden path

Too soon wilted- 

A Fall before Springtime.

And I could not say goodbye

Helpless, my hands tied

I saw you taken away;

Bereft, I saw you

Ripped from my sore, bleeding flesh

And I learnt of my crippling helplessness,

A mortal weakness I could not surmount-

Mere flesh...

And yet, not quite

For I feel the Indissoluble Bond

Decreed by an Immortal Word: 'Be!'

O Flesh of my flesh, Spirit of my spirit!

We mourn but the rotting flesh

Buried under unknown darknesses...

But I take heart in the fact

That you were, are and always will be

Lodged in my wounded heart

Bound with the silken ties of a love undying

Washed in sacred tears

And in another, better world

I see you rest in serenity

In a warm embrace

More loving than a seventy mothers

Waa Islaamah! (Alas, for my Islam!)

IN THE HEART OF DARKNESS: ‘WAA ISLAMAH!’

Maryam Sakeenah

The rising death toll, the blood and the gore hurts_ but the searing, tearing hurt like a thorn lodged in the very heart which will outlast the last rotting corpse is when these and other enormities are committed in the name of the faith of Islam: a faith that declares the sanctity of innocent life to be greater than the sanctity of the Kaabah itself... And like the humiliated Muslim woman from Madina 1400 years ago disrobed in the marketplace had exclaimed in distress, the believer’s bloodied heart cries out, ‘Waa Islamah!’ (Alas, for my Islam!)

When indiscriminate violence uses religious beliefs and ideals to seek cover under, it viciously defaces those. A grotesque wrong has been committed against Islam by extremists and fanatics, and our collective inability to reject it in clear terms has had grave consequences. Responses to Islamist extremism from Islamic scholars have often been ambivalent and ‘politically correct’ rather than passionately censorious of this being done in Islam’s name. This is for two reasons: the clergy’s preoccupation with minutiae of fiqh, denomination and sect; and sympathy for the original motives of religious militants who launched a defensive struggle against unwarranted occupation and oppression against Muslims.

By all means, selfless sacrifice for a higher cause (justice and truth) is the most beautiful that the human being is capable of: Islam assents, through the doctrine of Jihad and the esteem in which those who undertake it are placed. But there is a lot of murkiness out there, especially on this side of the Durand Line. The original impetus for the defensive struggle has spiralled into no more than naked violence for an ideologized power struggle, and the damage done by fanatical groups in the name of Islam is irreparable in its psycho-social consequences.

It is these psycho-social consequences that are the gnawing, deep hurt. I struggle as a teacher on Islam, with confused young minds full of questions, confusions, bitterness. There is deep resentment and unease over the failure of Muslim religious leadership to provide clarity and answers. Among those still struggling to hang on to faith, there is a seething, muted anger over traditionalist scholars’ failure to rescue the narrative from politicized and ideologized contemporary Jihadism and Salafist fanaticism. There is today a clear trend of disenchantment towards religion in Pakistan’s middle and upper middle classes, the gravity of which is yet to be recognized, and to meet which we are utterly unprepared.

The media has often played the role of Agent Provocateur stoking controversy around serious subjects of Islamic jurisprudence. Sensationalist talk-shows deal in half-truths and untruths, relaying featherweight opinions on issues of gravity, by scatterbrained demagogues and con artists. Clarity remains elusive as young minds are confused over these matters of complexity. Given the fact that the source of all information for most these days is primarily if not solely the popular media, it is not surprising that many growing up post 9/11 have come to associate religion with regression, backwardness and even evil, thinking we would do better without it. When you pit a madrassah-graduate religious scholar against a squealing and irate Liberated English Speaking Woman giving him a couple of minutes to explain away the barrage of allegations of misogyny often born of a superficial understanding of religion and society, you make Islam seem incapable of withstanding the secular-liberal assault; you reinforce the idea that religion being a thing of the past, needs to be cast off for a progress that apes the Western model: Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's; Give unto God that which is God's.

The struggle is not entirely about the physical elimination of violent religious groups through military strategies. There is a greater and more formidable challenge to face: to undo the terrible damage that the religio-ideological underpinnings of extremist groups have done to Muslim societies, and to hearts and minds.

Our failure to rescue the religious discourse from its abusers who have the audacity to pose as its defenders  is a huge blemish on the pages of our history. History’s verdict shall be unrelenting and merciless against us.

Islam in this society faces an unprecedented crisis. And yet, hackneyed and simplistic as it may sound, in the heart of this darkness there is a flicker of hope. At the heart of crisis is often opportunity, if we learn the right lessons: that religious violence is a hydra we created with our silence towards grave injustices against our own people on the dictates of the Global Bully, thinking the unholy alliance would bring us boons. We then nurtured this hydra and owned it with our silence towards the crimes it committed against other innocents in the name of Islam. And now the genie cannot be bottled back up again. Two wrongs do not make a right. Two silences slowly kill us all, till all we hear is the haunting echo, 'Waa Islaamah!' 

A realization is slowly sinking in even though we took far too long to learn- that extremists use religious sources to justify their ideology, hence the responsibility on religious scholars to spearhead a progressive interpretation of Islam rooted in its sources is great, and that this has to come from the highest authorities on religion venerated by the generality of Muslims. Traditional Muslim scholars need to assert, as Sheikh Hamza Yusuf puts it, that indiscriminate violence in the name of Islam is‘neither from religion nor sanctioned in any reading from our pre-modern tradition. It is a modern phenomenon, and those practising it have learned it from nihilistic elements in Western tradition who innovated from Marxism and Asian philosophy like the kamikaze...’

The current crisis is also gradually bringing the realization that denomination and sectarian orientation are secondary when the attack is on the very soul of Islam, and that the reply has to be proclaimed with a single voice. It is helping us understand- though the cost of our unwillingness to learn has been too dear- that our condition cannot be traced down to an externalized enemy to give us a comforting sense of ‘We the good and true versus They the evil and false.’ Often it is more complex than that, the evil more insidious and closer to home.

The pulpit has to assume responsibility to set the record straight and disseminate the eclipsed tradition that has no equivocation regarding the rejection of fanaticism and violence against innocents, and the sanctity of human life. As the crescendo of the salvaging voice for Islam rises, the narrative will be rescued from the unworthy and undeserving. It has been a long, hard way but in Pakistan there is a clear shift in public opinion against the TTP and other religious hardliners. With their atrocious acts, these groups have dug up their own graves, as the human heart’s  innate moral criterion balks at such an inversion of basic morality in the name of religion. In the Heart of Darkness, holding on to hope is still possible.