Reflection 2 Islamic governance any better?

Assalam Alaikum

So this was the 2nd paper I wrote last semester. It is comparing the Islamic form of governance with a Buddhist kingdom. Like last time I have left teacher comments present. Much thanks to my fiance Sara for helping me write 4 drafts of this paper. And who will give me even more help and support when I do my master's thesis InshAllah.

Bismillahirahmaniraheem.

Comparing Islamic leaders from different time periods and places, to King Ashoka and other Buddhist figures, we find that theologically the two societies are very different. Buddhism is not theistic at all; in fact, some teachings of Buddhism are against the belief of a God while Islam’s central principle is Tawheed, the oneness of God and His isolation as the only thing to be worshipped and pleased. However even with this fundamental difference, both religions share a similarity in their treatment and tolerance of other faiths and their own. After reading about Buddhism, in particular chapter 14 of Neusner the case of King Ashoka, has made me wonder if is it necessary to have an Islamic form of government or even a theistic centered government to form a coexistent and peaceful society[ml1861] .

Both Buddhist and Muslim families portray themselves of being accepting of diversity. Ashoka’s father and grandfather were from different religious backgrounds. His grandfather became a Jain late in life, and his father was of the Ajivika sect. Many Khaliphs had mothers who were usually from the lands that their fathers laid conquest, specifically the Ottoman Empire where most of the mothers were Armenians but the Ummayyads in Spain also intermarried. Some of the mothers remained with their original faith and others converted to Islam. The two societies are different in that Muslim men were allowed to marry women of other faiths but women were not allowed to marry outside of the faith. However both societies had families, even ruling families, who accepted some form (not all forms) of religious diversity in their homes.

Both societies have an idea that there is no compulsion in religion and everyone has the right to follow any faith. Ashoka believed in honoring other religions. Kristin Scheible writes, “For Ashoka, other faiths have inherent self-worth as well as occupy a crucial role as a mirror to reflect and amplify one’s own faith. “The faiths of others all deserve to be honored for one reason or another. By honoring them, one exalts one’s own faith and at the same time performs a service to the faith of others.”” Furthermore in Buddhism other religions were not the result of some evil force [ml1862] but rather other paths to the same destination.[1] Muslims on the other hand, at least the majority of the Khaliphs, believed in respecting other faiths because the Quran says, “Do not curse the idols they set up beside Allah, lest they blaspheme and curse Allah out of ignorance.” Also, unlike Ashoka, Muslims believed that other faiths were due to evil forces contaminating the pure word of God[ml1863] . Even with these different views and mindsets towards the other, Islamic societies and Ashoka developed similar institutionalized forms of tolerance. Ashoka’s Rock Edict XII admonished attempts to overtly proselytize and the Kaliphs forbade forced conversion following the prophetic command: there is no compulsion in religion by writing such treaties like the Pact of Umar. These institutionalized forms of tolerance are still put on a pedestal by the present followers of both religions; India has the symbol of the wheel, which signifies many things one of which celebrating the reign of Ashoka, on its flag, and Muslims speak very nostalgically of certain past leaders.

The Ashokan edicts and the Khaliphate either elevated their religion or put limits on other religions. In Edict VII Ashoka announces that he will have officers spreading the Dharma and the Khaliphate allowed other faiths to proselytize to each other but not to Muslims. Both the theist and non-theist religion are very similar in furthering their religions.

Ashoka, like some Kaliphs, also limited followers of divergent views of his own religion. Ashoka had intolerant edicts directed towards the sangha. Disruptive monks and nuns under the Sarnath Pillar Edict are expelled from the anabasasi and forced to wear white robes instead of saffron robes. Kaliphs on the other hand would punish theologians and jurists who disagreed they disagreed with. The kaliph would either make takfeer (claiming that one has done something that makes him an apostate making it legal to kill him) on those he disagreed with, causing the theologians and jurists to change their views, or straight out torture people until they agreed. Ashoka and some Kaliphs were tolerant to others who disagreed with them but not so much to their own people if they disagreed.

Both of these societies, the Kaliphate and Ashoka’s kingdom, were based on very different faiths but ended up being similar. Both the societies are put on a pedestal by the followers of these faiths as evidence of the faith’s greatness. But both Muslims and Buddhists have also acted intolerant in different times in history, for example in some of the Taifa kingdoms, Muslims were intolerant towards Jewish people. Also during a period of the Ottoman Empire, Muslims acted very intolerant by force converting then drafting children into the military, creating the Janissaries. Some may argue the Janissaries went on to live a luxurious life but their parents did not agree with their children’s force conversion and draft. Buddhists also at some points of history acted intolerant and warlike in Lanka due to nationalism discussed in the following chapter in Neusner. The Muslim teaching that the only way to have coexistence and peace is through an Islamic form of government and the belief of one God is challenged by the fact that at times Muslim society acted just as intolerant as others they believed themselves better than, and that those who Muslims believed they were better than, in this case a people who do not even believe in a god, also formed a society similar to the best of Muslim society[ml1864] .

My reflection does not dissuade me from Islam but rather makes me turn more towards it and makes my belief stronger. In Islam we are constantly told to be sincere, and the fact a that non-Muslim can accomplish the same thing as a rightful Muslim ruler as long as he or she is sincere gives credence to that teaching. Furthermore Muslims may call me blasphemous for my claim that Islam is not a requirement. However I believe I uphold Islamic principles. We do not implement an Islamic form of government because it is the only way to achieve an ideal society; rather we do it because we wish to show submission to God[ml1865] . If we wish to implement Islamic law to form an ideal society then the intention is not to please Allah but rather to please ourselves. And Allah will give us what we want in this life, a good society, but not in the next, paradise.

9/10 points: You draw some nice comparisons between Buddhist & Islamic thinking. I’d like to hear more of your personal thoughts on the Ashoka chapter.

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[1] Kristin Scheible writes, “Other religions were conceived as more or less effective means to the same end. They were not considered the consequence of evil forces…”

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[ml1861]Are you suggesting that the ethics of coexistence and peace are primarily derived from a concept of – or relationship to – God?

[ml1862]Do other traditions (Christianity, Islam, etc) view other traditions as the result of evil?

[ml1863]This answers my question above …

[ml1864]Interesting point. So, what is it, in the end, that makes the cornerstone of a just society?

[ml1865]But, does making an Islamic form of government force this submission on non-Muslims?

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Reflections on the Enlightenment

Bismillahiramanhiraheem
So I just finished my first semester of Graduate studies at Hartford Seminary. This was the first paper I wrote. I received an 8.5/10 on this paper. I have added the Professor's comments to show how true professors teach and how academic theological writing should be instead of being extreme polemics. (I am grateful for this grade because it helped me see where I needed to improve.) This paper was a simple reflection paper on one of the readings.

Reflections

I knew I would disagree with the philosophers and theologians that were going to be mentioned before reading chapter nine. I was pleasantly surprised how Karkkainen approached the subject, not portraying the Enlightenment as a majestic age of reason. After reading this chapter I am surprised that Enlightenment theologians, at least the ones mentioned, were not writing about rejecting religion instead they were trying to prove Christianity was superior to other religions. The reading upheld my firm belief that Enlightenment thinkers were not practicing reason but rather practicing blind dogma and acting like children[MCL1] . They closed their eyes and covered their ears, refusing to listen to the proof of any religion.

Karkkainen dispels the idea of it being an age of reason by mentioning that periods before the Enlightenment, such as the Middle Ages, were also called the “Age of Reason” and great scholastic theologians such as Thomas Aquinas came before the Enlightenment. By doing so, he does not discredit the advances and ideas of past generations rather, he correctly writes that it was the first time reason was exercised independent of church authority and supervision. However, it was not the first time a period was recognized as an age of reason. (p90)

Having properly explained the Enlightenment period and not portraying it as majestic, he goes on to explain the ideas of theologians and philosophers of the period. Personally I would have taken a more hostile approach because of my exclusivist leanings. I commend Karkkainen for only presenting the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers and not let his own opinions seep [MCL2] through which I would have done.

There was a time that I avoided reading Enlightenment era works with the impression they were exclusively about disproving the idea of God and I only used to read works that were polemics against the thinking of the Enlightenment because of this misconception. Having avoided Enlightenment era writing, it certainly was eye opening to read a presentation about the it. [MCL3] Before I was under the impression the Enlightenment was fully secular, however it seems like it was only a move towards secularism and a different flavor of religious superiority thinking. The different flavor of religious superiority was a move towards inclusivist thinking, such as Schleiermarcher, not believing the Christianity was the only way but the best way (Karkkainen, p93) or Troeltsch view that all religions share the divine presence or revelation but other religions cannot be brought closer to Christianity.(Karkkainen, p97) The tools this new process used to look down on other religions were “history”, “common sense” and “reason” instead of using doctrine. By doing so they effectively neutered all religions of any supernatural elements making debates of what is right and what is wrong divorced of any divine guidance and subjugate them to logic, reason[MCL4] , and worst of all human temptation.

Reading about their denial of the supernatural elements in religion and the use of the new tools such as “reason” upheld my firm belief that Enlightenment thinkers were practicing blind dogma and not using reason at all. If they are truly reasonable and open to ideas, why do they ignore the proof[MCL5] that religions bring as if they were children. Denis Diderot’s claim that even if the entire population of Paris told him a dead man had just been resurrected he would not believe it (Karkkainen pg91), shows that Enlightenment thinkers were not trying to be “open minded” or anything of the sorts rather they had their beliefs and would ignore any evidence that ran the contrary. If we were to use reason and history, the fact that we have multiple sources from the earliest periods giving accounts of supernatural happenings, would that not be enough proof? Maybe not enough proof to know exactly which miracle happened or didn’t happen, but enough to know something did happen. But the Enlightenment thinkers stick to the “see it to believe” mentality. If we use this reasoning then we should just ignore all of history. If we have a large number of people giving the same account[MCL6] , all of who were eye witnesses, and have not had enough time to cooperate and make a story up[MCL7] , reason would dictate that there is some truth in what they say. Now if we live many years after the event, we should investigate the claims and see where each claimant’s source is coming from. Meaning we should trace back their claims to the eye witnesses of the event. If we find all the claims are coming from the same eye witness there may be room to be skeptical, but if all the claims trace back to many different eye witnesses then reason would lead us to two options: either there was a global conspiracy going on amongst the people who lived in the past and wanted to fool future generations by claiming they were eye witnesses to supernatural events, or miracles had actually occurred. [MCL8] Which is more likely, a grand hoax that requires impossible logistics or the event actually occurring?

Furthermore ignoring miracles and following people based on them being “ethical teachers” is a step towards relativism [MCL9] which people see as chaos and the absence of divine guidance. Who is to decide what one teaches is ethical? Many practices are considered ethical in one culture’s reasoning and completely abhorrent in another. The only way to know what is truly ethical and truly abhorrent is by divine guidance. To know the source of the divine guidance is through the miracles.

The reading has encouraged me to delve deeper in Enlightenment thinking which is surprising to me because it only upheld long standing beliefs. At the end of the day I am an exclusivist and to disagree with something without fully knowing it, is arrogant[MCL10] . Instead of avoiding it I should learn about it to see why people think in this manner and why it is so attractive if I wish to effectively articulate my objections to this type of thinking.

8.5/10 – This chapter obviously was thought-provoking for you. You do a good job of articulating some of the issues at play in the chapter and are ready to apply them to your own thinking. Be sure to push your own assumptions; hold them up to the same critique you’d want applied to Enlightenment thinking.

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[MCL1]Those are strong words.

[MCL2]Objectivity is important in academic research.

[MCL3]?

[MCL4]Are logic and reason such bad things? Don’t we want our traditions to be logical and reasonable?

[MCL5]What is the proof? How are some of the claims of our traditions “provable”?

[MCL6]But where is this recorded? In a time when there were no newspapers or reporters? If there is only one text that records an event (e.g. the Bible) how do we really know that a large number of people offered the same account?

[MCL7]And, how do we know that this was not the case with texts that were written down hundreds of years ago? Or with texts that were written down decades after the events in question?

[MCL8]I’m not sure these are the only two options.

[MCL9]How so?

[MCL10]Absolutely. It’s important to be able to articulate clearly why you disagree with something and to propose a better scenario.

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Education not Competition

Bismillahiramanhiraheem
I have been in Indonesia for the last eight months and have been very busy. However that is not the reason for the absence. This piece took me seven months to write. I had so many things to say but no direction. This piece was edited time and time again taking out unnecessary ranting and provocation. I ask Allah that if any of my writings have a positive effect on people it will be this one. Ameen.

Education not Competition

"Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today."

Every parent will nod their heads in agreement to the words attributed to Malcolm X (better referred to as EL-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz in the Muslim community) quoted above. Then they will probably menacingly beam at their children. The child will understand this look as a command that they must never be wrong or make a mistake in the classroom or never fail a test.
This fear holds the child back from learning. An essential part in the learning process is to make mistakes. However, students who have succumb to fear would rather stay quiet and opt not to answer a question rather than trying. Their fear causes them to hesitate answering simple questions that have no right or wrong answer such as a simple, “How are you”. I had a student who is very bright and was probably the smartest child in the class but she was so afraid to get a question wrong you could literally see her whole body tremble and then see her eyes look from right to left out of fear. My question was “What did you do on the weekend”.
Why do parents instill this fear in their children? Is it for the child’s benefit or the parents’? The main reason parents put this fear in their children is because of competition. They must realize that education is not competition and there is no shame in failure. Failure helps the student by allowing him to redo what he or she may be weak in. However, parents are more concerned about saving face with their peers they do not concern themselves with what their child actually needs. Sometimes the parents go so far as to use under handed tactics to have their children pushed into the next grade or level just to save face. If the student is pushed forward because of their parents’ under handed tactics, the student will just have more troubles in the future. Furthermore the fear does not benefit the child at all specially during assessments because instead of actually thinking and stressing about the assessment they have in front of them, they stress about the consequences that will be brought upon them if they do not succeed. This factors into the student’s failure on a test and has no benefit to them. The parents get no benefit because now they must save face.
How does this factor into Islam? Well first we must look to a fictional character to understand where fear leads us. Yoda from the star wars films said, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Fear (of anything except Allah) leads us to the dark side, we start to hate what we fear. When a teacher punishes a student for making a mistake the student subconsciously starts to hate the subject being taught and the teacher. If the student is punished for making a mistake while reciting, such as being slapped across the face or having his or her fingers being squeezed together with a pencil in the middle, do we really think he will love the Quran or the teacher?
Instead of having students compete against one another and live in fear we should promote cooperation between them. One of the best ways to learn is to teach the subject to others. Have stronger students help the weaker ones. It will enforce the subject to the stronger students and having their peers explain the subject the weaker students will be brought up in level. For parents who are skeptical, try to remember a time you did not listen to your child so they had to go to another adult who got through to you.
In secular education this helps because we start to have less dropouts and failures and a bigger percentage of people succeeding and working towards the betterment of society. However if we make students compete we create winners and losers. We have losers who become nothing of use and unable to better society and have the winners go on to become professionals but because they are so ingrained with the competition mentality they do not work for the betterment of society. Greatest example is of all these immoral doctors only caring about money. A doctor is no longer seen as a noble profession but rather is seen as a criminal.
As for Islamic knowledge this approach also has many advantages. For example one of the reasons for major sectarianism is because people cannot admit they are wrong. The arrogance a teacher develops that they could never be wrong is only an extension of their fears of making a mistake when they were students. However if we take out competition in Islamic learning we would effectively close one of the paths leading to arrogance. Another reason for a person to become arrogant is because a teacher is a person who has extreme power and even more trust; this position is an easy road to feel powerful. If we have stronger students help weaker students when the students eventually become teachers they will not be arrogant because part of their learning career was also teaching weaker students.
Education is not competition. Competition is when we have parties trying to get to the top while not caring for the other. Competition is when we step over others. Competition enforces arrogance. Leave competition in the sports arena and do not bring it into the centers of learning. Stop treating education like a sport. Parents should not be spectators who get into fights because their team lost. Our children are not football teams and schools are not arenas.

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Umrah

Bismillahiramanhiraheem

This will be an interlude post. As you all know I went on Umrah recently. I was not planning on sharing my experience because I didn't know what to write. However I received a special request asking for my experiences, so I decided this post would be about my Umrah. It will be in a list format to record all my memories inshAllah (Hoping that people inshAllah will see advices that will help them inshAllah).

My Umrah

When I first entered the plane and was wearing my thobe because if you are flying Saudi Arabian Airlines they have a small prayer room in which you can change into your ihram.

About an hour into the flight I decided to pray Duhr and Asr. There is a compass in the prayer area showing you where the Qibla is and during prayer there was an announcement which I did not catch (because I was obviously praying). In the middle of my Asr prayer, the Qibla actually changed 180 degrees and I heard the last part of the announcement that they were dumping fuel. I went back to my seat, which was next to the wing and saw them just pouring out fuel (ironically this was just hours before the whole BP fiasco which I didn’t hear about until I had spent one week in Mecca). I immediately began to pray because being the bad flyer that I am, I was scared witless. So I am already a bad flyer and now we need to turn around and land in JFK because the engine is freezing. There was some problem with the anti-ice machine and we could not cross the Atlantic. For some reason the plane kept turning left and right and circling and sitting by the wing and looking out the window scared me even more (They should really let us close the window shades during landings).

Alhamdulilah the plane landed and right away, while still on the plane, food was served. Then they told us to leave the plane and wait at the gate because they still could not find the problem. Then five hours later they let us have free food at the Turkish restaurant in JFK. After 3 more hours they finally let us back into the plane and then took off an hour and half later.

When the plane landed, even in my Ihram, I could feel the heat right away. My uncle's brother-in law-picked me up and I stayed at his place for the day. My Ihram belt broke and it was very annoying so I wore the belt I usually wear with my jeans. Then at night he took me to Mecca to do Umrah. First however he booked a hotel for me, when I got settled in I went to the Haram. It was great seeing it for the first time in person and not just in pictures. That Umrah was very easy Alhamdulilah and I finished 5 mins before fajr. I had to quickly get my head shaved run home to shower because I was sweaty and I usually shower when I get a haircut and change into my regular cloths. I quickly ran to the masjid and joined the fard jammat.
In Mecca I stayed mostly in the Masjid and walked around in the masjid when I got tired of reciting. My hotel was literally right outside of the masjid so at night when I was tired I would not need to walk very far and because of that I was able to do Tawaf nightly, Alhamdulilah. During all this time I wondered what did people complain about when doing Tawaf and Umrah. It was pretty simple. Then I did my second umrah and because I did tawaf every night the soles of my feet were bruised. When I did this second umrah the laps between Marwa and Safa were very difficult. I literally was fighting to finish those laps. I realized then what shoes were for.
Lessons I learned in the Haram were:

• Keep your sandals with you; they WILL get lost (they will not get stolen, you will most probably forget where you put them).
• Birds love to defecate on you and not just when you sit outside. They will travel inside the masjid and regardless of whether or not you are below a chandelier or not they will somehow sit on a ridge and aim for your head (know the fiqh of bird droppings before going to the Haram).
• Try not to look like a foreigner; there are no fixed prices and taxi drivers who usually charge 10 riyals charge you anywhere from 20-100 riyals. They overpriced me specially because they thought I was Egyptian. (How I know this is because later I would complain to my friend about cab drivers ripping me off and he would make fun of me. Then I happened to mention people kept asking if I was Egyptian and then he told me that cleared up everything). When taking a cab make sure your driver is Bengali, if he is not make sure he is a Pakistani and try to avoid Arab and specially Saudi drivers at all costs. Saudis are the laziest people I have met and if you ask them to turn the corner because it is closer or use a different gate in the university or to help you find where you need to go on the specific street, they will get angry and tell you they were only paid to bring you here.

Then I went to Jeddeh for a day and a half to look for jobs and what not. I stayed at my uncle's brother-in-laws house. It is best to take the bus to go from Mecca to Jeddah. But when going to Medinah make sure to take a taxi with A/C. They are much faster and they stop at Masjids with clean bathrooms and not public rest areas that have Bedouin restrooms.
In Medinah it was very difficult to find my hotel. Everyoen is a tourist so it is hard to ask for directions to your hotel. Plus the cab/bus stattion was on one side of the haram (the back of the masjid) and my hotel was by Bab-Asalam (the complete front where the graves are). Another problem was the name of my hotel was Golden Mubarak and there were many hotels with the word Golden in them and others with the word Mubarak in them but only one had both "Golden" and "Mubarak". Plus the sign that says the hotel's name is not facing the main road and is hidden which from a business and marketing point of view is terrible. Alhamdulilah I found the Hotel then went to the haram to give my salaams. The next mronign I realzied all the shops (like the very important bin dawood) and places to eat were on the other side of the masjid. We (I had a roommate who arrived 2 hours after me because he took the bus) then changed hotels to Sufra al Huda. This hotel's room was amazing. The bathroom was huge. And they had room service and it only cost a few more riyals. Plus it was very close to not only the Masjid but to bin Dawood and not one, but two wifi spots. The wifi spots allowed me to use my Skype app on my iPhone to call home. One wifi spot was between gates 16 and 17 outside of the masjid and another was in one of the Tayyiba hotels.
In the Medinah masjid there were many study circles where you can just sit and study with the Imam, most of them were Tajweed classes. And most of the Imams I met knew both Urdu and Arabic. Also at night in front of the masjid there were speeches.
One strange thing I notice was that people would push and shove to touch the black stone because it is from heaven and they believe you get more hasanaat for touching it. But in reality you do n tget more hasanaat and the Prophet (PBUH) said you can merely point to it. Now if you can go ahead and touch it, however Muslims have no concept of making a line (even in bin Bawood a girl threw her items over my items on the register belt) and furthermore they push and shove to touch something that is neither mandatory to touch nor gives you "blessings". However in the Medinah Masjid people would like up at the rawda and when they finsihed praying woudl stand up look for someone to take their spots call them over and then leave the rawda. People actually made room for one another. The Rawda is said to be a peice of heaven and you do get extra blessings in there. Basically what I want to say is be courteous. If you see an Aunti who wants to touch the Black Stone let her through and do not push her. It is a superficial display of piety where you cry and moan to touch the black stone and when you do touch it scream, "GOD IS GREAT," all the while pushing and shoving an old lady who is in the winter of her life.
I then flew to Jeddah and arrived there at 11 hours before my flight to NYC. I basically just slept in the airport and almost missed my flight even though I arrived 11 hours earlier. When I arrived to NYC, Alhamdulilah, everything went smoothly and I did not receive special treatment like some Muslims do.

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Terrible papers part 2

Bismillahiramanhiraheem
Okay so I took a Arabic Cinema in Translation for my minor this semester. And the final paper was 10 pages long based on at least one movie we haven't watched and comparing it to the themes of movies we did. I had to do a little compromising for the sake of the class. I also went on a page long rant. This post is long but once you start reading it you won't be able to stop. Many people found it funny.

My Paper

This paper will be about The Destiny and The Victorious Saladin, both directed by Youssef Chahine. The themes that will be discussed are religion and why people do what they do. This essay will also discuss women.
One of the topics we talked about in class was what the causes are that make people become terrorists. Many reasons were given on why people take radical actions: to fight oppression, discrimination, sexual deprivation and religion. The films The Destiny and The Victorious Saladin gave two more reasons: failure and greed. In The Destiny, the Caliph’s second son is viewed as a complete failure because he spends his time dancing around with gypsies and his father always chastises him. He eventually feels unloved and joins a fundamentalist sect. Furthermore there is a scene in the film where many of the boys from the fundamentalist cult are on trial and the mother tells Ibn Rushd that the boy sleeps all the time and then all of the sudden he is trying to change his family to become righteous. The boy was lazy and a failure and the only thing he had going for him was to become a “shaykh” or righteous person who condemns everyone else. I personally believe people become extremists so they can chastise others on not being religious before others can chastise them for being failures.
Out of all the reasons given as to why people turn to extremism specifically Islamic extremism, personally I have seen it is because of people being failures and having nowhere else to turn but religion. They cry and their mother’s hit them, their father’s did not love them, and they blame everyone else for being a failure but their own selves. Youssef Chahine, I believe, was completely accurate in his portrayal as to why people become extreme. However he does not accurately portray why people take violent action, there is a difference in extremism and terrorism. Extremism is what we see the protagonist in Yacobian Building originally turning to, a man who overnight became religious and then wants to change everyone around him, such as pushing his girlfriend to read his book. In The Destiny we see the Caliph’s younger son join a religious sect and then it seems as if overnight he believes everyone to be wrong and damned. He even tells his friend who has been stabbed in the throat and is in bed rest to get up and pray. That to me is extremism. It eventually leads to the extremist participating in an act of terror due to the character going through a tough ordeal. The character in Yacobian building was raped in prison and then got hold of weapons, so he took his revenge. While he was on the extremist path, one does not need to be an overzealous extremist to become a terrorist. As we see in Paradise Now the characters were not religious at all and did not want to change their friends or family, they just wanted it all to end. One wanted to redeem his family honor, the other wanted equality. In Terrorism and Kebab the main character actually gets into a fight with the religious figure. All the sets of characters from these three films have reasons to become terrorists that have nothing to do with religion. Only the character in Yacobian Building was on the extremist path but the spark for him joining the extremists and the spark for him taking violent action were two different events.
Comparing how people get onto the extremist path, I believe The Destiny is more accurate. From personal experience it is definitely because people are failures and have nothing else going for them. However the Caliph’s son did not have a reason or motivation to become a terrorist or someone involved in an assassination plot. The motivation to become an extremist was not there in Yacobian Building but the motivation for becoming violent was. I do not believe being rejected by the police academy because of discrimination makes someone religious overnight but rather it is a constant string of failures and the unwillingness to take responsibility for those failings. Yacobian Building is correct on why people take violent action and The Destiny is correct on why people become extremely religious overnight.
The best example I can give is that the Muslim Brotherhood were extreme in their beliefs. But after being jailed so many times, one of them by the name of Sayyid Qutb wrote Milestone in jail and many members of the Brotherhood understood the book as telling them to take up violent action against the government. However if the attacks on the brotherhood and the jailing of many of its members did not happen then the book never would have been written and the violent responses never would have happened and the Brotherhood would just be overzealous people who were just on a missionary cause.
Another theme discussed when we watched Paradise Now was the motive behind terrorism is not religion but religion is used as an excuse. One character want to either gain freedom from this life or equality and the other wants to redeem the honor of his family. However the characters around them support their course of action using religion. For example the plotter keeps talking about heaven. But the plotters themselves just wanted a revolution in which they could become leaders afterwards. If they truly believed in what they preached why did they not carry on the suicide missions? The same theme was talked about during The Yacobian Building. Absolutely everything these people did they justified it with religion. However the main reason behind their actions was pure selfishness. In Terrorism and Kebab we see a religious figure that uses prayer as a way to get out of doing work. Then he preaches to an attractive young lady that she should cover and be religious but it is soon made clear that he is attracted to her and wants to be with her. He used religion to start the conversation and was hoping to get something more. The girl’s question to him was if he really cared about people changing why did he not preach to the others? This exposed his true motives. Similarly in The Victorious Saladin, King Richard originally came to fight Saladin because he believed Saladin was oppressing the Christians. When he realized Saladin was a good man he still stayed and fought because of the glory. The King of France and Lady Virginia kept claiming it was for Christendom that they had joined the Crusades, however the King of France really wanted money and Virginia wanted revenge on Saladin for killing her husband and the throne of Jerusalem. If they were religious then they would have not killed the emissaries of King Richard sent to Saladin in an attempt to frame Saladin or kill other Christians because they were Arabs. Furthermore if Lady Virginia was religious she would not have made up lies about Saladin to gain the help of the Christian kings. In The Destiny Sheikh Riad and the leader of the sect who is referred to as “Angel” put on a façade on their followers that they are the religious and that Ibn Rushd is the deviant. They recruited people into their sect and tell them that they need to save everyone from the hellfire. Their way of saving everyone from the hellfire is by being condescending and extreme towards everyone else. However the true motive behind their actions is the lust for power and Ibn Rushd is just a distraction. The sect leaders hidden agenda was to overthrow Al-Mansur the Caliph of Andalusia. These religious leaders who condemn their fellow Muslims actually make an alliance with the Christians who want to over throw the Caliph whose rule this sect is supposedly protecting from deviants.
Youssef Chahine clearly has a grudge against religious authority when he made The Destiny. The most important book that Ibn Rushd wrote according to The Destiny is the one he wrote refuting Imam Ghazzali’s Incoherence of Philosophers entitled Incoherence of Incoherence. The film claims that the fundamentalist sect follows Ghazzali’s words and believes him to be correct. Is Youssef Chahine attacking the majority of the Muslims living today? Most of the Muslim world accepts Incoherence of Philosophers over Incoherence of Incoherence. Is he trying to say most Muslims are extremists? Furthermore Ghazzali was a supporter of Aristotle. Ibn Rushd wrote a book on Aristotle but was more in line with the Mutazilite school of Islam which was more on Plato’s view of philosophy. In one scene Ibn Rushd asks the Caliph’s son how he is spreading the word of God without knowing chemistry, mathematics and love or philosophy. However Imam Ghazzali also studied and supported the study of those subjects. The only problem he had was in philosophy which he divided into five parts and said four were okay to learn but the fifth part, metaphysics were not beneficial to learn. Since most of the Muslims today do follow the Ghazzalian way, is Youssef Chahine trying to say we do not know these subjects? Furthermore the film suggests that most of the people are with Ibn Rushd and against Ghazzali. In one scene Al-Mansur wants to lock up Ibn Rushd and wants to burn his books. One of the supporters of Ibn Rushd claims ideas live on forever and the dynasty was started on an idea. This scene in the film leads people to believe that these ideas were similar to the ones Ibn Rushd has and that many other people had. However in the time period the film takes place Andalusia is being ruled by the Al-Mohads. Contrary to what Youssef Chahine would have us believe, most of the people and not just the extreme sects in Andalusia at the time believed what Ghazzali believed. In fact a man named Ibn Tumart, who claimed to study under Ghazzali and debated the Al-Moravids because the Al-Moravids believed in anthropomorphism, started the Al-Mohad dynasty. The ideas that the supporter of Ibn Rushd is talking about in the film in real life were Ghazzali’s ideas. It was discussed in class that Youssef Chahine was holding a grudge. This grudge led him to rewrite history and claim that the majority of the Muslims living today and in the past were extremists. The extremists were the likes of Youssef ibn Tashfin who started the Al-Moravid dynasty that the Al-Mohad dynasty, that followed Ghazzali’s teachings, overthrew. The Al-Moravids are the ones who took religious ideas and made them into political and military movements. As we discussed in class, Youssef Chahine clearly held a grudge. However he acted on that grudge in a childish and unscholarly manner with a film that is historically inaccurate and is inconsistent with ideas and the film blames the wrong people.
We also discussed the role of women in the class. In the film The Victorious Saladin the role of women was expanded. The films we watched in class many of the women who played supporting roles did absolutely nothing, whereas in films where they were main character they did something. For example the first film we watched Determination the girl is stuck in a marriage with the butcher and the man saves her by arguing she is still married to him under traditional law. The mother in Call of The Curlew stood there while her daughter was killed. The mother in Nights of the Jackal could have easily stopped the father from being abusive by demanding he not abuse his children or else she will not whistle at night. In Cairo Station the female lead is actually beaten and does not do anything to defend herself and in return makes love to her beater. In The Victorious Saladin the women shown are knights and actually fight. Lady Virginia took part in battle wearing full armor and then went to the Christian kings for help after her army lost in the beginning of the film. Louise was a knight hospitaller and is shown fighting and then becoming a prisoner of war and then a medic. King Richard’s wife also takes an active role.
However all the women who took active roles in The Victorious Saladin are Christians and not Muslim. In fact there are no Muslim women in the film. Is Youssef Chahine trying to tell Muslims something? Is he trying to say that Muslims suppress our women and Christians don’t? In the film there is a Christian character named Issa who is Saladin’s trusted general and is his “swimmer.” He is the love interest of Louise the Knight hospitaller who is on the opposing (Crusaders) side. Historically speaking there was an Issa Al-Awam in Saladin’s army who was a Muslim and not a Christian. Issa Al-Awam was a fisherman who did not want to join the military and his wife Selma kept nagging him about it. Eventually she herself joined the army of Saladin since her husband would not and she became a battlefield medic similar to Louise who was a battlefield medic in the film. Issa Al-Awam felt ashamed that his wife joined the military and he did not so he joined the navy and then because he was a great swimmer he would jump overboard whenever someone or something fell overboard and in turn he was nicknamed Farris al-Bahir or the knight of the ocean. This story is told to many Muslim children to tell them that no matter what they can always somehow help their nation even if they are a fisherman or a woman. Selma the medic’s story is told to young girls everywhere in the Muslim world to let them know they can be anything. Youssef Chahine takes this story makes a fictional Christian character based on Selma and makes Issa into a Christian and makes all Muslim women invisible in his film. What is he trying to do? Is he trying to say the West treats their women better? Is he trying to discourage Muslim girls from being active in the military?
Something we have not discussed in class is race. Youssef Chahine ignores many races in The Destiny and The Victorious Saladin. In The Destiny he shows Christians, Muslims and gypsies. Where are the Jews? Jews held many high positions in Andalusia. Was he trying so hard to show that Muslims are not tolerant that he made the Jews completely invisible because they were a flaw in his argument? All the poets shown in the film are gypsies but there were great Muslim poets in Andalusia and Jewish poetry and the development of Hebrew started in Andalusia. Is he trying to show most Muslims are just war mongers and are power hungry and only a few Muslims enjoy singing and poetry? Most Muslims at the time and today encourage poetry. Also did he not show the Jewish poets, singers and rulers because it would show that the Muslims were tolerant and not all Muslims are fanatics that he was so bent on showing in his film because of his grudge? Also in The Victorious Saladin he keeps repeating that all people are welcomed in Jerusalem but it belongs to the Arabs. What is that suppose to mean? It is holy land and traditionally Muslims believed it belonged to everyone. Furthermore Saladin was a Kurd not an Arab. Is this just a mistake on Chahine’s part or is he a racist?
Both films of Youssef Chahine, The Destiny and The Victorious Saladin have themes we discussed; religious fundamentalism and women. Also watching the film The Destiny it makes it clear just how big of a grudge Youssef Chahine held and it reflected in his rewriting of history.

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