Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Last week Imam Zaid Shakir weighed in on the Kavanaugh affair. In a now deleted FB post, the Imam offered what could, at most, be considered a take in need of legal revision. The thrust of the post was that Brett Kavanaugh could not reasonably be impugned for sexual assault according to the Shari’a given the lack of corroborating evidence and eyewitness testimony. Accordingly, although the Imam did not support Kavanaugh’s nomination on grounds of suspected perjury, he urged Muslims to abstain from casting judgment on the matter of sexual assault which of course has been the subject of considerable discussion in the public square.
Outrage quickly ensued, and a social media storm took aim at the Imam. He was out of touch, irrelevant, or simply ignorant of both the religion and politics. Many argued that although the Imam’s words were offensive, it would be a distraction to fixate on him — he was but a microcosm of a clerical establishment that reeked of domination. Scholars — as a class — were allegedly in need of sensitivity training, cultural conditioning, and a revised set of sensibilities to adjust to the dominant discourse expressed by the left. Short of that, they would continue, largely unabated, in their exercises of power.
Others expressed personal anxiety and trauma. The words of the Imam struck a nerve that could not be easily repaired — the years of service, conference lecturing, pastoral work, and community leading were immaterial. The irrefutable fact was that his post was “triggering” and thus unacceptable to sensible people.
The hyperbolic and aggressive nature of the response required not one, but two posts by the Imam backtracking. In his second post, the Imam submitted an apology and refrained from offering any more thoughts on the matter.
There is, of course, a substantive argument as to how Islamic law regards claims of sexual impropriety short of penetrative sexual acts, as well as a reasoned discussion as to how those norms can be brought into conversation with our lot in the West given the emergence of public accusations of sexual transgression. There is also a reasonable and understandable difficulty with brokering this discussion for those who have been victim to some form of sexual aggression, and the mark from such an encounter is no doubt a seemingly indelible one that should not easily be glossed over.
But this does not seem to me to be the cardinal sin that generated much of the outrage. What truly set off many of the offended were not the particularities of the post, but rather the mere existence of an opinion, proffered by someone respectable in their “identity group,” that ran contrary to the cultural left. The incredulity was immense, and an appropriate reprisal could only be achieved through public derision, acrimonious ridicule, and swift virtue signaling.
How can anyone subsist in such an atmosphere? Is there no room left for disagreement — even bitterly so — without the appeals to identity politics, demands for disgrace, and public demeaning?
I have been awaiting words of support for the Imam. Perhaps some calculated that silence would more quickly abate the situation. Although that is understandable to some extent, a simple “I disagree with some aspects of his take but he’s a good man,” Or even more tepid: “he apologized and we should forgive him” would have done something to counter the blitzkrieg. But alas, there was no defense. Just a full-throttle offense that has only mildly let up after two rounds of apology.
This is now an old story. A Memri video here, disliked opinion there, and the game is all but over. Countless scholars are now ‘damaged goods’ — “sell outs,” “misogynists,” “alt-bros,” etc.
I am hopeful that people of knowledge will realize soon the need to band together. That errant ijtihad should not make for social anathematization. That feeding the public what they want to hear is useful for cultural viability, but eminently harmful as a program of guidance. And that we should consider how we would want others to respond to us were we in their shoes.
“…Allah helps His slave as long as he helps his brother”
وَاَللَّهُ فِي عَوْنِ اَلْعَبْدِ مَا كَانَ اَلْعَبْدُ فِي عَوْنِ أَخِيهِ
On Identities
A central feature of today’s political discourse is its appeal to identity politics. That is, a form of social, cultural, and political engagement that predicates itself off a loose constellation of identities that are at once decidedly inherent and constructed artifacts of liberal social strata with attendant ideologies. Being a woman, for instance, is not simply a statement of physiology (setting gender constructionism aside for the moment), but an ideological commitment expressed in terms of bodily autonomy, gender egalitarianism, and sexual liberation. Those women dissenting from their assigned identities are regarded as hapless and lamentably indoctrinated by patriarchal norms. These dissenters, we are told, are doubly victimized — “victims of their oppressors and victims of a false consciousness that blinds them to the reality of their being oppressed.” It is in this vein that feminist academic Wendy Doniger wrote of Sarah Palin in 2008: “Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.”
Of course, such “judgmentalism” is roundly celebrated in leftist circles, and the program of gatekeeping those “authentically” adhering to their assigned identities is a never ending one. In warning against this atmosphere, Mark Lilla writes the following:
“…the fixation on diversity in our schools and in the press has produced a generation of liberals and progressives narcissistically unaware of conditions outside their self-defined groups, and indifferent to the task of reaching out to Americans in every walk of life. At a very young age our children are being encouraged to talk about their individual identities, even before they have them. By the time they reach college many assume that diversity discourse exhausts political discourse, and have shockingly little to say about such perennial questions as class, war, the economy and the common good. In large part this is because of high school history curriculums, which anachronistically project the identity politics of today back onto the past, creating a distorted picture of the major forces and individuals that shaped our country.”
Lilla goes on to discuss a social experiment he did that led him to comprehend the full amplitude of identity politics in our news cycles and political parlance — Lilla spent a full year exclusively following European publications. After returning to American journalism, Lilla came to realize “how often, for example, the laziest story in American journalism — about the “first X to do Y” — is told and retold” and how identity has become the lens through which news is reported.
But identity politics is not simply about the stories that get published (and the ones that don’t), what stories we read, or how we interpret current events. It is now a vital element to developing an understanding of oneself. I am now given meaning through my gender, race, ethnicity, marital status, and sexual orientation. These components of myself coalesce to make me, me. The height of personal fulfillment is attained when I am able to be “fully” myself, or obtain an “authentic” understanding of who I am.
Within such a worldview, religion is but a constituent identity jockeying for primacy in the identity confederation. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Muslim Identitarians exhibit a relentless interest in theological “negotiations.” Islam is fine — even “unapologetically” so — provided that it is appropriately situated, subordinated to the identities of the day, and supportive of the subjective “authenticity” that each individual seeks. Of what good is religion if it causes one to “betray who they are” or be otherwise “unfaithful” to their sense of self?
The logical outcome of such a worldview is a grossly distorted faith — assuming it can be called a “faith” at all. It is a dīn preoccupied with the capricious cravings of the nafs that finds salvation in manifesting shahawāt rather than combating them. This is what makes our disagreements so intractable: the identitarians speak of “realities” that must be capitulated to, while traditionalists insist that “God says so.” The mistake, of course, is that the identitarian is less concerned with the words of God than he is his own.
This is not to deny meaning to who we are, or how we have been fashioned by our Creator. He has made man and woman, black and white, and chosen for our circumstances what is suitable for us. “This is the creation of Allah. So show Me what those other than Him have created.” (31:11). “He formed you and perfected your forms and provided you with good things.” (40:64). However, the essential meaning of all of our lives — indeed, our creative purpose — is to worship God and follow His instruction. Any meaning that we arrive at or admit through our social or cultural circumstances is intrinsically bound by the dictates of that instruction and subordinate to it — not the other way around. Men and women reach eminence not by embracing subjective, historically contingent, and liberally fashionable ideologies and asserting them as their identities. They do so by prizing piety, resisting the travails of the nafs, and realizing that none is better than the one who calls to the path of Allah, does good works, and states “I am from the Muslims.” May Allah make us from them. Ameen.
So it seems Khabib won the fight. I know little about MMA, and am speaking from the highlights alone here, so take this for what it is: many have expressed outright or disappointment at Khabib’s post-fight fence jumping. I can understand that to some degree. However, there is something to be said about someone who still carries a notion of honor — for his father, people, and importantly, religion.
Those with liberal intuitions have no problem understanding aggressive retaliation and anger when others oppose liberal moral claims, or cross lines that are still held as meaningful. Few would tolerate a skinhead provoking a group of black men with racial slurs. This is an example and there are many other understood ‘red lines’ that carry meaning today (insulting ones sexual ‘orientation,’ gender, etc.). Insulting religion, however, is seen as ‘light hearted’ humor to many. It is our eras ‘yo momma’ jokes. We are told to smile in the face of those openly ridiculing Allah, His Messenger (pbuh), and other elements of the sacred. I for one am glad to see someone who doesn’t default to distributing roses and gifts to those who have made a habit of insulting, in the worst of ways, his people, family, and religion.
Shaykh Sa’id ibn Wahf al-Qahtani has passed away. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un. Shaykh Abdul Wahab Saleem writes a thoughtful reflection on his passing.
May Allah have mercy on the shaykh. Ameen.
Allah Knows Best
