On 4/28/2013 9:43 AM, Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
> similar issues came up during 9/11 and some criticized Muslims for not
> saying that the terrorists were not Muslim, in fact in this very
> forum. I also remember Catherine Jefferson responding by giving
> analogous cases in Christianity and defending the position for not
> disclaiming that the terrororists were Muslim. the position of the
> Boston mosque may have been in response to such atitudes,
> nevertheless, such issues do arise in all religions. the Roman
> Catholic church denied certain rites to convicted mobster John Gotti
> and he was given a non-curch funeral with some rites performed
> afterwards.
That was over a decade ago; your memory is better than mine. ;) But I
certainly would have written something like you recount.
Since nobody but God actually knows the minds and hearts of other
people, as I see it the issue here is what to do about a member of your
own religion that commits a monstrously evil act against other human
beings and then dies unrepentant? Orthodox Christian doctrine states
that the sacraments should be denied to unrepentant sinners, and an
Orthodox Christian burial should be denied to somebody who dies
unrepentant. I think most major schools of Islam teach something
reasonably similar about how to bury an unrepentant sinner, but you'd
know more than I would.
I *am* sure that an answer that "X was not Christian/X was not Muslim"
in the face of such an act at very least appears disingenuous to those
who were attacked or view themselves as targets of the attacks. For
example, think about Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, war criminals
behind the massacres of thousands of Muslims in Bosnia in the 1990s.
They both identified themselves as Orthodox Christians. If you were
asking me what I thought about them, would you want to hear a long,
context-ridden theological discussion about them? Or would you want to
hear a forthright condemnation of what they did backed up by actions
that show that I reject their actions and stated beliefs and stand with
you, not them, when they try to murder you?
You individually (Yusuf Gursey) might actually be interested in the full
theological discussion. I bet that the vast majority of Muslims
couldn't care less about Christian theological debates on whether
Christians who commit atrocities are really Christian or not, though, or
whether to bury them or not. Most Muslims know that Karadzic and Mladic
would happily have tortured and killed them if they'd been present in
Bosnia during the war. Most would want to know whether I support
Karadzic and Mladic's actions, don't support them but lack the courage
and conviction to try to stop it, or reject what they did unequivocally.
In other words, they're not worried about my theology but what I would
do if other Orthodox Christians start killing them and their families.
IMHO, given events in the 1990s and 2000s, that is a fair question. :/
(Although I hope one that any of you who know me could answer it without
first asking me.)
Most westerners -- Christian, Jewish, some Muslim, and everything else
-- feel the same way about Al Qaeda and its fellow travelers. I find
Islamic theological discussions interesting, but most Americans just
want to know whether their neighbors and friends agree with what the
terrorists did, don't agree but lack the courage and conviction to try
to stop it, or reject what they did unequivocally.
The leaders of this mosque in Boston appear to understand this fact.
They weren't so much taking a theological position as attempting to make
clear to non-Muslims who don't know much about Islam that they
unequivocally reject violent attacks on civilians in the name of Islam.
They're trying to do so in a way that doesn't appear disingenuous or
less than wholehearted. Denying a Muslim funeral and burial to the
remains of Tamerlan Tsarnaev is an effective way in American culture to
signify that they utterly reject Tsarnaev's evil actions and the beliefs
that led him to commit those evil acts.
It might not be Islamically appropriate, though. :/ I also think that
accepting that those who commit evil acts are "of you" but rejecting
their actions might be the better way to respond. I would much prefer
that Orthodox Christians accept that Karadzic and Mladic are "of us" and
then *deal* with the evil that they represent than simply refuse to
acknowledge that they are Orthodox Christians. The first path is much
more likely to lead to real repentance and change among Orthodox
Christians, and prevent the same thing from happening again. Maybe the
same is true of Muslims in communities infected with Al Qaeda style
extremism.
--
Catherine Jefferson <
tw8...@ergosphere.net>
Blog/Personal:
http://www.ergosphere.net