Aspects of Sufism

Some websites for History 3805, fall 2013:

Sufi poetry by Rumi.

Sufi music and dance at the Smithsonian Institution. Go to 12:00.

Qadiriyya dhikr.

Dhikr and dancing in Chechnya.

A video explaining a Sufi view of religion. 2:30-6:00.

Is Sufism part of Islam? A critical view.

A famous Bollywood musical routine that seems to me to be Sufi influenced. Note the lyrics.

Everybody has their favourite pirates: Giancarlo Casale’s The Ottoman Age of Exploration

Near the beginning of Giancarlo Casale's  book, he remarks that the famous explorer-hero Prince Henry the Navigator was basically a pirate.  What follows is an entire book about Ottoman pirates of the 16^thcentury, whose role in expanding the trade in the Indian Ocean basin Casale obviously admires.  He knows they are pirates, or the next best thing, but then everybody has their favourite pirates.Casale has done his subjects proud.  His Ottoman admirals/merchants/corsairs are now part of the English language scholarly narrative of the age  of exploration, in a form that is accessible to any one who is really interested.

Casale argues that just as the Portugal and Spain created entirely new empires based on trading opportunities in seas unfamiliar to them, so did the Ottoman Empire, which before the 16^th century had been entirely oriented to the Mediterranean.  The story of 16^th century exploration in the eastern hemisphere should not be seen as merely  one of Christian Europe expanding into Muslim seas.  Although the Ottomans were Muslims, they had to work just as hard to find and exploit the new opportunities of the time.  Casale argues convincingly that the Ottomans were just as crucial as the Portuguese in creating a new global field of geopolitical competition.  And maybe they did better.

Here is where a certain amount of sentimentality comes in.  The book is a tribute to Ottomans whose role in politics, trade, exploration and cartography has long been underappreciated, in good part because theso few people have the necessary languages.  But at the end of the book of we are in a position to see that even if the trade in that region had increased dramatically, the Ottomans working to monopolize it, like their Portuguese counterparts, failed to create a viable Indian Ocean empire.  Nevertheless, Casale succeeds: he brings to life an interesting part of world history and made me care about it. 

Sharia and Egypt: what it means, or may mean

The Carnegie Endowment has a meaty Q&A.

Among other things it explains why sharia is not going away any time soon:

What is the Islamic sharia?

The term “Islamic sharia” has subtly different denotations and sharply different connotations in Egypt than it often does in the United States or Europe. There is a reason many scholars insist that defining it as “Islamic law” (as it is often described in non-Muslim countries) is sometimes overly narrow. Sharia includes large areas of personal conduct not generally covered by legal rules in many societies (such as the regulation of prayer or ritual purity). Not only does it blend private practice, ethics, and public law, but it also includes categories such as detestable (but not prohibited) or preferred (but not required) that make ethical but little legal sense. A vaguer but more accurate translation might be “the Islamic way of doing things.”

And that is the definition accepted by many who follow sharia. Such a translation makes clear why the Islamic sharia is hard to oppose. It is one thing to questionhudud punishments (for serious crimes) by claiming to wish to follow the spirit but not the letter of traditional understandings. It is something quite different to proclaim that one prefers to do things in a non-Islamic manner or that Islamic teachings have no relevance in public life. It would be as unexpected as U.S. politicians claiming they prefer the “un-American way.” Public opinion polls on the subject provoke the same response among the broader society.

Of course, the Islamic sharia is not merely the equivalent of a flag pin for a politician’s lapel; it has enormous practical and not simply symbolic content. But observers should not expect many calls to abandon the Islamic sharia in Egyptian political debates.

There is another terminological oddity that can shed some light on the connotations of the Islamic sharia: following Egyptian usage, I have been referring to “Islamic sharia,” a phrase that seems almost comically redundant in English, like referring to a “Jewish rabbi.” A non-Islamic sharia might seem to be something like a “Protestant pope.” But Egyptians will sometimes refer to other religious communities as sharias.

Prof seeks help

Can any reader help me find a good, accessible book that I can assign my students in next fall's iteration of the History of Islamic Civilization?  I am looking for a book that discusses some aspect of Islamic Civilization in the early modern period.  In the past I have used Juan Cole's Napoleon's Egypt and Daniel Goffmann's The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe; both worked reasonably well.  Good as it is, I don't want to use Ross Dunn on Ibn Battuta, I'd rather lecture on him. Davis' recent book on Leo Africanus is probably too literary for my students.  Any suggestions out there?

What my students took away from History of Islamic Civilization

I just finished grading the final exams for History of Islamic Civiliztion. Half of the exam grade was based on essays my students wrote on recent events in the Middle East. They could write on Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen or Iran, and were expected to touch on some of these phenomena: nationalism, sectarianism, Islamism, democracy, secularism, and foreign intervention. Here's what they actually wrote on (in no particular order, my summaries):

           Egypt -- ready for democracy?
           Egypt -- democracy, Islamism, Western concerns
           Tunisia -- instability threatens the revolution
           Iran -- nuclear program and foreign concerns
          Egypt -- significance of the revolution
          Iran -- society on edge, politics divided
          Iran -- if war breaks out
          Egypt -- a corrupt election?
          Egypt -- challenges of democratic transition
          Syria -- why the revolution may not succeed
          Syria -- effects of Syrian crisis
          Egypt -- religion and democracy
          Tunisia -- summary of revolution
          Iran -- the sanction regime
          Iraq -- attacks on Christians
          Iran -- counter-productive Western and Iranian policies
          Turkey -- AKP success
          Tunisia -- summary of revolution
           Iran -- domestic and foreign conflicts
           Iran -- what's at stake in current confrontation

And here's to those students: Well done. You rose to the challenge.

Image: Canadian students, but not actually mine.

Could be good...

I am actually looking forward to grading the final exams in my History of Islamic Civilization class.

The reason?  About a month ago I  told the class that half the final exam would be devoted to an essay on the events of the last year or so.  They would be responsible for researching media sites and blogs (some of which I directed them to) and would write on how events in a selected country reflected themes we had discussed in connection with the modern history of the Middle East.  In this period of dramatic change, the opportunity to really focus on how the past impacted the present was just too good to pass up.

I permitted them to bring a certain amount of their source material -- 10 pages worth -- into the exam room, to be handed in with the exam.  So, as the last few determined souls finished up, I was able to quickly look at the notes used by the people who were done.

It was then it really hit me that for once I might have a really good indication of what my students got out of one of my courses.  They had a lot of time and freedom to plan the essay, and they chose the themes that made the most sense to them.  And as far as I can tell, they rather liked the prospect of the challenge.

This could be good!

Democracy in the Middle East

Back in 1993, Phil Paine and I published "Democracy's Place in World History" in the Journal of World History, in which we argued that just about any part of the world had customs and institutions that might lead to democracy, that the development of democracy was not simply the elaboration of a unique "Western" tradition that "other people" could not really understand.


Phil and I have also argued at times that democracy is both older and younger around the world than is commonly realized, depending in part on whether you are talking about potential or realization.  And that the arrow of democracy doesn't always point in the direction of  "more," even if you live in a historically favorable environment.  (This should be obvious, but often pundits talking about the big picture breeze right past it.)


Given this background, I was very interested in Irfan Ahmad's article, How the West de-democratised the Middle East, which I excerpt below.

First, the position that Islam is incompatible with democracy was false from the beginning, because it served imperial ambitions of the West and violated Muslims' self-perception that, not only is Islam compatible with democracy, it was one of the engines of democratic empowerment.

Second, I argue that the West's discourse of democratisation of the Middle East is dubious because it hides how the West actually de-democratised the Middle East. My contention is that, from the 1940s onwards, democratic experiments were well in place and the West subverted them to advance its own interests. I offer three examples of de-democratisation: The reportedly CIA-engineered coup against the elected government of Syria in 1949, the couporchestrated by the US and UK against the democratic Iran in 1953 and subversion of Bahrain's democracy in the 1970s. I also touch on the West's recent de-democratisation in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

...

The Western view about Islam being incompatible with democracy is rooted in the Enlightenment which, contrary to the received wisdom, was prejudiced - and, to cite John Trumpbour, "shot through with Islamophobia". Thus Alexis de Tocqueville held that the Quran laid stress on faith, not splendid deeds, as a result of which Islam was inhospitable to democracy. In the post-World War II era, Kedouri, Huntington, Lewis and others presented different versions of this argument.

This Western view was, however, seldom shared by Muslims who believed that Islam and democracy were perfectly compatible. As early as 1912, the Indian philosopher Abul Kalam Azad (b1888) wrote: "Islam regards every form of government which is non-constitutional and non-parliamentary as the greatest human sin." Turkey's Mustafa Fazil Pasha (b1829) held that Islam determined one's destiny in afterlife but it "does not limit the rights of the people". Abdullah Abdurrahman of South Africa (b1870) observed that, without full equality, "there is no such thing as a democratic institution". Without multiplying examples, it is suffice to note that the notion of divine sovereignty advanced by India's Maududi and Egypt's Qutb were complex developments unfolding much later. 

That last point may seem counter-intuitive, but I take it seriously (which is not to say that I am sure that it is right).  There were plenty of "Western" thinkers in the 19th and 20th centuries, influential ones, who were denouncing democracy.  If we are talking about the potential of an Islamic environment producing democratic thought, my bet is that Ahmad has a point.

Finally, on Ahmad's citation of de Tocqueville on the Quran;  if Ahmad is accurate, I gotta say:  Alexis, did you never read St. Paul?

Clash of civilizations time?

Since I am teaching both  Islamic Civilization and Crusade and Jihad this term, you can see how this piece, summarized from an Arabic source  in Syria Comment, could not help but draw my attention.

Why don’t the Christians in both Lebanon and Syria immigrate to Europe is allegedly what Sarkozy asked the Maronite religious leader on his recent visit to France.  According to the article, Christians had no place in the Middle East given the clash between Christianity and Islam.  The Maronite leader was shocked by what he heard which prompted the French leader to point to a document that cites how over three million Christians immigrated from Lebanon over the past 20 years and that the Middle East will face many problems in the future.

One wonders, but not very much, what the French president thinks about all those Muslims in France.

Study sheet HIST 3805

Students in History of Islamic Civilization can find the final exam study sheet here.

In appreciation of my students HIST 3805 and 4505

Some weeks are better for a teacher's morale than others.

This last week or so has been one of the good ones.

The first big boost took place in my 4th-year seminar on Chivalry.  It has been going well, and my students seem to be pretty interested.   That's a big plus, but my 4th-year seminars are usually successful.

No, what caught my attention was that finally, finally not one but two students used French as though it were the most normal thing in the world.

Now given that Nipissing University is in a region with a large Francophone population, you might think this was no big deal.  However, it's been my experience over 20 years that students who might be Francophones, who have French last names, either have no French or no confidence about using it in a public space like a classroom.  It's not like we had an actual conversation in French, but the sheer undramatic normality -- ah! Maybe someday Northeastern Ontario, Ontario as a whole, might really start exploiting its potential linguistic advantages.

Now that's just crazy talk...but it's fun to dream.

The other thing was the reaction to Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Teheran in History of Islamic Civilization.  For a second term essay, I gave the class a choice of one of three books to evaluate as windows into the struggle of Middle Eastern societies with modernization.  One was Reading Lolita, about a university professor in Iran whose study of English literature affected her attitude to the Islamic Revolution and its aftermath.  Although it is beautifully and profoundly written, I thought my students might struggle with it -- especially if they weren't very familiar with the English novels discussed in the book.  But I offered it as a choice, with a warning as to its challenges, in the hopes that it might make a difference to one person.

Well, I got the papers back last week and...quite a few students got quite a bit out of the book.  I am glad that I took a little risk and that they did, too.

Made me smile. :-)

Image:  Azar Nafisi, smiling, from her website.

New blog for HIST 3805

Course teaching assistant Matthew Laur has started a new blog for discussion of the three books you will be writing on this term. The blog is called History Nerd and can be found at http://givecaesarhisdue.tumblr.com/. Go have a look.

Napoleon's Egypt -- a significant quote

For students in history 3805, wrestling with the paper on Juan Cole's Napoleon's Egypt, And how to relate Egyptian attitudes to French ones, here's a quotation from pages 174-5:

The French employed public celebrations and spectacle both to commemorate Republican values and to instill a sense of unity with regard to revolutionary victories. Such "festivals reminded participants that they were the heroes of their own revolutionary epic." The universal wearing of the cockade, the flying of the tricolor, the intricate symbology of columns and banners, the impressive military parades and cannonades, all were intended to invoke fervor for the Revolution and the remaking of society as republic. That some of the French appear seriously to have expected the conquered Egyptians to join them in the festivities demonstrates how little they could conceive of their own enterprise on the Nile as a colonial venture. The greatest use of Republican ideology appears to have been precisely to hide that fact from themselves.

Depending on the exact point of view you are taking in your paper, this insight might be very useful. There are lots of examples in the book to back it up.

Update:  Page 204:

[During a revolt one French leader heard Bonaparte say,] "Shall we be the plaything of some hordes of vagabonds, of these Arabs whom one barely counts among the civilized peoples, and of the populace of Cairo, the most brutish and savage rogues who exist in the world?"

Links I used for today's lecture in HIST 3805, "Scholars and Sufis"

Some of the recent material I used.  In the case of YouTube pages, the comments are often very instructive.


Scholars and legalism

The Order for Hijab in the Holy Qur'an  -- a modern guide.

Road to Hijab themuslimwoman.com urges readers to love hijab.

Blog entry on wearing hijab in Cairo, 2008 -- a visitor observes recent practices and attitudes in Egypt's capital.

Sufis and mysticism

Healing Power of Sufi Meditation -- Chanting that evokes the Prophet.

Sufi Dancing in Istanbul

Sufi Whirling – OSHO in India -- sufi practice borrowed by non-Muslims.

Sufi Trance Project – Infinity-- a modern face?

Sufi Dancing in Saskatoon  -- it cuts across many boundaries.

A Sufi poetry collection -- love poems to God?

A sample of sufi poetry -- for students in HIST 3805

For non-Muslims in countries that are historically non-Muslim, understanding the sufi tradition in Islam is perhaps difficult.  It's mystical -- concerned with direct contact with God -- rather than legalistic.


Perhaps the best way to get the flavor is to read sufi poetry, which might be described as "love poetry to God." Wahiduddin's Web, an English-language site devoted to the sufi tradition, has a collection of translated poetry from some famous mystics.

First assignment in Islamic Civilization, HIST 3805: countries already claimed

Countries already claimed (as of 7/10)

Algeria, Bosnia, Canada,Chad,China, Egypt, France, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, UAE, UK, USA, Uzbekistan,  Yemen

Research tips for students in HIST 3805 -- Report on an Islamic country

Some tips as to how to research your report on an Islamic country.

The purpose of your report is to inform you and your readers on the basic social, economic, and political facts about a given country with an Islamic past or present. To do this assignment well, you have to become well informed on your chosen country, and present those basic facts in a comprehensible way to your fellow students (who will not actually been reading your report). You will also want to inform yourself and your readers about the place Islam has in your chosen country today.

I do not want to discourage you from looking in the library and printed reference works that live there, but in many cases we will not have good up to date material on your country in the stacks. (I have put a few good books on reserve there.) For a short report, much of the good stuff is available online.

Two important sources are news sites and NGO reports. Identifying good news sites takes patience because most news stories are aimed at explaining a single incident. The good news sites sometimes provide a lot of background material, either in a normal story or in a special report. One problem is that the web is dominated by American news coverage, and American news organizations tend to be obsessed at the moment with the war on terror and its connection with Islam. What Islam means in Syria, Iraq, or Somalia, does not come up.

One good source of information is a Middle Eastern site, Al-Jazeera, originally aimed at an Arabic audience, or the Guardian (UK), while the Daily Star in Lebanon or Al-Ahram in Egypt may have material that will be useful to you. Israeli sources are worth a look but they tend to be very narrowly on Israeli politics.

To search these sites I simply combine the name of the newspaper or journal with the name of the country: for instance, “GlobalPost Yemen,” or “McClatchy Yemen.” (GlobalPost is a reasonably good internationally oriented source; McClatchy is one of the better American news services.)

The same method works well when searching NGO sites such as those belonging to Amnesty International, Freedom House and Human Rights Watch. Organizations like these which keep track of human rights violations are interested in what governments to and not what they say, and also are pretty good at explaining the current (un)satisfactory situation in a medium term historical perspective. I was pleasantly surprised by how much basic information there was about Yemeni society in the report in Freedom House.

You may want to poke around in other specialized sources such as the journal Foreign Policy. Use your imagination.

And remember, the war on terror is not your primary subject, so don’t let journalists and politicians drag you in that direction.

Outbreak of the rule of law in Pakistan?

So argues Juan Cole:

The US punditocracy has never understood that the central political narrative of Pakistan in the past 2 and a half years has been the restoration of the rule of law (in the form of the Supreme Court chief justice and then the rest of the SC) and the ending of the Musharraf military dictatorship in favor of a return of the major political parties.

That twin project was riddled with a contradiction, though, since the political parties capable of supplanting the military were themselves often corrupt, while Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was determined to clean house. So what has happened is that the contradictions have just come to the fore.

How flat-footed the US commentariat is in this regard was obvious in the reaction of CNN's Wolf Blitzer to Malik's detention. He asked Pakistani ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani if it was the sign of a military coup. Haqqani was taken aback, and the Urdu press headlined the interchange.

No, Wolf, it is the opposite. It is an outbreak of the civil rule of law. It was a military dictator who had amnestied Malik. It is the Supreme Court calling him to account. The US media think the Pakistan Story is 'violent fundamentalism, military rule, and nuclear threat.' The reality-- that most of the Pakistani public wants a civil rule of law, is almost impossible for Westerners to grasp.

The hysteria in Washington about Pakistani political instability (read: civilian politicians elected to office and an independent judiciary instead of a military dictatorship) will be heightened by this development. And it does potentially weaken president Asaf Ali Zardari, against whom there are outstanding cases. But most judicial authorities hold that Zardari cannot be tried while in office, and there is no obvious way to unseat him, since his party is the largest in parliament.

The rule of law is more important for the structural integrity of Pakistani society and politics than the back door deals of the Musharrafs, Bushes, Rices and Cheneys. Pakistan has a parliamentary system. It will go to new elections in a couple of years. If the government falls before then, it will just have early elections and someone will form a government based on their electoral performance. It might be Nawaz Sharif and the Muslim League. So what? Sharif once agreed with Clinton to send in a Pakistani SWAT team against Bin Laden, and it was Musharraf who nixed that plan. And whereas Zardari has never shown an ability to run anything, Sharif is a steel magnate-- though his last term as PM was marked by an overly authoritarian style and a cozying up to Muslim fundamentalists substantially to his right.

And who knows, maybe some of the new non-corrupt PPP voices such as Aitzaz Ahsan will emerge if Zardari falters.

Then there is this development, also drawn to my attention by Juan Cole (originating in the International edition of the News, a Pakistani newspaper:

ISLAMABAD: Ulema and Mashaikh, belonging to different schools of thought, unanimously declared suicide attacks in the country un-Islamic and forbidden in Islam.

A large number of Ulema and Mashaikh, who attended the Ulema Mashaikh Conference arranged by the Ministry of Religious Affairs at the National Library here, denounced on Thursday the killing of innocent people in the name of religion. They spoke against suicide attacks in particular.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Minister for Religious Affairs Allama Hamid Saeed Kazmi and Ulema Mashaikh from across the country participated in the conference. The interior minister also briefed the Ulema and Mashaikh about the security situation and the measures taken by the government for curbing the menace of terrorism.

The Ulema said it is clearly stated in the Holy Quran that killing of innocent people is un-Islamic and it could not be justified in any way. They said the Shariah introduced by Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) is complete and adequate for us and we do not need anything more.

Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Religious Affairs Allama Hamid Saeed Kazmi said the conference was arranged with an aim to devise a strategy against terrorism.He said those who launched attacks upon mosques and educational institutions could never be called Muslims. He said Islam does not allow anyone to kill innocent people or attack mosques.

Those laying down their lives in the fight against terrorism are martyrs as they are fighting to save the motherland, he said.

Rafsanjani's Friday sermon in Tehran: the flexibility of religion and ideology

Juan Cole published this morning a meaty analysis of Friday's sermon in Tehran by former Iranian president Rafsanjani. Rafsanjani in my view is a smart opportunist, not a radical, but the kind of guy who always survives the revolution and makes billions in the process (he is in fact now a billionaire). His position as successful profiteer and governmental insider puts him in a difficult position. Whatever may be the totality of his motivations may be, he certainly does not want the Islamic Republic to blow up. Thus he argues for an interpretation of the revolution of 1979 that will allow for compromise and unity between the angry reformists and the intransigent hardliners. Juan Cole explains the religious theories involved (the complete post is here):

The reform movement and its allies among pragmatic conservatives have developed a narrative about Khomeinist Iran. They allege that it is ultimately democratic, and that the will of the people is paramount. It is popular sovereignty that authorizes political change and greater political and cultural openness. Precisely because democracy and popular sovereignty are the key values for this movement, the alleged stealing of the June 12 presidential elections by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for his candidate, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is intolerable. A crime has been committed, in their eyes. A social contract has been violated. The will of the people has been thwarted.

The hard liners hold a competing and incompatible view of the meaning of Khomeini's 1979 revolution. They discount the element of elections, democracy and popular sovereignty. They view these procedures and institutions as little more than window-dressing. True power and authority lies with the Supreme Leader... in this view ... a kind of philosopher-king, who can overrule the people at will. The hard liners do not believe that the election was stolen. But they probably cannot get very excited about the election in the first place. Khamenei and his power and his appointments and his ability to intervene to disqualify candidates, close newspapers, and overrule parliament are what is important. From a hard line point of view, the election is what Khamenei says it is and therefore cannot be stolen.

Rafsanjani desired in his sermon to lay a Khomeinist foundation for the more democratic view. He began by underlining his own role in the revolution and the establishment of the Republic, and his position as a witness to the values of Khomeini. He said Khomeini discouraged the anti-Shah activists of the 1960s and 1970s from terrorism. Instead, he urged a direct appeal to the people in their villages and mosques, and responsiveness to their desires. He represents Khomeini as saying, if the people are with us, we have everything.

Rafsanjani is saying that the 1978-79 revolution was not Leninist. It was not the work of a small vanguard of activists. It was broad and popular and therefore inevitably, he implies, had something of a democratic character.

The authoritarian view of governance in Shiite Islam is anchored by Misbah-Yazdi and his ilk in the theory of the Imamate. Shites believe that the Prophet Muhammad was both temporal ruler and divinely inspired prophet. After him, his relatives also exercised both functions. His son-in-law and first cousin, Ali, is held by Shiites to be the first Imam, the divinely-appointed vicar of the Prophet. But Rafsanjani quotes a Shiite text showing that the Prophet Muhammad said that even Ali could only rule the people with their consent, and without it he should not try. Rafsanjani is reimagining the Imamate not as infallible divine figures succeeding an infallible prophet, but rather as an institution depending on an interaction between God's appointee and the people he is intended to shepherd.

Another piece of evidence for the popular character of the Islamic Republic, Rafsanjani says, is Khomeini's own haste to establish lay, elected institutions and to implement a republican constitution. He maintains that Khomeini actually strengthened some of the popular institutions when he made suggestions for revision of the draft constitution. Even having a constitution is a bow to popular sovereignty, he implies, and he contrasts the haste with which revolutionary Iran established a rule of law and popular input into government with the slowness of these processes in countries such as Algeria.

... But Rafsanjani's point is that even the Supreme Leader, whom some see as a theocratic dictator, derives his position from the operation of popular sovereignty.

Note that Rafsanjani's theory of the Islamic Revolution, like that of many reformers, is democratic without being seculer. It is a theory that grows out of Islam and the Iranian Shi'ite tradition, or at least is being reconciled with that tradition. Ditto for the hardline position. Despite the sweeping innovations brought in by Khomenei, specifically clerical rule and the idea that there can be a Supreme religious Leader in the here-and-now, important foundation stones for the hardline view are identified by its followers with the oldest manifestations of Islam and the Shi'ite traditions of the leadership of the family of Ali (and of the Prophet).

If have not picked a side in this quarrel and adopted a religious, Islamic justification for your position, it is hard to say that either of these positions is "more authentic." Both positions have evolved over the last 30 years, and especially the past couple of months. It might be very hard for a learned Iranian Shi'ite of 200 years ago to recognize either as Shi'ism. Note what Juan Cole says about Rafsanjani's presentation, which he backed up with his authority as an eyewitness to the Revolution, the foundation of the Islamic Republic and the role of Khomeini in both:

So is what Rafsanjani is saying about Khomeini and Khomeinism true? Probably only partially. Khomeini is notorious for having rejected popular sovereignty as a principle. But he did put an elected president and parliament into the constitution, and he surely knew what would follow.

One might say that Rafsanjani, the Iranian Thermidorian, is making it up as he goes along. On the other hand, who knows what Khomeini might say today?

The whole situation reminds me of an insight I had nearly two decades ago, when I was reading a short history of world Buddhism. As I went through the book I realized that somewhere, sometime, just about any religious position you could imagine had been defined by somebody as "true Buddhism." I think this dawned on me when I found out that one influential Buddhist had said that true Buddhism meant that no one should be a monk and everyone should get married.

Thinking about this situation, I eventually came to the conclusion that the inherent variety of human experience and dispositions means that any religious tradition that has any degree of success in recruiting and maintaining itself over time has to contain contradictory elements, and be open to new interpretations. Otherwise it will become completely irrelevant and die out.

This further means that the kind of wild and careless generalizations that are often made about religion and culture and their consequences for today, -- e.g. what political structures will result from Confucian or Roman Catholic or Mormon traditions -- should be treated with the utmost suspicion. (Phil Paine has written about this recently.) A very particular instance is Iran today. A week's diligent reading will tell you quite a bit about what Iranian Shi'ites have valued in the past. Faced, however, with a live Iranian Shi'ite, you or I or Juan Cole will not know what she or he thinks, unless we ask. And even then, what that means for his or her future actions will remain to be seen. As Charles Kurzman might say, when life is no longer going along its routine groove, who knows what will happen next, what you will do next? You make it up as you go along, using existing materials in whatever way seems possible or necessary.

Image: Rafsanjani, photo from Wikipedia.

Xinhua, China's official news agency, speaks

And says something I, at least, found unexpected.

Big trouble in China

Students in last year's Islamic Civilization course may remember a short discussion of the Uighurs in China. Like the Tibetans, the Uighurs are not culturally Chinese, and in recent decades they have felt overwhelmed by Han Chinese inmigration. It's not much of a contest numbers-wise, since there are a few million Tibetans and Uighurs and about a billion Han.The tensions nonetheless are severe in the Uighur home province of Xinjiang (formerly called East Turkestan) and as in Tibet last year, there has now been serious streetfighting.

If you want to know how serious this trouble is, see the picture below, showing paramilitary police assembled in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi. It's one thing to hear "20,000 police" on CBC Radio and another to see this:

More at the Big Picture.