Palisadians Flock to 'Understanding Islam' Lecture

The sanctuary at Kehillat Israel was nearly full for this last in a four-part series titled “Understanding Islam” offered by the synagogue. It was evident from the size of the turnout at this lecture how deeply the wish to understand their Muslim cousins resides in the Jewish community of Pacific Palisades.

Rabbi Dr. Reuven Firestone took the podium for the first hour to address the seminar’s topic, “The Contemporary Scene.” He started by creating context.

During what we call the medieval period in Europe, the Muslim world was in its “Golden Age.” The Middle East, said Dr. Firestone, “was the source for science and intellectual development, philosophy, optics, astronomy, literature, for centuries.”

However, as Europe ascended scientifically, intellectually and economically, the Muslim world declined. As the last great Muslim empire, the Ottoman Empire, was going under in the late 19th century, it formed alliances with European powers, which “kept it alive…for many decades beyond which it should have collapsed,” Dr. Firestone asserted.

Britain, France, and Germany were some of the countries that eventually colonized the Muslim world, but did so without imposing the European ethnic, religious and linguistic identity on the vanquished populations, as had historically been the case under Roman occupation for example. The conquered peoples maintained their indigenous identities.

When the western powers were eventually pushed out of these areas, their local governments maintained ties with the former occupiers. Ruling elites were essentially collaborators with the former colonizers. As a result, western ideas of democracy such as equal rights and voting “were associated with colonial manipulation and exploitation.”

The range of responses to the challenge of creating national identities to compete with the west intellectually, scientifically, politically and militarily included emulating the European powers, which was rejected as co-optation. Another alternative was what Dr. Firestone referred to as “going back to basics,” to when Islam was great, during the time of the Muslim conquests in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries. Many Muslims chose not to go this way because there is no definitive knowledge of how Muhammad lived and what Islam was actually like during that period.

“But the radicals in that world created an image of what it meant to be a good Muslim and insisted that that was the truth and reality of the history,” explained Dr. Firestone, “and that is what we see today and what I believe, and what a lot of my Muslim colleagues also believe, is an aberration in the kind of super jihadist, Islamist views of the early days of Islam.”

In the second part of his address, Dr. Firestone directed the audience’s attention to the handouts he supplied which contained scriptural passages from the Muslim, Jewish and Christian holy books.

Before beginning though he cautioned, “People can stand up in front of you or they can be on CNN or Fox News, you don’t usually see the text you see someone citing or thumping text, but if you don’t have it in front of you, don’t trust that person. People can and do say anything they want when they cite scripture. Don’t believe me either because I’ve chosen the texts.”

For each religion he extracted passages that illustrate that it is both a “Warrior Religion” and a “Religion of Compassion and Compromise.”  All the extracts in the first example contained disturbing passages condoning genocide, while those in the second were filled with acceptance and love.

Likewise, he used passages from the Hebrew Bible, New Testament and Qur’an to exemplify “What We’d Like to Think Scripture Thinks about Others” versus “What Our Scriptures Actually Do Tend to Think about Others.” Again, we find verses that counterbalance one another in all of the traditions.

Additionally, he explained that all religions are open to interpretation and that legal requirements as understood by scholars and clerical elites often differ from the way religion is practiced “on the ground.” To illustrate the point, Dr. Firestone contended that there is no prescription in Muslim law for female circumcision or for honor killings of women. Rather these are customs of the lands in which they are practiced, and are carried out also by Christians, and in some cases Jews, in those areas.

In the case of veiling of women, rulings are found in both the Qur’an and Talmud (Jewish law) stipulating modest dress. However the way these laws are interpreted varies according to the culture practicing them.

Finally, the scholars who had presented during previous sessions of the series took their places alongside Dr. Firestone to answer questions from participants. Dr. Amir Hussein had led the session called Basic Islam. He is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University where he teaches courses on world religions. Dr. Mehnaz M. Afridi had presented on Women and Islam. She is a Professor of Religious Studies and an activist for women’s rights and interfaith dialog. She currently teaches at Antioch University.

The panelists were challenged to answer questions like How afraid should we be of the 10-15 percent of Muslims who it’s estimated are radicals? Where are the public voices of the 85-90 percent of Muslims who we hear are moderates? What does Islam say about Hagar and Abraham? Do you think current reform in the Arab world will lead to transformation? Don’t Muslims hold greater allegiance to Islam than the U.S.? Can Israel trust treaties entered into by Islamic countries considering the Qur’an prohibits such agreements? What is the future of education for girls in the Muslim world? And finally, How can we build bridges between our faith communities.

The evening ended with a mix of hope and frustration. Many participants were clearly invested in busting stereotypes and reaching across religious boundaries. Dr. Hussein however asserted that the mainstream media are not willing to give exposure to moderate elements, so their voices do not enter the general consciousness. One attendee suggested that wider dissemination of the Canadian sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie alone would break down barriers to understanding and acceptance.

On that note, the assembly broke for dessert. Vu den?