Saturday, August 18, 2007

Moderate Muslims

I came across mountainoflight.co.uk while browsing YouTube. I'll embed the video I found at the end of this post. Mountainoflight is obviously linked with Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens. I have a prejudice against Cat, but not because he's a Muslim. I have another prejudice about that.

The first prejudice comes from my childhood. I'm somewhat antipodean, and a New Zealand relative stayed with my family when I was young. He loved Cat Stevens and would play his tapes, loudly and constantly. I preferred the Rolling Stones, and after he left I never wanted to hear another Cat song as long as I lived. I've outlived that particular wish.

The Muslim prejudice boils down to his attitude to Salman Rushdie. I call it a prejudice because I acknowledge I have an immediate negative reaction to him based on this affair, although he said he had been misinterpreted, that he did not endorse the fatwa against Rushdie but rather stated what the Islamic sentence against apostates is. I'm not sure that explanation helps, I'm afraid.

In fairness, Yusuf Islam has been very generous, charitably, including towards the victims of the 9/11 attacks which he condemned absolutely and immediately.

But I still have this prejudice. Why? Well, here's an example from mountainoflight:

If everybody believed and followed one way, there would be no wars and peace would fill the earth.
This is just John Lennon crossed with Sayyid Qutb: peace, man, when everyone is a Muslim. It's fascism dressed in a peacenik's old T shirt and jeans.

And there are some very stupid and ugly things about the song on this video. It's a lament about the death toll of Muslims, in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya. Nowhere does it mention the non-Muslim help that came for the Bosnian Muslims. Nowhere does it mention Sudan. Nowhere does it mention the deaths caused by other Muslims. So why am I posting it?

Well, it's Muslims making music, and the thought that this would give bin Laden bowel disorders is justification enough for that. It's also extremely well done. It's also worth listening to as a piece of music. But most of all, it is a perspective we need to understand, even if we disagree with it, because it is moderation, in Islamic terms. It's a form of moderation. These are people we can live with, which is lucky because that's what we have to do.

And compromise is a two-way street. If we ask Muslims to adjust - and that's exactly what we should ask - then we need to be willing to do the same ourselves, and at the minimum to listen to what they have to say. To listen to things like this:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"But I still have this prejudice. Why? Well, here's an example from mountainoflight:

'If everybody believed and followed one way, there would be no wars and peace would fill the earth.'

This is just John Lennon crossed with Sayyid Qutb: peace, man, when everyone is a Muslim. It's fascism dressed in a peacenik's old T shirt and jeans."


I don't understand what your problem is with the above. I agree it could be taken wrong just reading the above, but that is just the first sentence in an entire article, and therefore when seen alone is taken out of context. He actually goes on to say that differences are natural and the world is filled with very diverse people and that is God's plan.

Yusuf is not saying that everyone should be Muslim. He is saying that we actually have more in common than we do differences and that in spite of our differences we should all try to get along with each other.

btw, Muslims believe in one God. The same God that Christians and Jews believe in. Allah is the Arabic word for God, the one and only God.


"If everybody believed and followed one way, there would be no wars and peace would fill the earth. But part of God's plan is to test everyone with what they have been given. [4] So today we see different people, of many colors and different religions, these differences came over a period of time. In the Qur'an it tells us that all the messengers and Prophets came to teach how to worship One God and be good to each other. It also tells us that people are free to choose whether to believe or not, that is why today we can see churches, synagogues, temples and Mosques, and millions of people dressing and praying differently."

Peter Risdon said...

It's actually the top of page 3 of the article, so you might want to go back and read the first two pages - not because they contradict anything you said, but rather because from your comment I assume you'd be interested.

I read the whole thing and several other pieces on the site, and I hope I have kept an open mind. But I stand by my analysis. I feel Yusuf is a basically good man, trying to reconcile his original slightly hippyish ideals with the tenets of his rather conservative view of his religion, and sometimes finding this leads to something rather ugly. I draw more optimism from reformers like Eteraz and the Pakistani clerics he quotes.

It's perfectly possible to argue that the death penalty for apostasy and blasphemy is not valid under Islamic law. Whether one makes that argument or not reveals a great deal about the person and nothing at all about Islam. Yusuf has not, to my knowledge, made that argument.