[Dean's World] Ali Eteraz: Oh Ali Go Tell Them Muslims About Islam

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Posted by Ali Eteraz:
Oh Ali Go Tell Them Muslims About Islam
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1163131726.shtml


   This post is a reply to a certain attitude in [1]this thread:

   I always get the "so why are you telling us non-Muslims all this stuff
   about Islamic reform" a little too much for my liking. It's kind of
   strange: when you guys don't hear "internal" Muslim dialogue and
   debate, you think that it is not happening, and that Islam is static.
   When you do hear it, you complain about how you're not the right party
   for it.

   Let me put it to you nice and straight: I don't really care if you are
   the right party or not. I post it here because I can. I have a very
   nice and alhamdulillah always growing Muslim community over at my blog
   and I am involved a number of internal Muslim communities (communities
   of 'average' muslim folk, communities of legal thinkers, communities
   of students, and communities of muslims involved in activism within
   the muslim world). I am also intending on [2]creating a boisterous and
   rambunctious Muslim community on the internet in a number of languages
   simultaneously. If you don't show up, I assure you, I won't shed a
   tear.

   America is a laboratory for the development of ideas. I develop those
   ideas here and they get transplanted. It's not just me doing this.
   that [3]author jimmy dhimmi just quoted is a perfect example of this.
   She is developing her ideas on feminism in the washington post (which
   is largely read by non-Muslims). Then she is going to take those ideas
   with her to India -- she recently won the South Asian Journalists
   Association Fellowship to study emergent feminism at a FEMINIST MOSQUE
   in India. She will write a report on it when she comes back. While
   there, she will disseminate the ideas she develops in the Washington
   Post and Wall Street Journal amongst Indian Muslims. See how it all
   works? Another example involves Muslim and non-Muslim law students at
   University of Pennsylvania "[4]modernizing" the Shariah laws of a
   certain small Muslim nation. See how that works? Another example is
   Abdullahi an-Naim, whose mentor was executed by Sudan, who is now,
   after 25 years of exile, going back to give speeches about Islamic Law
   in Sudan. See how that works? I'm sure [5]Abdullahi An-Naim's students
   didn't sit in his law classes at Emory University and say: "dude, go
   convince your Muslim brethren."

   In fact, you guys are living under a very false presumption that I
   care about what you think, or want to change your mind. I don't. I
   share what I think because I am developing my own ideas which I intend
   on sharing with other Muslims. That's all. Your minds are your own to
   make up. I do, however, quite often, learn a lot from the open-minded
   among you, who are willing to learn the premises I am working under,
   and then critique my premises from your various faith and various
   anti-faith positions. It bolsters my thinking. My Islam has benefitted
   immensely from the thought of Western secularists, nihilists,
   existentialists, libertarians, liberation theologists, and so on. They
   understood that when I talked to them about Islam, or Islamic reform,
   I wasn't trying to "convince" them of anything, I was trying to learn
   from them, and relying on them for spiritual support, for myself.

   Until you guys realize that you will not be able to engage
   authentically with "the Islamic problem." You'll be condemned to the
   sidelines. I frankly don't think you should stand there but some of
   you think you can. This world is far too interconnected for that. If
   you didn't realize that on 9/11, you've had plenty of other
   opportunities since, unfortunately. I've done my personal part in
   trying to [6]warm the bed up for you, but whether you choose to enter,
   or just piss on it from the outside, is up to you.

   There are two very good models for Americans to emulate in terms of
   engagement with a culture that is engaged in its own self-definition
   (but whose self-definition impacts others outside of the culture). The
   first is [7]Smart and Final Isis. The second is EM Forster's Novel
   "[8]A Passage To India."

References

   1. http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1163112049.comments.shtml
   2. http://eteraz.wordpress.com/2006/11/05/announcement-ali-eteraz-launching-a-new-website/
   3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102001261.html
   4. http://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/clrg/maldivesinfo.html
   5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullahi_Ahmed_An-Na'im
   6. http://eteraz.wordpress.com/2006/03/23/open-letter-to-reformist-muslims/
   7. http://smartandfinalisis.wordpress.com/
   8. http://www.amazon.com/Passage-India-E-M-Forster/dp/0156711427