By Shelina Zahra Janmohamed - Guardian Unlimited - U.K.Saturday, April 28, 2007
Islam is a broad church, so to speak. Well, it's supposed to be. A Muslim is one who states: "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his (last) messenger." The public avowal of these words is sufficient to be counted as Muslim.
The strength of belief and flavour of practice that lie behind them is immaterial. You say that you believe and you're a Muslim; you say that you don't believe and you are a kafir. These are simple black and white statements of fact.
Kafir is a word, like hijab and niqab, that seems to have gained popular currency. The English language is voracious, and in this era of materialism it is, ironically, hungry to increase its religious lexicon.
On an optimistic day I hear such borrowings from Islamic vocabulary as echoes of the variety of Muslim voices slowly emerging in the media. Twenty years ago I couldn't imagine that the words Sunni, Shia, Sufi and Salafi would ever be known so widely. I don't agree with all these opinions, but I hope they are heard without prejudice - from both inside and outside the Muslim community.
(...)
Being confident in your own beliefs and practices is one thing, but pointing to other Muslims and implying "you're the wrong sort of Muslim" or, worse still, calling them "kafir" is another. The word kafir is scattered about like confetti. We've seen a resurgence of this pejorative practice of takfir - labelling another Muslim as a kafir.
Robbed of its meaning, kafir is used almost like a four-letter word against both Muslims and non-Muslims. This is rude and unbefitting of a Muslim. It seems that the straightforward definitions of Muslim and kafir given by God and Muhammad are no longer sufficient.
Ashura, the annual commemoration of the martyrdom of the grandson of Muhammad, is a case in point. Observed mainly by Shia Muslims, historically it was accepted by all strands of the faith. But the events involved seem to be blindly labelled by some Muslims as "wrong" and the Muslims who engage in them as "wrong" or, worse still, "kafir", without any attempt to understand.
This sort of behaviour gets us nowhere.
And Muslims are not alone in indulging in it. At some level, aren't we all guilty of it? Instead of feeling the pain of our own faith community, we seem hellbent on being the ones to inflict it. Our religious beliefs should be a garden of tolerance, understanding and respect, balanced with a drive towards justice and equality.
Faith should make us aspire to good words, good actions and kindness. We need to adopt and ingrain these basic values of faith into our social fabric, not turn into bone-headed thugs that answer any inquiry, question or challenge with "you're wrong".
Ali ibn Abi Talib, the son-in-law of Muhammad, said: "Remember when dealing with others that either they are your brothers and sisters in faith, or they are your human creatures in kind." This simple, universal manifesto injects respect and equality into the heart of our values in order to lead us towards the right sort of human experience.
· Shelina Zahra Janmohamed writes a blog at Spirit21.co.uk
[Picture: Old-bricks tiny garden built by a Muslim Hotel-owner in Hampstead, London. Photo: MarMo, year 1997]
Islam is a broad church, so to speak. Well, it's supposed to be. A Muslim is one who states: "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his (last) messenger." The public avowal of these words is sufficient to be counted as Muslim.
The strength of belief and flavour of practice that lie behind them is immaterial. You say that you believe and you're a Muslim; you say that you don't believe and you are a kafir. These are simple black and white statements of fact.
Kafir is a word, like hijab and niqab, that seems to have gained popular currency. The English language is voracious, and in this era of materialism it is, ironically, hungry to increase its religious lexicon.
On an optimistic day I hear such borrowings from Islamic vocabulary as echoes of the variety of Muslim voices slowly emerging in the media. Twenty years ago I couldn't imagine that the words Sunni, Shia, Sufi and Salafi would ever be known so widely. I don't agree with all these opinions, but I hope they are heard without prejudice - from both inside and outside the Muslim community.
(...)
Being confident in your own beliefs and practices is one thing, but pointing to other Muslims and implying "you're the wrong sort of Muslim" or, worse still, calling them "kafir" is another. The word kafir is scattered about like confetti. We've seen a resurgence of this pejorative practice of takfir - labelling another Muslim as a kafir.
Robbed of its meaning, kafir is used almost like a four-letter word against both Muslims and non-Muslims. This is rude and unbefitting of a Muslim. It seems that the straightforward definitions of Muslim and kafir given by God and Muhammad are no longer sufficient.
Ashura, the annual commemoration of the martyrdom of the grandson of Muhammad, is a case in point. Observed mainly by Shia Muslims, historically it was accepted by all strands of the faith. But the events involved seem to be blindly labelled by some Muslims as "wrong" and the Muslims who engage in them as "wrong" or, worse still, "kafir", without any attempt to understand.
This sort of behaviour gets us nowhere.
And Muslims are not alone in indulging in it. At some level, aren't we all guilty of it? Instead of feeling the pain of our own faith community, we seem hellbent on being the ones to inflict it. Our religious beliefs should be a garden of tolerance, understanding and respect, balanced with a drive towards justice and equality.
Faith should make us aspire to good words, good actions and kindness. We need to adopt and ingrain these basic values of faith into our social fabric, not turn into bone-headed thugs that answer any inquiry, question or challenge with "you're wrong".
Ali ibn Abi Talib, the son-in-law of Muhammad, said: "Remember when dealing with others that either they are your brothers and sisters in faith, or they are your human creatures in kind." This simple, universal manifesto injects respect and equality into the heart of our values in order to lead us towards the right sort of human experience.
· Shelina Zahra Janmohamed writes a blog at Spirit21.co.uk
[Picture: Old-bricks tiny garden built by a Muslim Hotel-owner in Hampstead, London. Photo: MarMo, year 1997]
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