Terrorism, body and mind

When Taliban came to power in Afghanistan (with generous help from CIA, ISI and Saudi Arabia), we didn't have to coin a term to describe them. In Iran, we already had a religious term for such intellectually-challenged creatures. Actually, we had such a gang of irrational idiots over the first century of Islam. They were called Khawarij. So, we simply called these guys the Khawarij of 20th century. The similarities are not limited to their backward narrow views of Islam, rather to practicalities as well. A brief overview of history sounds in order.

Early years of Islam were wrought with unrests and wars. After our Prophet died, people came into disagreement about whether he'd appointed somebody as his successor to guide Muslims (which he had actually done: Imam Ali). Eventually, people decided that they could choose somebody from among themselves. And Imam Ali, although the rightfully appointed successor of the Prophet, submitted to the rule of majority to avoid sectarianism over those early years.

People continued to choose 2 more people as successors of the Prophet before coming back to Imam Ali as the fourth caliph. By this time (25 years after the Prophet's death), the Islamic society was already in trouble. The third caliph had been killed by an angry mob who were unhappy with his favoritism, cronyism and not-so-modest lifestyle (which was in stark contrast to his predecessors and also the Prophet).

Given such an atmosphere, Imam Ali made it clear that if chosen as caliph, he would be very strict about his principles, among them, egalitarianism. He knew well that people who had enjoyed privileges over the time of the third caliph would not be happy with that. Still, people insisted and he accepted to be the caliph. And as he was true to his words about his principles, problems began soon afterwards. People who couldn't get along with his strict egalitarianism, felt unhappy and gathered together in rebellions.

As he wanted to avoid bloodshed among Muslims as much as possible, he wouldn't stay the course after defeating a rebellious group. And those people who had not been completely crushed would reorganize and rouse unrest again. And out of these rebellions, a group of extremely radical Muslims developed who revolted against Imam Ali, whom they found too compromising.

Interestingly enough, Imam Ali's compromise over the Battle of Siffin, the biggest longest civil war over his short rule of less than 5 years, with Muawiyah (a leader of disgruntled corrupt people), was made under fierce pressure by the same group who were later known as Khawarij.

Imam Ali tolerated Khawarij and tried to pacify them and correct their misunderstandings, but deranged as they were, he was not so successful. And when you have a very high opinion of yourself and your righteousness, you might resort to any means; Khawarij expanded their rebellion to terrorism and killing innocent people. And this was too much even to Imam Ali's threshold of tolerance. He crushed them in the Battle of Nahravan and all but a few were killed. Eventually, he was assassinated by the remnants of Khawarij while he was leading a prayer in the mosque over the first of Qadr Nights and died 2 nights later as a result of the poisoned sword used by the assassin.

Khawarij did not survive as a group long afterwards (except for a branch of them who diluted their extremism and are still present in parts of Middle East and North Africa, known as Ibadiyya, but these people are not much like their predecessors). However, Khawarij's stupidity, derangement and narrow interpretation of Islam never died and showed up in one form or another.

Taliban and al-Qaida are the latest examples of Khawarij in our time. Although they cannot be historically traced back to Khawarij, they have very similar mentalities and practices. And just like their predecessors, they favor terrorism and killing innocent people as a justified means to implement what they consider to be pure Islam.

Even before this war on terrah, they used to butcher Shia people (or even other Muslims who simply disagreed with them) in Pakistan and Afghanistan in various ways. And they were having fun at it (just think about how they enjoyed videotaping their feats and putting them on the Internet).

And their American friends were real quick to recognize their reign of terror in parts of Afghanistan back in 1990s and even to support their getting a seat in the UN. And that was while nobody other than Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and UAE had recognized their drug-funded quasi-government in Kabul (which couldn't survive a day without help from their patrons in Islam Abad, Riadh, Dubai and Washington DC). And now, thanks to neocons and their War of Terror, these kids have found a new playground in Iraq to enjoy slaughtering even more poor civilians on a daily basis. An amenity they couldn't have dreamed of a few years ago.

And it appears that they cannot limit their terrorism to the body; they've expanded it one step further to the realm of thought and mind. Yesterday, they launched a mass defacement attack, hacking about 300 Shia websites simultaneously, putting their propaganda and a Youtube video mocking one of the great religious scholars on the main page of those websites (most of them have recovered by now).

I'm not surprised by all this. What strikes me is the timing of their cyberterrorism; they chose the dawn of the first of Qadr Nights, the anniversary of their spiritual forefathers' assassination of Imam Ali, a man well known even by non-Muslims as embodiment of justice, compassion, wisdom and above all, staying true to his moral principles in governance. And he paid the price dearly by his own life.

To be a religious minority

When I was in Iran, I knew that all the propaganda by the Western media (and also evangelicals) about religious minorities in Iran was just that: propaganda. But still, I could realize that practicing your religion while the whole culture of the country revolves around a different religion would not be comfortable.

One example would be religious holidays. Christians have to go to work on Sundays as the weekend holiday in Iran as a Muslim country is on Friday. And over my visits to Assembly of God Church in Tehran, I found it unusual to attend Sunday worships on Friday (although almost all of the other churches that I knew did it on Sunday). Now, I'm in a position to experience the same thing here in person.

My worst experience was on my first Ashura over my first semester in 2007. I had two classes on that day. And this is a day we Shia Muslims abstain from worldly activities and commemorate what happened to Imam Hussein and his associates in Karbala 14 centuries ago. It's somehow like Good Friday for Christians (although more solemn and mourning-dominated). Even if I could have got the permission to skip my classes, it wouldn't had been practical, as one of them was a seminar, not a lecture. And missing it, meant missing the discussions that I couldn't catch up with simply by reading the notes (and unlike lectures, students rarely take notes on seminars). And ironically, the seminar was on religion.

But even if there was the possibility of skipping a class as a student, the possibility doesn't even exist for me now as a TA with my teaching duties. When I found that all my discussion sections are on Friday morning, I didn't feel very comfortable. Friday is the weekend holiday in Islam and you are recommended to abstain from work and spend the morning on some prayers and worship (this is different from regular daily prayers). Although Friday prayer and worship is not as big deal in Islam as it is with Shabbat in Judaism or Sunday with some Christians; under necessities, you may work on Friday.

But this Friday was different. Last night was the first of Qadr nights. We're recommended to spend the whole night on vigil, prayer and worship. It's not mandatory, but when you're on a month-long banquet of God, you wouldn't want to miss such an important night. However, when you have to attend a class at 8 am as a TA, you cannot afford to stay up all night (in Iran, they allow employees to report to work up to 2 hours later on the day following Qadr nights). And I had to suffice to the essential prayers and sleep for a little while and get up for my sahari meal (see here for more). And I couldn't sleep after that.

And sleep deficiency makes me kinda cranky. And that was how I felt this morning. I could handle the first two sections pretty well, but as the exhaustion of talking and walking for about 2 hours (almost non-stop) built up on top of sleep deficiency, my performance over the third section was less than satisfactory. And passionate as I am about quality of teaching, I felt grumpy while riding my bike back to the longhouse. More or less like my first Friday of this semester. It's not fun to be a religious minority in a foreign country.

Lies My Teacher Told Me

No. It's not about my teacher. It's the title of a book written by a retired professor of sociology, James Loewen. In his own words:

A sociologist who spent two years at the Smithsonian surveying twelve leading high school textbooks of American history only to find an embarrassing blend of bland optimism, blind nationalism, and plain misinformation, weighing in at an average of 888 pages and almost five pounds.

So, what's the point about a sociologist researching history books? Isn't that the job of historians? Well, it depends on how you look at history. If you view history the way of C. Wright Mills (one of my favorite sociologists), it's completely relevant. And not only relevant, but also necessary. It is the necessity of Sociological Imagination.

Sociological Imagination is one of the important concepts that Mills introduced to the realm of sociology in a book by the same title. Look here for excerpts of his book. In a nutshell, we don't live in a vacuum. Our life is affected by the conditions of the society we live in. Quoting Mills:

The facts of contemporary history are also facts about the success and the failure of individual men and women. When a society is industrialized, a peasant becomes a worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman. When classes rise or fall, a man is employed or unemployed; when the rate of investment goes up or down, a man takes new heart or goes broke. When wars happen, an insurance salesman becomes a rocket launcher; a store clerk, a radar man; a wife lives alone; a child grows up without a father. Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.

The well-being they enjoy, they do not usually impute to the big ups and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary men do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of men they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they might take part. They do not possess the quality of mind essential to grasp the interplay of man and society, of biography and history, of self and world.

So, when a sociologist like Loewen focuses on history books, he must have been inspired by such a necessity and such a quality of mind. We cannot understand our own identity, without understanding the processes through which it has been shaped. One of the institutions that play a big role in this complicated process of identity formation is our education system. And an important part of it all is history education.

His intention is not to make Americans feel guilty or ashamed about their history. Such feelings wouldn't help correct anything. To have a reasonable understanding of who we are and how we look at our life and our world, we should acquire an informed insight into our history and culture. If we have a good knowledge of our past (both positive and negative aspects) we can live our present well and we will be able to build a better future.

With this goal in mind, Loewen sets to debunk the hype and myths surrounding American history. One of his major concerns is the process of heroification. The textbooks present historical figures in idealized terms without flaws, thus making them impossible for students to identify with.

Well, at least if those students try. And if they do, they wouldn't be able to connect to those blemish-free statues on the pedestals of their history. And when they get to know even some bit of truth, they feel frustrated and disillusioned. And this will lead to extreme apologeticism. People switch from false pride and blind patriotism to apathy toward their history and culture altogether. In my discussion sections for Introduction to Sociology, I've received such emotional reactions while discussing Loewen's book.

Although I'm not an American, I'm quite familiar with such myths from my early childhood years of reading books on American history (the kind that Loewen tries to discredit). And I have to confess that as a kid, I believed a lot of them, as I had no alternative sources other than those books translated and published over those years of pro-American Iran. My independent studies at later stages of my life, debunked a lot of the hype.

It doesn't mean that I no longer admire Americans. Now, my admiration for this nation is based on realistic grounds and what they actually are rather than ludicrous fairy tales that overwhelm American history books (and entertainment industry).

Still, reading something like "pilgrims invited Indians to the first Thanksgiving and offered them foods that they had not ever seen in their life", sounds too much even for my saturated threshold for tolerating stupidity. Reading more nonsense of this sort that I had not seen even in my childhood American history books, gave me a better understanding of why American kids think about themselves (and the world) the way they do and how they build on the education they have received at school.

And it strikes me when I hear people (even educated ones) view Indians as a bunch of hunter-gatherers wielding their tomahawks making unintelligible noise while running after buffaloes. And when I talk about rich Indian culture and specifically their stunningly nice poems, people give me a puzzled look: huh? Indians? poems?

To be more precise, those pilgrims wouldn't have survived the first winter of New England if it were not for the generous selfless help of those savage uncivilized Indians (a fact that even those fairy-tale history books are beginning to admit). And by help, I mean something more than giving them handouts to prevent them from digging graves and resorting to cannibalism (as had happened to other settlers) or turning a blind eye when those pious pilgrims borrowed food from their homes or farms (or graves) in their absence. Indians taught pilgrims how to cultivate corn and other local vegetables and where to find fish and other prey.

In our discussion session, we were discussing myths surrounding the first Thanksgiving and the new understanding acquired by reading Lies, chapter 3. Some of the reactions I got from some students in their quizzes were amazing: feeling ashamed about Thanksgiving altogether, never feeling like celebrating it again or going as far as to attribute all the misery of Indians to pilgrims.

To be fair, pilgrims were just one cog in the wheel and Indian problems began when Christopher Columbus (another superhero shrouded in myths, discussed in chapter 2) discovered the land they had inhabited for thousands of years. And it continued with wave after wave of settlers who came to build a city on the hill amid the wilderness of Indians' ancestral land and bringing with them all sort of disease (to which poor Indians had no immunity) and thereby, eradicating over 90% of Indian population over the course of early centuries of the history of this New World.

What I found the most outrageous while reading chapter 3, was a letter from King James (yeah, the same guy who sponsored the 1611 Bible), attributing the plague that wiped out a big part of Indians to God. According to him, this plague was a God-sent blessing that would clear the way for settlement. And what plague and all sort of God-sent diseases (that settlers brought with them as a souvenir from Europe) failed to do, Europeans completed by butchering the savage (terrorists, in our modern time terminology) who began to fight back the continued encroachment on their ancestral land.

Yet, this is the less harmful part of the story.

If those students don't even try to connect to their heroes, they'll get stuck with compound ignorance. They remain ignorant about their culture and history and trivially, about those of other nations. And they remain ignorant about their ignorance. Compound ignorance is a degenerative process that as its first and foremost offshoot produces ethnocentrism. You have such a high opinion about your culture (without even knowing exactly what it is and why) that at best, don't care about other cultures and at its worst, find other cultures to be inferior compared to yours.

False perceptions about American heritage lead to an ethnocentric mentality which is conducive to American exceptionalism: the US as an extraordinary and superior nation has a special responsibility, or if you blend some religious fanaticism, a mandate to play a special role in human history. People fall prey to the ignorant perception that American way of life is the greatest and probably, the only way of life. And such a responsibility or mandate requires Americans to teach others how to live. If they learn it the easy way, that's fine. If they don't, they should be taught the hard way.

Naivety of such an attitude may sound dumbfounding to the rest of the world (that's a common way of referring to countries who are not on the Northern part of this continent). But people who suffer from compound ignorance don't even think about the real problem. If other people get offended by the arrogance of American exceptionalism, it's their problem. They feel envious about American way of life and are simply incapable of being as great as we are, and hence resent our freedom, values , etc.

Preposterous as it may sound, that was the recurring theme I would read after 911 everywhere (liberal or conservative) to explain the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism. Liberals were savvy enough to move on and look for a solution: eradicating poverty and improving education in third world countries. Still, as their solution is based on a simplistic analysis about the root-cause of the problem, it's unlikely to produce the result they seek. Yet, they were far better than their neocon counterparts, who failing to use their gray-cells properly, have continued to assert their stupid analysis and have stayed the course of teaching the world, the hard way.

Such analyses fail to grasp the simple fact that taking false pride in what you perceive to be the absolute truth about your glorious heritage could be mutated in other parts of the world as well. And the way to fight the malignant spread of one brand of exceptionalism (manifested in turning civilian airplanes into missiles) is not the regeneration of what originally led to such a metastatic formation. The reasonable approach is to cure it at home at its earlier stages. That's what books like Lies My Teacher Told Me might achieve.

A sense of community

I've started visiting local mosques for Iftar. This was something I rarely did in Toledo or even in Tehran. In Tehran, while I lived with my parents, I used to have my Iftar with them every night. And after they migrated to Mashhad, I usually had my Iftar by myself. And I didn't enjoy it much.

Well, until my last Ramadhan in Iran. The unexpected visa complications caused me a lot of problems. Expecting to receive my visa in time and flying to the US in August 2006, I had evacuated my apartment and moved all my stuff to my parents' new place in Mashhad. And it turned out that my visa did not get ready in time and I missed my Fall 2006 semester at the University of Toledo. Due to uncertainties with my visa, I had to enroll at the University of Tehran in their American Studies program.

Without an apartment, I had to live in dorm. Although University of Tehran was (and will be) my most favorite place, those days and nights felt so lonely. Having lived almost all my life in Tehran, it was not fun living in dorm and walking the familiar streets of my hometown like an uprooted alien. To see the full half of the glass, I found good buddies at the room adjacent to mine. But still, I didn't feel quite alright.

And as I had no home to have my Iftar, I began visiting the big mosque at the main campus over Ramadhan. Having my Iftar (although small and frugal) among fellow students in that lovely mosque gave me a sense of community. It would alleviate my depression somehow and would let me deal with the heavy load of weekly readings in my graduate program.

And then, I got my visa and left the University of Tehran for another UT. In Toledo, I had an apartment (although shared), but still, I had nobody to share my Iftar with. Sometimes, some friends took me to mosques in Michigan (Sunni mosques in Toledo area are not very Shia-friendly, based on what I've heard). But my Iftars in Toledo were mostly lonely. And due to circumstances surrounding my Ramadhan in Toledo, as described in my previous post, this was my least enjoyable Ramadhan. But at least, my new hometown was not depressing in itself. Although my Iftars were mostly lonely, I didn't feel that way about my time in Toledo in general. I felt at home. I've written more about it in my Adios Toledo post.

Having landed in Carbondale, I miss Toledo most of the time. And I've had difficulty figuring out exactly why. I used to attribute it mostly to small town culture shock (although Toledo was not so big compared to Tehran). Then, one of my friends told me about Iftars at the mosques in Carbondale. We have a small mosque which provides Iftar to single students almost every night and a bigger mosque which has Iftar for the whole Muslim community occasionally.

Last week, when I had gone to this bigger mosque for the first time, I was feeling kinda comfortable sitting among a community of believers, enjoying my banquet of God. And I took it for granted. After my Iftar was over, I left the mosque for school to continue my work. And I was still feeling at home without thinking consciously about this feeling. Then, when I approached Walgreen's at Wall St, I suddenly felt myself in a total unfamiliar place, in a foreign country. And this, after feeling at home in the US (read in Toledo) for a year and half. It struck me.

I wondered why. I had passed by this Walgreen's repeatedly over past month. So, this exact location was completely familiar to me, physically. So why I felt like that? as if I was in a strange place? in a foreign country? and feeling like that suddenly? I pondered for a while. Then, it downed on me.

Although I'd felt unhappy about living in Carbondale since my first day, this unhappiness was not merely due to its small size or lack of urban setting (which Toledo lacked also). While I was at the mosque, I had a sense of community after a while. And this made me forget that I was in a small town that I didn't like. I was physically somewhere in that town, but I was virtually detached.

When I left the mosque and approached the familiar Walgreen's, it made me realize I was no longer in the familiar atmosphere I was until a few minutes before. Where I had a virtual sense of belonging. Even temporarily. And this temporal sense of belonging vanished suddenly by seeing the familiar place that had nothing to do with that virtual (spiritual) familiar atmosphere. I had been abruptly thrown back to the material.

And then, I realized what had changed since I left Toledo. I had lost my sense of community. And that was the main reason I couldn't feel at home here. And thinking about it more, I found it funny. In Toledo, doing my fieldwork as a sociologist, I spent most of my free time in churches. And I was a practicing Muslim. Still, I had this sense of belonging. Being among a community of believers in a material world, engulfed in material culture. I had a sense of community.

And my Christian friends found it funny when I, a practicing Muslim, talked about Grace Lutheran as my church. But whenever I went there, I could usually connect to Jesus easily. And while sitting in their Bible studies, although I always kept my Muslim views when I had the opportunity to voice my opinion on the verses being studied, I always found myself among my family (most of people in those Bible studies were about the age of my parents or somehow older). And although some of the churches I mistakenly visited, were not a good place to connect with Jesus, I used to enjoy my time in most other churches. And I took all this for granted.

My second Ramadhan in the US

Another Ramadhan and another new hometown. One year has passed since my first Ramadhan in the US. Apart from the new hometown and a new school, some other things have changed. And some things have not changed (at least not changed in a positive way).

It's another year to enjoy God's banquet alone (for odd reasons, this reminds me of Bowling Alone). And being in a PhD program with crushing loads of reading while you're hungry for the whole day is not fun (such an unreasonable load of reading is not fun even with a full stomach, as my American friends tell me). And changes in your sleep pattern in a society that is used to have fun late night would make it even harder.

In Ramadhan, you eat your breakfast before dawn (sahar, in Islamic terms, about 5 am these days). And here, people are not used to sleep earlier than midnight (at best). That means they wouldn't let you sleep either while they're partying, listening to loud music or watching late-night shows or series on TV, etc. So, you sleep about midnight (or after) and then, you have to wake up about 4:30 am for your early breakfast (known as sahari in Islmaic jargon) and then try to sleep for a little while just to wake up soon for your morning routines. Trying to adapt to such an unhealthy sleep pattern is disorienting (and annoying) and some Muslims here prefer to skip the sahari meal. That's highly discouraged in Islam.

Ramadhan is the banquet of God. You don't feast just when you break your fast at the end of the day; feasting begins at the beginning of the day, right when you wake up to have your sahari. And it's not just about eating at that time. You have some prayers before and after your sahari meal. And man, those prayers are so nice and eloquent. One of the things I miss about Iran is listening to Sahar prayer from radio while enjoying my elaborate breakfast beside my parents. Sahar has always been the most enjoyable time of my life.

All nostalgia about sahar and sahar prayers aside, I cannot skip sahari meal for practical reasons. Even under normal conditions, my blood sugar is low and reading so many books and papers with even a lower blood sugar is not easy. So, I have to get along with sleep disruptions to have my sahari. That's easier said than done.

Over my time in Toledo, my apartment was in a crappy place (and as I was stuck with a co-lease, I couldn't get rid of there before the end of my lease). My apartment overlooked the parking lot. And although there were "No Loitering" signs over the place, there were always people having fun one way or another in the parking lot; chatting, showing off their car stereos, or even partying.

If there was a night that I could sleep before midnight without being woken up at 1 or 2 am by people shouting, singing, brawling or fighting, that was my lucky night. And the only thing that the landlord was concerned about was collecting rents on time. She didn't care about all the noise or people using their apartments to run all sort of business. To her, these things were people's lifestyle. At one point, she suggested me (it came more as an order) to study in the library (at school), to which I answered "I cannot sleep in the library". In a sense, my first Ramadhan in the US was probably the worst one I've ever had. But some things have changed for better.

When I came here in June to look for apartments, I made it a priority to find a place in a quiet, party-free area, and without a room-mate. And I can say my place although not ideal, is far better than my previous one. I'm beginning to recover from my sleep disorders. My apartment overlooks a garden (instead of a parking lot). Every night, I go to sleep with the nocturne of frogs, crickets and other insects (whose name I don't know) and I wake up by the conference of the birds in the morning. And my neighbors here are more mature and responsible compared to my previous place. But still, it's not convenient to sleep around 12 am (or later) and wake up at 4:30 and try to go back to sleep briefly.

And I badly miss listening to Sahar prayer over my sahari meal. You can still download it as an audio file and listen to it. But still, hearing it in real feels different; when you begin your day-long banquet at that early hour by treating your body with some yummies and in the meantime, ask God to give your soul some replenishment out of His infinite resources.

And you know that multitudes of other guests in other homes are doing the same thing as you at the same time and listening to the same prayer. A synchronism in apparent asynchronism. Ah, the incorrigible engineer inside me never gives up seeing everything through the lens of system theory.

This is a (not so successful) attempt to translate the opening verses:

My Lord, I ask you of your glory by its most glorious and all your glory is glorious; My Lord, I ask you by your glory in its entirety.

My Lord, I ask you of your beauty by its most beautiful and all your beauty is beautiful; My Lord, I ask you by your beauty in its entirety.

My Lord, I ask you of your splendor by its most splendid and all your splendor is splendid; My Lord, I ask you by your splendor in its entirety.

My Lord, I ask you of your greatness by its greatest and all your greatness is great; My Lord, I ask you by your greatness in its entirety.

My Lord, I ask you of your light by its most luminescent and all your light is luminescent; My Lord, I ask you by your light in its entirety.

My Lord, I ask you of your grace by its most encompassing and all your grace is encompassing; My Lord, I ask you by your grace in its entirety.

My Lord, I ask you of your words by their most complete and all your words are complete; My Lord, I ask you by your words in their entirety.

My Lord, I ask you of your perfection by its most perfect and all your perfection is perfect; My Lord, I ask you by your perfection in its entirety.

My Lord, I ask you of your names by their greatest and all your names are great; My Lord, I ask you by your names in their entirety.