From: fade@quads.uchicago.edu (mohammad h fadel)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic
Subject: Re: Quote of the Day
Date: 30 Sep 92 22:48:37 GMT
Reply-To: fade@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: U of Chicago

All is a difficult word.  However, what is going on in Bosni is hardly un-
precedented: as the Ottomans were driven out of eastern Europe and Russia
expanded south toward Iran in the 18th and 19th centuries there were millions
of Muslim refugees (much like the Bosnians of today) who were expelled along
with  the Ottomans.  The Ottomans devoted great resources to resettling these
refugees in other remaining provinces of their empire.  As for the Soviet 
Union, I'm surprised anyone would cite it as an example of religious tolera-
tion.  Although all religion, with the possible exception of the Orthodox,
suffered persecution, Muslims were especially hard hit.  As an example, 
Doshanba, the capital of Tajikistan, had fewer mosques than churches even 
though Muslims were double the size of the Russian orthodox.  One should
also keep in mind the persecution Muslims are suffering in India.  The fact
is, almost 40% of world Muslims are minorities, and in many of these countries,
their existence is precarious (Burma also comes to mind.)

I'm not sure if this has always been so.  I believe it has a lot to do with
the nation-state.  The fact is, states, whether ruled by non-Muslims or even
by nominal Muslims, are very suspicious of Muslims.  This is because they
perceive that Muslims do not have strong "national" feelings.  This is probably
true.  Despite the fact that I have grown up in America, I don't feel any
"patriotism" for this country.  It's not that I hate America, but love some
Muslim country, it's just that I can't accept my identity being limited to
the symbols associated with my passport.  Thus, any nationalist movement, inc-
luding Arab nationalism, will be hostile to Islam, because Islam has seperated
symbolic meaning from ethnicity.  Thus, many of the greatest writers of Arabic
were non-Arabs.  Even today, many non-Arab Muslims learn Arabic because of its
association with Islam.  Many non-Muslims, however, cannot understand why
Muslims insist on having a symbolic universe which is alien to the symbols
of the nation-state.  For this reason, they consider Muslims alien invaders.
For example, Greeks and Serbians refer to East European Muslims as Turks, just
because they are Muslim.  The fact is, the majority of East European Muslims
are converts to Islam, just as the vast majority of Muslims world-wide are
converts.  It seems by becoming Muslim, however, one commits a type of treason
to one's own "nation" that one doesn't commit when converting to other re-
ligions. "a .hasiba  al-nnAsu 'an yutrakU 'an yaqUlU AmannA wa-hum lA 
yuftanUna?" (Sura al-`Ankabut, verse 2) trans. "Did the people think that 
they would be left to say "We have believed," and that they would not be
tried?"

Being tested for one's faith is part of believing in something having some
worth.  No one is persecuted for preferring broccoli to cauliflower.

As for non-Muslims minorities, they have one great advantage that Muslim
minorities do not have: recognition of their religions as legitimate
religions.  I can only speak of what I saw in Egypt and Jordan, but, while
it is not great being a minority anywhere, I don't think living conditions
for the Christians of these two countries are appreciably different from
the Muslims.  They do have one big advantage, though: Christians in the Arab
world have the right to go to Church on Sunday even though it's not an
offical holiday.  I'm waiting for the American government to allow Muslims
the right to take off work or public school to go pray.  I'm also waiting
for the right for mosques to do adhan publicly.  For those of you who don't
know, the adhan is a fundamental ritual (shi`ar) of Islam. Without the
right to call people to prayer, mosques are not allowed to function in their
normal way.

Anyway, these are just some thoughts and I'm not claiming anything conclusive.
It's just not a good time to be in the world if you're religious, and that's
doubly true if you're Muslim.

					Was-salam,
					Mohammad  
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic