The Beauty of Islam

Dr. Jamali Sarfraz has a full page interview on Islam in Jersey in the Jersey Evening Post. "Extremists are not part of my beautiful religion". And Bailiwick Express also reports on him.

“Although we are a small community here in Jersey we stand side by side along with the wider Jersey community and we show our solidarity and support for the people of Paris, and our prayers and thoughts are with them,” he said. “I condemn these horrific, tragic and abhorrent attacks. “These terrorists – they call themselves ‘Islamic State’ or Muslims, but there is nothing Islamic about their actions at all.”

I am not a Muslim, and some of the verses in the Koran seem to condone or recommend violence. That is something that Gavin Ashenden never ceases to comment on. But he conveniently forgets verses in his own Bible, such as these from Psalm 137:

O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one,
How blessed will be the one who repays you
With the recompense with which you have repaid us.
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones
Against the rock.

A blessing on someone who kills babies? I think Gavin Ashenden would protest that we have to look at what is important, and while those verses tell us about the hatred inculcated in the Jewish people when they were taken into exile in Babylon, they are not to be taken as a guide for life. They do not form part of the “big picture” of Christianity, or even Judaism. We have to read verses in context.

So why on earth can’t he manage to do that with Islam?

There are issues I have with Islam – how those who leave the faith get treated, how women are segregated in worship, but there are issues I have with Christianity about similar matters. Christianity is in the West, usually better at the treatment of what can be called “apostasy”, but that has taken hundreds of years, and there are still Christian fundamentalists groups who cut off the apostate from ties of family.

Christians still have immense trouble with gays and transgender people, even on Jersey – Dr Ashenden can be taken as a prime example as someone who regards being gay as a curable disorder. Christians often treat women as second class within the faith community, as the recent wrangling over Women Bishops shows. Again, Dr Ashenden does not accept that women priests are genuine.

On a personal note, I have had to look at my own prejudices over the years, including prejudices I had in the past against Islam and women priests. I'm sure I still have many. But a degree of introspection can be helpful. One of the things that I learnt from Annie Parmeter, from her work in counselling, was how she said that our own prejudices can become fixed patterns, that when prompted, almost without thinking, we come out with them; in a way they control us. Seeing the same, almost predictable reactions about any good news regarding Islam, I can't help but think she was right, and at times like that, I miss her wise counsel most.

But let us return to the interview.

One of the things that struck me most with the interview with Dr Sarfraz was the phrase “my beautiful religion”. I had never thought of Islam in that way – the idea of “beauty”.

So I decided for today, to select some quotations which I think demonstrate the beauty of Islam.

At its best, I think Islam, like Christianity, speaks to the human condition. It is a mirror, reflecting who we are, showing us who we are, but also who we could be.

If you have no failings of your own that you perceive, you must be a rare individual. And if you have failings, like me, it is good to be reminded of truths that point us gently, like signposts, towards better directions to travel. We may not all travel in the same way, but we all need directions.

The Beauty of Islam

‎"We as Muslims are meant to heal others, not to hurt as some others who call themselves Muslims do. Islam is a hospital for the sick at heart and those with a troubled mind. And the chief doctor is the Beloved of Allah, our Master Muhammad al-Moustafa, the Holy Qur'an is the pharmacy, and the words and actions of the Prophet are prescriptions of remedies, assured to cure." - Imam Birgivi

The strong person is not the good wrestler. Rather, the strong person is the one who controls himself when he is angry.
(Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 73, #135)”

“I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Smiling in your brother’s face is an act of charity.
So is enjoining good and forbidding evil,
giving directions to the lost traveller,
aiding the blind and
removing obstacles from the path.

(Graded authentic by Ibn Hajar and al-Albani: Hidaayat-ur-Ruwaah, 2/293)”

Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see -egoism, arrogance, conceit, selfishness, greed, lust, intolerance, anger, lying, cheating, gossiping and slandering. If you can master and destroy them, then you will be read to fight the enemy you can see.”
― أبو حامد الغزالي

A seeker went to ask a sage for guidance on the Sufi way.

The sage counselled,
"if you have never trodden the path of love, go away and fall in love;
then come back and see us."
Jami (Essential Sufism)

The poet Hafiz wrote
"The sun never says to the earth,
'You owe me.'
Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights up the whole sky."

"I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God".

If words come out of the heart, they will enter the heart, but if they come from the tongue, they will not pass beyond the ears.
Al-Suhrawardi (Essential Sufism)

Justice, mercy, wisdom, righteousness and common good are the basics of Islam. Whatever gets out of justice to injustice is not from Islam. Whatever gets out of mercy to violence is not from Islam. Whatever deviates from common good to harm is not from Islam, and whatever dissents from wisdom to imprudence is not from Islam.
-- Imam Ibnul-Qayyem

"True knowledge can only be acquired through humility. The path towards this knowledge is like a person's wanting to drink from a stream, he has to lower himself to be able to drink. Water seeks the lowest level, thus we have to imitate water" (Sidi Hamza al qadri al boutshish)

The heart, in its journey to Allah, Majestic is He, is like that of a bird; Love is its head, and fear and hope are its two wings. When the head and two wings are sound, the bird flies gracefully; if the head is severed, the bird dies; if the bird loses one of its wings, it then becomes a target for every hunter or predator.
- Ibn al-Qayyim

No mirror ever became iron again; No bread ever became wheat; No ripened grape ever became sour fruit. Mature yourself and be secure from a change for the worse. Become the light — Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

The World is three days: As for yesterday, it has vanished, along with all that was in it. As for tomorrow, you may never see it. As for today, it is yours, so work in it. - Hasan al-Basri

Islam and Source Criticism: Part 1

There is an interesting story in Qur’an about the pregnant Virgin Mary, in which she gets ripe dates to eat from a tree.

“She said, "How can I have a boy while no man has touched me and I have not been unchaste?" He said, "Thus [it will be]; your Lord says, 'It is easy for me, and we will make him a sign to the people and a mercy from us. And it is a matter [already] decreed.' “So she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a remote place. And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm tree. She said, "Oh, I wish I had died before this and was in oblivion, forgotten." But he called her from below her, "Do not grieve; your Lord has provided beneath you a stream. And shake toward you the trunk of the palm tree; it will drop upon you ripe, fresh dates. So eat and drink and be contented. And if you see from among humanity anyone, say, 'Indeed, I have vowed to the Most Merciful abstention, so I will not speak of today to [any] man.'

There is an interesting parallel to the “Messianic Secret” in Mark, in that Mary says she will not speak of that day to any man. It is almost as if the writer is aware that the tradition is poorly attested.

Now this tale does not appear in any of the four canonical gospels, or indeed in any of the earlier apocryphal narratives about Jesus, but it does appear in a document which has been termed “The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew”.

“And it came to pass on the third day of their journey, while they were walking, that the blessed Mary was fatigued by the excessive heat of the sun in the desert; and seeing a palm tree, she said to Joseph: Let me rest a little under the shade of this tree. Joseph therefore made haste, and led her to the palm, and made her come down from her beast. And as the blessed Mary was sitting there, she looked up to the foliage of the palm, and saw it full of fruit, and said to Joseph: I wish it were possible to get some of the fruit of this palm. And Joseph said to her: I wonder that thou sayest this, when thou seest how high the palm tree is; and that thou thinkest of eating of its fruit. I am thinking more of the want of water, because the skins are now empty, and we have none wherewith to refresh ourselves and our cattle. Then the child Jesus, with a joyful countenance, reposing in the bosom of His mother, said to the palm: O tree, bend thy branches, and refresh my mother with thy fruit. And immediately at these words the palm bent its top down to the very feet of the blessed Mary; and they gathered from it fruit, with which they were all refreshed.”

“And after they had gathered all its fruit, it remained bent down, waiting the order to rise from Him who bad commanded it to stoop. Then Jesus said to it: Raise thyself, O palm tree, and be strong, and be the companion of my trees, which are in the paradise of my Father; and open from thy roots a vein of water which has been hid in the earth, and let the waters flow, so that we may be satisfied from thee. And it rose up immediately, and at its root there began to come forth a spring of water exceedingly clear and cool and sparkling. And when they saw the spring of water, they rejoiced with great joy, and were satisfied, themselves and all their cattle and their beasts. Wherefore they gave thanks to God.”

The story is by no means identical, but it has enough in agreement to suggest a common source. The question then becomes one of dating. Did the gospel precede the Qur’an or vice versa? Or did they share a common source in tales extant at that time.

The introduction to the gospel provides one terminus:

"Here beginneth the book of the Birth of the Blessed Mary and the Infancy of the Saviour. Written in Hebrew by the Blessed Evangelist Matthew, and translated into Latin by the Blessed Presbyter Jerome. To their well-beloved brother Jerome the Presbyter, Bishops Cromatius and Heliodorus in the Lord, greeting."

There is no sign of an extant Hebrew copy, the only manuscripts are in Latin. Current dating suggests around the 7th century, or perhaps a little earlier. The text apparently reflects monasticism according to the Rule of St Benedict, which is where the best idea of its dating comes from. It is certainly not earlier than the 5th century. According to the research of J. Gijsel / R. Beyers (1997) it was probably written between 600 and 625 AD.

It is certainly not written by Jerome, (c.  347 – 30 September 420) who was responsible for the translation of most of the Bible into Latin – the translation commissioned by the Pope and known as the “Vulgate” (meaning “"version commonly-used"). But knowledge of Jerome would have become widespread as the translation was widely used, so that doesn’t supply much clues as to its origin.

Perhaps more can be seen from the fact that it purports to be a translation from the Latin by Jerome at the request of Bishops Cromatius and Heliodorus. When Jerome translated the books of the Bible now commonly termed “the apocrypha”, he prefixed the translations with a prologue. In the case of the Book of Tobit, this is a letter in which he writes “to the Bishops in the Lord Cromatius and Heliodorus”. Chromatius was a bishop of Aquileia in northern Italy and Heliodorus was a Bishop of Altinum in northern Italy. The prologue to Tobit tells us that the translation was at their request. Clearly, the author of pseudo-Matthew has borrowed this to give verisimilitude to his narrative.

According to the traditional Islamic view, the Qur’an began with revelations to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel in 610. The history of the Qur’an began when its verses were revealed to the Muhammad. This would suggest it was nearly contemporaneous with the text of Pseudo-Matthew.

The narrative also introduces the popular Christmas images of the ox and ass into the stable, the first known text to do so, which looks as if it is prophecy historicised from the saying in Isaiah:

“And on the third day after the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, the most blessed Mary went forth out of the cave, and entering a stable, placed the child in the stall, and the ox and the ass adored Him. Then was fulfilled that which was said by Isaiah the prophet, saying: The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib”

So there are differences here – Pseudo-Matthew puts the context of the birth in the stable, but also knows a birth tradition about a cave, and tries to have it both ways by having a birth in the cave, then transfer to a stable. Now the traditions about a cave are sound: caves were used for stables, and a very early church tradition says the site of the nativity was a cave near Bethlehem. Our own farming traditions, like that of pseudo-Matthew, think of stables as barn like structures.

Where are the origins of the story of the date palms? In a story which abounds in references to past prophecy being fulfilled, and even dragons appearing, there is no prophetic context in which this occurs, no allusion to the Old Testament – and this is a story in which most narratives have such allusions very clearly marked. That makes it very strange. But if we look after the end of the narrative in which the young child Jesus causes the palm tree to bend, there is a very interesting paragraph:

“And on the day after, when they were setting out thence, and in the hour in which they began their journey, Jesus turned to the palm, and said: This privilege I give thee, O palm tree, that one of thy branches be carried away by my angels, and planted in the paradise of my Father. And this blessing I will confer upon thee, that it shall be said of all who conquer in any contest, you have attained the palm of victory. And while He was thus speaking, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared, and stood upon the palm tree; and taking off one of its branches, flew to heaven with the branch in his hand. And when they saw this, they fell on their faces, and became as it were dead. And Jesus said to them: Why are your hearts possessed with fear? Do you not know that this palm, which I have caused to be transferred to paradise, shall be prepared for all the saints in the place of delights, as it has been prepared for us in this place of the wilderness? And they were filled with joy; and being strengthened, they all rose up”

That suggests a Roman or Greek origin, for the “palm of victory” was one for athletic contests. As Eurydice Kefalifou notes:

“Plutarch connects the branch with Apollo and his holy island of Delos and says that the hero Theseus was the first to receive a palm of victory in an athletic contest on Delos”

And when we look at the cult of Apollo and Delos, we find the following narrative:

“Leto found a safe refugee to give birth on Delos... The delivery of Artemis was painless but the birth of Apollo lasted for nine whole days and nights because Hera had kidnapped Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, preventing Leto from having an easy and painless labour. It is said that, with the absence of Eileithyia, Artemis was the one to help her mother deliver her twin brother, Apollo. The delivery took place under a palm tree. Indeed, there is a palm tree today on Delos the ancient Greeks planted to commemorate the birth of the god.”

The absence of any prophetic rendering, and the presence of the term “palm of victory” suggest the story may be a Christianised version of the Apollo birth myths, especially as this is pretty well the only story about births of virgins under palm trees.

Interestingly, the same story is transmuted into a carol about cherry trees, which was popular in England in the Middle Ages. As Wiki notes:

“The ballad relates an apocryphal story of the Virgin Mary, presumably while travelling to Bethlehem with Joseph for the census. In the most popular version, the two stop in a cherry orchard, and Mary asks her husband to pick cherries for her, citing her child. Joseph spitefully tells Mary to let the child's father pick her cherries.”

Clearly, date palm trees meant very little to the people of England, but cherry trees did. It is an interesting example of how stories change to accommodate local cultures.

“At this point in most versions, the infant Jesus, from the womb, speaks to the tree and commands it to lower a branch down to Mary, which it does. Joseph, witnessing this miracle, immediately repents his harsh words.”

Images of The Prophet

A number of hadith and other writings of the early Islamic period include stories in which portraits of Muhammad (peace be upon him) appear.

It is important to realise that the prohibition of images of the prophet has not been universal, and that past depictions should not be airbrushed out of history. These are portraits by Islamic painters or scholars of the past, and to rewrite the past to fulfil the needs of the present is a principle which is dangerous.

If free speech is important, it is perhaps not so important in the depiction of cartoons which might be said to stir up hatred, as the freedom to talk and show the past as it was, and not as extremist groups would wish it to be. Rewriting the past is, of course, not something that is just done within Islam, and most countries have in the past (and some in the present), tried to write history as they would like to have been seen.

So while others have shown a support for free speech by printing copies online of the cartoons, I am doing so with respect, by showing Muslims their own gracious history, which they should celebrate and not try to forget.

The Pernicious Appeal of Religious Crusading

Islamic State militants could grow strong enough to target people on the streets of Britain unless action is taken, David Cameron has warned. The PM, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, said a "humanitarian response" to IS was not enough and a "firm security response" was needed. It comes as Church leaders expressed concern that the UK had no "coherent" approach to tackling Islamic extremism. (BBC News)

I think that for once David Cameron is right. The Islamic State is a brutal regime, which is not merely concerned with territorial disputes, like so many political conflicts, but whose aim is to impose a harsh and dictatorial religious state of affairs across the world.

Much as the crusaders in the Middle Ages were a bloodthirsty perversion of Christianity, the Islamic State is a barbaric perversion of Islam. The Christian soldiers established Christian settlements, the so-called "Crusader States" just as these Islamic soldiers have established their own Islamic state.

Jonathan Philips describes the history of the crusades:

“In November 1095 Pope Urban II called upon the knights of France to journey to the Holy Land and liberate the city of Jerusalem and the Christians of the east from Muslim power. In return they would be granted an unprecedented spiritual reward – the remission of all their sins – and thereby escape the torments of Hell, their likely destination after lives of violence and greed.”

“The response to Urban’s appeal was astounding; over 60,000 people set out to recover the Holy Land and secure this reward and, in some cases, take the chance to set up new territories. Almost four years later, in July 1099, the survivors conquered Jerusalem in an orgy of killing.While most of the knights returned home, the creation of the Crusader States formed a permanent Christian (or ‘Frankish’) presence in the Levant.”

Before Martin Luther, and the advent of Protestantism, it is hard to find any critique from within Christianity of the Crusaders. As Thomas Madden notes:

“For Martin Luther, who had already jettisoned the Christian doctrines of papal authority and indulgences, the Crusades were nothing more than a ploy by a power-hungry papacy. Indeed, he argued that to fight the Muslims was to fight Christ himself, for it was he who had sent the Turks to punish Christendom for its faithlessness. When Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and his armies began to invade Austria, Luther changed his mind about the need to fight, but he stuck to his condemnation of the Crusades.”

Matters are, however, better within Islam today, as the Muslim Council of Britain has issued a strong condemnation of the Islamic State:

At an event in London called to promote peace between the world’s religions, the Muslim Council of Britain, the Shia al-Khoei Foundation and other Muslim organisations said that fighters for the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (Isis) were acting “contrary to the values” of their religion. They added that the extremists posed a threat to “Muslims of all demoninations and schools of thought” and expressed their outright opposition to the destruction and killing that the Islamist fighters were inflicting on the Iraqi and Syrian population.

They also appealed to all British Muslims to shun extremist ideology and to resist any attempt by extremists to lure young men and women from this country to join the fighting. The denunciation was delivered during a “Big Iftar” event celebrating Ramadan at the Imam Al Khoei Islamic centre in north London last night and followed a similar joint message at Westminster by Sunni and Shia groups.

Shuja Shafi, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “Violence has no place in religion, violence has no religion. It is prohibited for people to present themselves for destruction.”

The joint statement, which is also signed by the British Muslim Forum, the Mosque and Imam National Advisory Board and more than 50 imams nationwide, condemned “the barbaric violence and destruction perpertrated by Isis” and denounces the Sunni group’s threats to destroy Shia holy sites as “contrary to the values of Islam”.

How much effect this will have on young British Muslims who are being seduced by the radical agenda is another matter. And it also seems to me that statements like these do not seem to be getting the prominence they deserve in the media. About 500 are estimated to have joined the conflict so far and posed in propaganda videos.

Much as the religious appeal of the Crusades – with the ideal of a “holy war” – called to so many people, the lure of a fanatical idealism may have more appeal to the idealism of the young that the condemnation of their elders. More initiatives – perhaps a “Young Muslims for Peace” – needs to be given so that the energy and idealism of the young can be more profitably channelled to make the world a better place, where poverty is addressed without recourse to the gun.

References
http://www.historytoday.com/jonathan-phillips/call-crusades
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/tmadden_crusademyths_feb05.asp
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/british-islamic-leaders-condemn-isis-extremists-barbaric-violence-9599907.html
http://www.globalmbwatch.com/2014/08/12/muslim-council-britain-condemns-isis-calls-treatment-minorities-barbaric/

Empire and Anarchy

When the apostle Paul was writing letters to the Christians in Rome, telling them to obey the lawful authority, where this did not conflict with religious practices, it is clear that what was in his mind was that order was better than chaos.
 
The Roman Empire could be brutal in its imposition of the Pax Romana, but equally, it acted to keep that same peace, under which many differing peoples with all kinds of beliefs could get along a live side by side with each other. Indeed, many of our own laws derive from Roman law. Even the Emperor was not wholly above the law.
 
And while this was a society in which slavery existed, Over time, however, slaves gained increased legal protection, including the right to file complaints against their masters. The Stoics and Christians both opposed the ill-treatment of slaves, although members of both movements spoke out against the institution itself.
 
But Rome could be very brutal against what was perceived to be a threat. When the Jews revolted in AD 70, Jerusalem was taken, and the Romans ran out of wood for the countless crucifixions. This was an orderly society, but the imposition of order could be extremely strong.
 
The alternative that Paul could see if rulers were not there was a society of anarchy, in which the bullies, the most powerful, ruled, and where the safeguards of law were lost or flouted. While Rome's rule was not good, the collapse of that, and the power vacuum left could be worse.
 
We see something akin to this in the recent history of the Middle East. Dictators have been toppled, but in their wake, minorities have been left at the mercy of those seizing power, like the religious warlords of the Islamic State.
 
Forced conversions, brutal executions by beheadings, women taken as "war booty" - this is what is filling the power vacuum. The dictators had to clamp down on sectarian violence, and paradoxically, this meant that all religious groups had more freedom (although not to criticise the regime), and some from minorities could rise into positions of power in government.
 
The factionalism left by the removal of the dictators left a void into which religious nepotism was rife. Democracy, as one person, one vote, is an ideal which assumes those elected represent a diverse society, and those in power have sufficient checks and balances to accommodate the minorities. Religious and cultural nepotism means that the majority tends not to look after the interests of that minority, breeding disaffection, and a soil ripe for planting the seeds of fanaticism.
 
But the fanatics can be extremely dangerous. The Mongol hordes swept across the Middle East, and reached the gates of Vienna before an accident of history saved Europe. The Islamic State are like the Mongols - a savage, brutal peoples, who found Islam congenial to their philosophy of conquest, but who thought nothing of taking the Caliph from Baghdad, and putting him in a sack, and having horses trample him to death.
 
Some action must be taken to protect the innocent, the women and children, caught up in the carnage today from these modern day hordes of the Islamic State.

Apostasy and Islam: The Political and Historical Contexts

According to the Daily Telegraph: "Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman sentenced to death for apostasy, is to be freed in a few days, a senior Sudanese official has said. But her lawyers say they will not believe it until they see her walk out of prison" (1)
 
As the BBC reported: "Dr Meriam Yahya Ibrahim was condemned to hang for allegedly leaving Islam and marrying a Christian man. The court said that by doing so, she had abandoned her religious faith and was guilty of apostasy, which carries the ultimate penalty under Islamic law in the country." (2)
 
The BBC noted that this applies in other countries - Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan also uphold strict interpretations of Sharia law.
 
Curiously, while David Cameron has been open in his condemnation of the sentence, there has been a deafening silence from the White House. Perhaps it is not seen as politically expedient to make this a cause as the kidnapping of the schoolgirls was. Michelle Obama launched a campaign to rescue them under the Twitter hashtag  #BringOutGirlsBack, but has been silent on this case.
 
As a Telegraph writer Rob Crilly notes, part of the problem is how people behave
 
"Islamic law is being abused by the impious and the hypocritical. To these pseudo-believers, it is simply another tool to be used to keep women in their place or foreigners in line. That is exactly what happened to Meriam. A half-brother apparently furious that she had gone her own way, choosing her own husband and planning to emigrate to America, was simply not going to allow it. Never mind that Meriam had never practised as a Muslim, he cried 'apostasy' and accused her of converting to Christianity."(3)
 
Yet if the laws were not in place, she would not have ended up in prison. When stringent laws were in place in Jersey, forbidding witchcraft, and allowing very little in the way of proof to be adduced, small and petty minded people, often neighbours, accused others of witchcraft. Some were exiles, many others were sentence to be strangled and burnt at the stake.
 
It was an abuse of the laws, but the laws themselves were part of a cultural mindset which fostered intolerance, and was a ready seed bed for false accusations to take root. For over a hundred years, people facing such accusations were placed into prisons under gruelling conditions, and often were executed, although lesser sentences, such as banishment, sometimes with ears cut off, could also occur.
 
It is pretty obvious that the law was certainly being abused by the impious and the hypocritical, but it is also obvious that it was an extremely bad law, ripe for that kind of abuse. And that is exactly what we do see today in places like the Sudan.
 
Professor Abdullah Saeed has noted that what has happened is that in a number of Muslim countries, "the government assumes the responsibility of 'protecting' local orthodoxies. Those who do not adhere to the government-sanctioned orthodoxy can be branded as deviants, heretics, or apostates. The potential for abuse is all the more real because governments in a number of Muslim countries are either semi-authoritarian or fully authoritarian; thus civil, political, and religious rights remain severely curtailed there."
 
He comments that "in these countries also mean that there are very few, if any, institutional safeguards to check abuses, safeguards such as elected representatives of Parliament, independent courts, or a free civic society and media."
 
In his historical survey of the roots of the law of apostasy, he notes that much of this was bound up in the earlier period when Islam was emerging.
 
"In the political context of the Prophet's time, a person either belonged to the community of believers (Muslims), the unbelievers (non-Muslims) who were at peace with Muslims, or the unbelievers who were at war with Muslims. If one leaves Islam and the Muslims and their allies, there is no option but to join the opposition. An apostate, therefore, was perceived to have automatically joined the non-Muslim side, becoming part of the enemy ranks and using apostasy as a means to attack and inflict maximum harm on the Muslim community. Thus the question of apostasy in early Islamic history was closely associated with the safety and security of the Muslims. Apostates were deemed a serious social and political threat to the whole community."
 
The texts of the hadith, such as the one which said "If anyone changes his religion, kill him", in their historical context, referred to those who were in a state of war against Muslims, and hence could be put to death. It was not so much a question of changing belief, as a matter of treason, hence the death sentence - much as the death sentence remained on the statute books for traitors in the UK until the later part of the 20th century.
 
The historical context was largely forgotten, and what emerged was a instead a limitation of the scope of freedom available to Muslims regarding belief, when Muslim scholars of the classical period opted for an extremely narrow definition of religious freedom. It was confined to non-Muslims as freedom to remain under Islamic rule as "protected religious minorities" (and pay a special religious tax for that privilege) or convert to Islam. Conversion from Islam was banned completely.
 
As Professor Saeed suggests:
 
"These scholars went against the general ethos of the Qur'an when they argued for state coercion to prevent Muslims from converting to other religions. The view of these early scholars is unsurprising as they functioned at a time when religious freedom and the concept of individual human dignity were not related in the way they are today"
 
And he notes that:
 
"People who remain Muslims under the threat of force are unlikely to have anything beneficial to offer to Islam or Muslim communities. Criminalizing apostasy and imposing a death penalty give the impression that Islam is an imposed religion"
 
Because the textual basis for the apostasy laws is actually quite weak, he would like to see a reformation of those laws, emphasizing religious freedom as a basic human right. Focus has been on those governments when Islamic law is imposed in very strict ways concerning apostasy, but he thinks that the vast majority of Muslims are moving away from the notion of the need to force Islam on Muslims to an alternative view that
 
"Islam is essentially a covenant between the individual and God. This is closer to the Qur'anic idea of noncoercion in religion, which was so strongly emphasized in the Qur'an in a variety of contexts but largely ignored in the formulation of the classical law of apostasy.Just as the institution of slavery, which had garnered Muslim and other consensus in the past, has been dropped, punishments for blasphemy and apostasy can also be revised."
 
However as Paul Marshall and Nina She observe: "many moderate Muslim voices are being silenced, especially by apostasy and blasphemy rules, which are key to preserving the tyranny of reactionary forms of Islam"
 
Zeyno Baran comments that: "The most important ideological struggle in the world today is within Islam. Moderate and secular Muslims, who embrace the compatibility of Islam and democracy and the individual freedoms we all cherish in the West, are being confronted by Islamists, who are extremist activists that hijack Islam and seek to gain political power and reshape societies."
 
And Marshall and She conclude that:
 
"In recent years, political campaigners who call for transparent elections in Iran, democracy activists who demand a constitution in Saudi Arabia, and editors who press to end the criminalization of blasphemy in Afghanistan have all been imprisoned for apostasy or blasphemy. Some, like Pakistan's minister Bhatti and governor Taseer, both strong advocates of blasphemy law reform, have been murdered."
 
There is evidently a long way to go yet before the situation is improved, not least because governments which use authoritarian means of control over their own people, are less likely to countenance anything which weakens that control. But scholars like Professor Saeed can lay solid foundations, so that where reform becomes possible, there is a solid foundation within the Qur'an for building an alternative and more contextual view of apostasy..
 
Links
1) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sudan/10867220/Sudanese-woman-Meriam-Ibrahim-sentenced-to-death-for-apostasy-to-be-freed.ht
2) BBC News
3) http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/robcrilly/100274070/bad-muslims-are-to-blame-for-shackling-meriam-ibrahim/
4) Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide, editors Paul Marshall, Nina Shea, quotes fromchapter by Abdullah Saeed and concluding chapter by editors, OUP, 2011.

Writing on Islam in 1989

In a 1989 edition of "The Pilot", the Reverend Tony Keogh (then Rector of Trinity) looked at Islam. This was in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, and the Iran / Iraq war, but before the more radical forms of Islamic extremism expressed in 9/11, and the London Bombings.
 
Nevertheless - despite being written in 1989 - it is a very informative and in many ways prescient piece of observation, especially with regard to the distinction between political systems which change over time, and religious systems, which can all to readily become ossified, and coupled with a degree of certainty among their adherents, cam be a positive danger in a way that political systems can not
 
As Jacob Bronowski remarked in "The Ascent of Man", standing at Auschwitz:
 
"This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.. "
 
And nowhere is such arrogance more likely to surface than in religion. As C.S. Lewis noted (in "The Four Loves"), it is the highest aspirations, the higher loves which are capable of greater perversion, of a greater fall.
 
That is something which should be always guarded against, the arrogance which not only knows, but proceeds to dictate to others, and cannot consider that it can be wrong. This is probably something which is found more in contemporary Islam than Christianity, which has become more diverse in tolerating differences of opinion.
 
In Islam, for example, the majority of scholars still take the traditional view that apostasy is punishable by death or imprisonment until repentance, at least for adult men of sound mind. A recent excellent documentary on BBC Radio 4 by a British Muslim highlighted that this view is even held by numerous Muslims in Britain, although it is not given such a high profile as we see in Malaysia, where death threats are commonplace. Identity cards in Malaysia and Egypt state religion, requiring formal procedures to alter religious status, ensure that much more control by a climate of fear.
 
Tony Keogh writing on Islam in 1989 in The Pilot

Dear Friends,
 
During the 1960s and '70s, a phrase which was often heard, when religion was discussed, was, "All religions are the same really," or "We all worship the same God, really!" The 1980s and the creation of various Islamic republican states, has surely killed that myth.
 
I remember in the early '60s a university lecturer prophesying that it would not be the super powers of east and west who would threaten world peace in the future but it would be man's diverse views on religion which would constitute the greater threat. It is clear that my former teacher's words are coming true and it is easy to see why.
 
Political systems, by their amorphous nature, are subject to change, so each new generation has to operate them in the light of contemporary conditions, and as people in one political system learn more about their opposite number, so they borrow ideas from each other.
 
However, in religion, we are not primarily talking about systems but about the hearts, minds and spirits of people. If religion is not to cause a cataclysmic end of the world as we know it, we need to take a leaf out of the politicians' book and try to understand other people's faith. I believe that this issue ranks alongside ecology and nuclear arms as a potential for the disaster of mankind.
 
The first thing that needs to be understood about Islam is that, of the great world faiths, it is the baby. It was founded by Mohammed (c.570-629).  According to the Islam calendar, Moslems are in the 15th century, or Middle Ages. Many of the attitudes which we see in the Islamic world would he easily recognised and, more importantly, accepted by medieval Christians.
 
Islam did not invent the execution of heretics; Christian history is full of such practices from the Crusades to present-day Northern Ireland.
 
I cannot, in the space available, do justice to the whole history and beliefs of Islam. Let me instead take just one aspect which is probably more misunderstood than any other by the Christian west: this is the Islamic concept of `jihad' or `The Holy War'.
 
It is essentially divided into two. The `Great Jihad' is fighting one's lower nature, it is internal rather than external, striving in the path of God to overcome one's evil tendencies. Man shares with the animals certain characteristics which, if let loose, would make him a very dangerous animal. To bring those passions under control, that is what the `Great Jihad' means. Man, so say Islam, has a tendency to over-estimate himself' and to under-estimate his spiritual potential. He has a tendency to control and exploit his environment and other human beings. The `Great Jihad' is essentially against such tendencies.
 
For the Christian, there is no great problem. The internal war between good and evil is a constant topic in the New Testament, especially in the writings of St Paul (Ephesians Chapter 2). It is with the `Lesser Jihad' that we have our greatest problems as Christians.
 
The `Lesser Jihad' is fighting, not internally but externally, on behalf of the community and because of its visual impact in the media, the west has had a tendency to think this is the sum total of Islam Jihad (the Holy War). There is one very important proviso about waging a Holy War and that it has to be in self-defence -- hence the problems in the United Nations about ending the Iran/Iraq war. The negotiations broke down over who had started the war, hence which side was practising the Islamic law on self-defence and which was not.
 
Like all great movements in history, to the followers of such movements, it is not what actually happened in the history of that movement which is important but what the present day followers want to believe happened; this is as true of Christians as it is of Muslims. It is a fact that Muslims have waged war - wars of conquest, wars in the ordinary sense, and as often as not all related to religion or faith.
 
It is also clear that some Muslims, in this respect, have not exercised the Great Jihad.
 
It is at this point that Christians and Muslims part company for Muslims have no sense of the Christian doctrine of forgiveness and it is at this point that we have to stand by the Cross of Christ or throw it overboard. Hence in the Muslim world, they have the brutal mutilation of the body as a punishment and as a restitution to grace; the Muslims have a greater sense of Allah's mercy in the afterlife than in the present one.
 
A brief world about the Koran; it is a grave mistake to call it the Islamic Bible, it would be much nearer the mark to call it the equivalent of Jesus Himself. The Koran - the book itself, its writings in which not one mark or dot can be changed, re-translated or modernised - is the living word, the logos of Allah. In it, Islam recognises the great prophets of the Old Testament; it also recognises Jesus at the penultimate prophet, before Mohammed, although the' Koran has its own versions of Jesus and His teaching.
 
For example, when Peter cut off the ear of the temple guard at the arrest of Jesus, instead of Jesus healing the ear, the Koran quotes Jesus as saying, "Not yet, Peter". Islam would have problems justifying the Lesser Jihad ifs they followed the Bible's account of the event.
 
One of the great ironies in all this is that both Islam and Judaism claim Abraham as the father of their people. It has its own poignancy to think that the conflict in the Middle East is basically a civil war among people who stem from the same source.
 
Bearing all this in mind, it is important, I think, to try to understand the faiths of other people and I would recommend the following books to you - "The Faith of Other Men" and "Islam in Modem History", both by Wilfred Cantell Smith, published by Mentor; also "The Religious Experience of Mankind" by Ninian Smart, published by Collins. This last book I can thoroughly recommend. Professor Ninian Smart was one of my teachers and was a superb teacher and writer.

Byzantium Falls

"Surely, Allaah will collect the hypocrites and disbelievers all together in Hell" al-Nisaa' 4:140
"O Prophet! Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be severe against them; their abode will be Hell, and worst indeed is that destination" al-Tahreem 66:9 (1)

I know it is the norm to criticise Christianity for the Crusades, and rightly so, but the historical poem below explores the bloody side of Islam, which could be just as cruel in its way. Byzantium is now Istanbul, part of modern day Turkey.

At present Christians in Turkey "are prevented from constructing, and even from restoring, their places of worship, from possessing buildings and land, and from opening schools. Christians are forbidden from taking up some offices and professions, particularly in the military."(2). Of course, it is not just Christians who suffer discrimination - the Alevis are also suffer - "It is illegal for the Alevis to build their own place of worship, called a cemevi. The government systematically refuses building permits and the Alevis are obliged to perform their rites in secret." (4). I have tried in vain to see what the position is with any Pagan groups in Turkey; there is no evidence that any exist, but the murder of the atheist and former imam Turan Dursan in 1990 suggests it would be difficult for them. Certainly, modern Turkey does not have:

The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one's belief or religion
The right to join together and express one's belief.

It is little wonder that discrimination remains present when such inflammatory quotations as those which began this piece are still very much part of present day Islam, even here in Jersey, which is where I found them (on an official website (1)). Where that kind of intolerance is fostered, the spirit of Mehmet is not far behind.

Byzantium Falls

In Fourteen Fifty-Three, Mehmet attacked;
His armies numbered many, odds stacked
Against the defenders of the City. That day
Constantinople fell, defenders held no sway,
As troops poured in, with mighty blood lust;
Mehmet let them kill, where he might be just,
And stay his hand, instead encouraged these
Till blood ran in rivers. Like a dread disease,
They slaughtered, leaving bodies to adorn
From heights of Petra to the Golden Horn;
In Saint Sophia, they were singing, prayers
Offered for deliverance, but all their fears
Were realised, when doors battered down,
Mehmet's forces broke in. Such is renown
That Sophia became a Mosque, to assuage
That day when soldiers in a berserker rage
Tore into women and children. Do they still
Haunt this place, with melancholy sobs fill
The void of time, and the vaults of space,
Here where bloody Islam fell from grace?
Does the endless ritual of daily prayer atone
For the way that Mehmet seized the throne?
The walls seem mute, but listen, and hear
As Byzantium falls, they cry in despair.


Useful Links:
(1) http://www.islaminjersey.com/Muslims%20aqeedah/hypocrisy.htm
(2) http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=17031&geo=1&size=A
(3) http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/21393?eng=y
(4) http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LB18Ak04.html
(5) http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-478/_nr-533/i.html
(6) http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/john_mark_reynolds/2009/12/something_that_really_should_worry_europe.html
(7) http://www.religioustolerance.org/rt_turkey.htm
(8) http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=68

Leaving your religion

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sarfraz_manzoor/2007/09/leaving_your_religion.html

Leaving your religion

Sarfraz Manzoor

September 17, 2007 2:30 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sarfraz_manzoor/2007/09/leaving_your_religion.html

My friend Saiqa is a successful, self-confident professional woman in her mid-thirties who was raised in a Muslim household but who would readily admit that religion did not play a hugely significant role in her everyday life. She enjoys a drink and would not dream of fasting for Ramadan but her religion still forms part of her identity: if you asked her to describe herself she would reply that she was a British Muslim.

For the past two years Saiqa has been dating a British Egyptian man and he is, she believes, the one: the person she wants to marry, have children with and with whom she wants to spend the rest of her life. The only stumbling block to this glorious and idyllic future is the fact that her boyfriend is Christian and she is Muslim and while her family are relaxed about him, his family are threatening to disown him unless she converts to Christianity. "If I was 25 or even 30 there is no way I would even think about doing that", Saiqa told me when I met her for lunch last week "but I'm 37 and if converting is what is needed to make this relationship work then I am willing to do it."

Now in purely practical terms, becoming a Christian would not greatly change my friend's life. She accepts she will have to be baptised but does not envisage any huge changes to her everyday life. But while on a practical level conversion may seem mundane, in other ways it represents an uprooting and reappraisal of one's personal identity. When such a conversion is done for the sake of convenience rather than conviction it seems to me to be pointless to the point of absurdity. Whenever I read of celebrities who have chosen to convert for the sake of their spouses - whether it was Isla Fisher for Sasha Baron Cohen or more recently Blake Fielder-Civil who has said he will convert to Judaism as a mark of love for his wife Amy Winehouse (some might suggest he could show his love in other ways which don't involve hard drugs) it does prompt me to wonder what the point of converting actually is.

Saiqa confessed she found the idea of telling anyone she had converted to be utterly embarrassing and she hoped to keep a secret. Although she was adamant that it was only the absurdity of the idea of being a British Asian Muslim turned Christian that prevented her from wanting to publicise the conversion it is fair to say that Islam does not tend to look too favourably on those who want to leave their religion.

It's always seemed rather ironic to me that those relationships which are outside of our control seem to exert the greatest influence in our lives: we do not choose our family, the religion we are raised with or the country we are born and yet it are those pushes and pulls - family, faith, nation - which often have the greatest force in shaping our lives. In the case of Islam converting to another religion is particularly controversial, with some Muslim scholars claiming that converts - also known as apostates - should be punished by death for deserting their faith.

This is not universally accepted and recently the grand mufti of Egypt suggested that in some circumstances Muslims were free to convert. Separating between the notion of choice and punishment, the mufti explained that while abandoning one's religion was a sin it was one that was only punishable by God; the only circumstances where converting demanded worldly punishment was when in addition to their apostasy they actively engaged in the subversion of society. That might be the official position but the experience of Egyptian Muslims who have converted is depressing. Last month a 24-year-old Egyptian man and his wife made history by becoming the first Muslims to file a lawsuit against the Egyptian government for refusing to legally recognise their conversion. The country's supreme court has also been hearing the final appeals for 45 others who were denied their attempt to legally reclaim their Christian identities after officially converting to Islam.

Egyptian Christians can easily change to become Muslims and should they decide to do so they can benefit from incentives covering everything from employment and marriage options to custody of their children in divorce cases. But while Christians are enticed to convert, Muslims and former Christians who wish to reclaim their faith are harassed, arrested, tortured or imprisoned.

According to this week's Dispatches on Channel 4, British former Muslims have also suffered examples of violence and intimidation. It is estimated there are as many as 3,000 Muslims who have converted to Christianity living in Britain and the programme features former Muslims who are now living under the threat of reprisals from their former communities. Among those featured in the programme is a brother driven out of his home and a convert whose brother was beaten close to death. The situation for converts from Islam in Britain is, according to Dispatches, a "tinderbox waiting to explode" but I hope and suspect this is over-sensationalism rather than the reality.

Living a reasonably middle-class London life, my friend did not look like a woman worried about the wrath of the "Muslim community". When I asked her why her boyfriend was so insistent she convert, part of the explanation was the treatment of Christians in his motherland was so poor that the only way his family could be reconciled with the notion of him marrying her was for her to abandon her religion. This seems not only a poor reason for changing faiths but also to insult those who are converting for more genuine reasons. A religion that is sure of itself and confident of its appeal to followers should be less frightened of those who might wish to leave.

Women who repeatedly violate dress code may be banned from Tehran for up to 5 years

I see (story below) that Iran is becoming "hardline" again, i.e. repressive. I think the quote from the prosecutor says a lot about the feebleness of men to control themselves, and an almost paranoid fear of women.

---

Women who repeatedly violate dress code may be banned from Tehran for up to 5 years

TEHERAN - Women in Teheran who repeatedly flout the Islamic dress code in defiance of a police crackdown may be banned from the Iranian capital for up to five years, Teheran's prosecutor said in comments published on Tuesday.

'Those women who appear in public like decadent models endanger the security and dignity of young men,' prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi was quoted as saying by the Etemad newspaper.

In what has become a regular occurrence ahead of the warm summer months, police on Saturday launched a campaign against the growing numbers of young women testing the limits of the law with shorter, brighter and skimpier clothing.

Under sharia, Islamic law, imposed after Iran's 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures and protect their modesty.

Violators can be given lashes, fines and imprisonment.

'If primary punishments are not effective, repeat violators may receive up to five years exile from Teheran,' Mortazavi said.

Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005, promising a return to the values of the revolution, hardliners have pressed for tighter controls on 'immoral behaviour'.

A Teheran police spokesman said that since Saturday 3,242 people had received a warning for breaching the dress code in the capital, the semi-official Fars news agency said. The code also covers men who are not allowed to wear shorts.

Police have also stopped foreign tourists, who have to respect the dress code, Iranian media reported.

Iran's judiciary chief criticised the crackdown.

Islamophobia

http://www.michellemalkin.com/archives/004413.htm

Looking back over the past year, I am reminded about the joke about the paranoid individual who thought they were all out to get him, but it was all a delusion, which was why the men in white coats turned up to take him to a mental institution!

We are repeatly told that we live in a society where Islamophobia is becoming rife, and it is only a vocal minority who engage in acts of violence, flag burning, or chanting and waving placards about beheading or otherwise removing infidels on a permanent basis.

Maybe so, perhaps it is extremes. But - apart from the lunatic posturing of George Bush and some Americans and their talk of "axis of evil", we do not have Christians out issuing death threats against anyone who mocks Christianity, in such a visible and vocal manner.

Perhaps it is because Jesus notably spoke of not returning violence with violence, of turning the other cheek, of not giving persecutors the satisfaction of triggering anger. Christian martyrdom has been seen not with killing others for your faith and dying yourself, but with refusing to give up faith, and suffering persecution and death as a result. It is true there have been bloody eras of violence - as with the crusaders -

The cry of the Popes was:

"All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins"


This is pretty appalling, and shows the depths of degradation which the Church had decended.

There were Crusader saints, such as Gerard Mecatti of Villamagna. But he is rare for having a church dedicated to him, with a statue of him in armour.

There were none classed as Crusader martyrs; how could there be? A martyr dies for his faith; he doesn't kill for it.

Paul speaks of "put on the armour of God", and we have a hymn (among several) drawing on that "onward Christian soldiers". But the whole point of Paul's imagery was to state in visual terms what that armour was, and how it was so completely different from the armour of the Roman soldiers.

"Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints...."


This uses military imagery - easily seen in towns and villages in the Empire - and subverts it to great effect.

The Alevis

It is a shame that more is not heard about the Alevis. These are a few extracts from
http://www.angelfire.com/az/rescon/ALEVI.html

I have highlighted some significant ecumentical points.

---

The Alevi constitute the second largest religious community in Turkey (following the Sunnis), and number some 25% (15 million) of the total population (Alevis claim 30%-40%!). Most Alevis are ethnic and linguistic Turks, mainly of Turkmen descent from Central and Eastern Anatolia. Some 20% of Alevis are Kurds (though most Kurds are Sunnis), and some 25% of Kurds in Turkey are Alevi (Kurmanji and Zaza speakers).

Some of the differences that mark Alevis from Sunnis are the use of wine for religious ceremonial functions; non-observance of the five daily prayers and prostrations (they only bow twice in the presence of their spiritual leader), Ramadan, and the Haj (they consider the pilgrimage to Mecca an external pretense, the real pilgrimage being internal in one's heart); and non-attendance of mosques.

The central ritual of Alevi religious life is the ayn-i cem (cem for short) celebration that is a replay of Muhammad's legendary heavenly journey (mirac) with the assembly of forty (kirklar meclisi), combined with a memorial to the suffering of the Twelve Imams. A sacrificial meal (lokma), a ritual alcoholic drink, nefes hymns accompanied by music on the saz, dance (sema), and the ritual lighting and extinguishing of candles, are elements of the celebration. The ayn-i cem takes place only when distruted outsiders are not present, and is held at night under great secrecy - a fact that opened it to Sunni speculations of immorality. Once a year this ritual is held under the leadership of a dede assisted by a rehber in a private house or a communal building (cemevi) attended by women on almost equal footing with men.

For Alevis, the ayn-i cem is as important as Kurban Bayram (Abraham's Sacrifice) to the Sunnis. This ceremony cannot take place unless all are at peace with each other, a condition attained by the questioning (sorgu, bas okutma) of all initiates to ensure reconciliation in the community. The dede is the chairman but all can take part in the judicial procedures whose aim is reconciliation, not punishment. Punishments include fines, corporal punishment, and excommunication.

After the questioning the real ritual starts: the initiation (nasip alma) of the new generation ssymbolises their progres from Seriat to Tarikat and is likened to a new birth. They enter a master-disciple relationship with a dede and vow (ikrar) to follow the Alevi path (yol). Then comes the ceremony of the twelve services (oniki hizmet) led by the dede, rehbar and elders.

Members of the community approach the dede in pairs, hand in hand, kneeling down and walking on all fours like lambs to kiss the hem of his coat. Sema music is performed and the men and women dance, some dancers going into a trance. Alevi mystical poetry commemorating the martyrs of the Alevi community is recited. The rite culminates with the "putting out of candles", when water is thrown on 12 burning candles to extinguish them in front of officiating elders. People moan, weep, and curse those responsible for the death of Ali and the martyrs.

A characteristic of Alevi society are the ideals of equality, justice, and respect for all, which give Alevi women a more respected status than that of Sunni women. Alevi women do not need to be veiled and are not as segregated, nor fear polygamy or one-sided divorce. They also partake equally in the religious life of the community.