Critiquing Muhammed, the Founder of Islam: Between Intellectual Exploration and Blasphemy

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Whenever my post contains critique of Muhammed, the founder of Islam, Prof. Toyin Falola, the founder and moderator of this group, refuses to approve the post, describing it as blasphemous.

I have tried to get him to express his views as to why critique should necessarily be seen as blasphemy but he has refused to defend his position, simply repeating  the same claim.

You are a scholar, not a right wing Muslim, I urged. Let's discuss this in public, as scholars do, I have suggested, to no avail.

Is he afraid for his safety when visiting the Muslim North, where he has friends, I wondered, beceause I am not able to fathom why a scholar like Falola would be advancing narrow views of religious conformity that most of the world has left behind but narrow minded Muslims still cling to, even kiling people for defying their tunnel vision about their religion.

Will he approve this post? I doubt it. He seems to prefer to keep his censorship hidden perhaps because it conflicts with his reputation as a scholar.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Tony Adepöju,

Please feel free to wallow in your own dung, but don't think you are free to share the stench with us. We don't want any of it.

Understandably, our eniyan ti o kekoo would much prefer that you do not further corrupt our atmosphere and that's why it's advisable that you keep your putrid critiques to yourself....

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Why must some people insist they cannot carry on  a civilized discussion?

''Please feel free to wallow in your own dung, but don't think you are free to share the stench with us. We don't want any of it.

Understandably, our eniyan ti o kekoo would much prefer that you do not further corrupt our atmosphere and that's why it's advisable that you keep your putrid critiques to yourself...''

Cornelius

God have mercy.

toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks to Toyin Falola for approving this post.

The responses so far to this bold move by Falola in approving the post suggests to me that most readers here might  not be prepared to address the issues because they are coming from the much respected scholar, those respondents preferring instead to respond deflectively. 

I will therefore clarify my exchanges with the professor as they touch upon issues of the intersection between critical thinking and  religious faith in relation to Islam.

Falola refused to approve my post of some weeks ago comparing the prophet Muhammed to the Yoruba freedom fighter and Yoruba nation agitator Sunday Igboho.

 Why, I asked him in puzzlement.

His concluding response, after a series of exchanges, is that Igboho is a human being and Muhammed was not a human being.

I had to reseasses  my understanding of reality. This was Toyin Falola, polymathic scholar of Africa in the Western critical tradition, PhD Ife, Professor at the University of Texas, serial writer on Yoruba spirituality and diverse disciplines, not a graduate of a fundametalist Islamic institution or a cleric in some right wing Islamic establishment. 

Among the Muslim writers on Islam I admire, such as Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and the great writers on Islam whose religion is unknown to me, from Eric Winkel to Idriss Shah, would they hold such an unrealistic view? 

How would Abu Bakr, Muhammed's right hand man himself have reacted  in response to such arealist stance about  Muhammed, the same Abu Bakr described as having declared to the Muslim faithful after Muhammed's death, that, ''for those who worship Muhammed, know that Muhammed is dead, but for those who worship Allah, know that Allah is living and cannot  die" ?

Is such a deification of Muhammed as Falola in effect expressed not a form of the idolatory forbidden in Islam?

Falola did not respond to these urgings of mine and so I let it go. 

Islam coming  up again on account of the current Afghan crisis, I responded to a post by Cornelius Hamelberg quoting the English writer George Bernard Shaw praising Muhammed as an exemplary leader.

I responded to that post by comparing Muhammed with the Buddha and Jesus, who, as pacifists, I see as exemplary figures, in contrast to Muhammed, an empire builder whose colonising  imperialism I see as likely at the root of many problems with contemporary militant  Islam.

I also referenced Muhammed's controversial marriage to Aisha when she was a little girl, a subject thoroughly flogged in literature both  critical of Muhammed and defensive of him.

Falola again refused to approve the post, describing critique of the prophet Muhammed as blasphemy.

Was this an elaborate charade, I asked myself. What could be Falola's true motive, I wondered.

A professor of history who has edited a handbook on Islam in Africa-which, incidentally had no chapter on Islamic terrorism in the age of Boko Haram, Al Shabbab  and ISWAP, leading to questions about its editorial integrity, as I pointed out in my response to the book  published on this group, a post also approved by Falola, but a book which along with avoiding adequately  highlighting  such an ugly but politically and philosophically  strategic aspect of Islamic history also did not include a chapter on Sufism, Islamic mysticism, which, in the world of the verbal arts in relation to philosophy is one of Islam's  unquestionably   great contributions to global l civilisation, a contribution whose power penetrates everywhere regardless of religious affiliation or none-  such a historian is arguing, in the face of the universe of critical, exploratory literature on Muhammed, Jesus, Buddha and other founders of religion that critique of Muhammed is blasphemy.

Leave other people's faiths alone, he urged.

Is this a trick of some sort by Falola, I queried myself.

Prof, when did you become like this?! I challenged him.

In a world in which,  in the spirit of unity between empathetic identification and critical enquiry central to scholarship, most writers on particular religions are not practitioners  of those religions,a scholar such as Falola is toeing this line?

This group is a scholarly group, he responded as we argued. Its not for such critiques, he insisted.

If I post on human sacrifice in Ogboni, which i have done, on misogyny in Ifa as was once posted on this group in relation to Orunmila a divine personage in the Ifa system, these being institutions of your native Yoruba people, you will approve those posts as ''scholarship'' yet a critical examination of Muhammed is not scholarship to you?  

His response was that he was trying to protect me but since I insisted, I could insult Muhammed and Jesus if I liked.

When did critique necessarily become insult, I asked him. Is critique not vital to self reflexivity, to critical self examination in religion? I insisted.

I then challenged him to publicly present this stance of his. He must be keeping his censorship based on such strange views secret because it would contradict his reputation as a scholar, I concluded to him.

He has approved my post publicising this strange stance from him, a stance exemplifying the non-critical character of right wing Islam, and so here we are.

thanks

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

how would things from the past come down to us?

if it was the time of my parents, i could ask them--but they are dead and so are my uncles and aunts, and now even my cousins are leaving us.

how about their parents? i have pictures, some memories of my grandparents. every account i share with my sister and closest cousin is met by their counter memories or alternative versions. even my wife and i disagree over what happened to our kids (the kids are now aged 54, 53, 41, 39.)

i have only pictures of two grandparents. a scattered set of pictures from when my mother was young, in the 1910s and 1920s.

i have nothing of the previous generation, except i know if they didn't get out, the chances are they died in the holocaust, coming from regions that were "cleansed" by the nazis and their sympathizers.

everything before that is blank, at least personally.

i studied texts from earlier periods. there were alternative versions of many. even shakespeare's have alternatives. the language is becoming foreign., .chaucer's english, you need a disctionary. there was nothing like real english before that.

there were famous people, and stories were crafted from legends and myths and oral tales, and each time they were told, there were changes.

some of you may not agree with me, but this is my conviction. whatever historical, real person might have existed in the past is transformed over time into a figure that fits the narratives and narrative understandings of a people. they become figures whose importance lies in the meanings they carry, not the reality they embodied.

They are there for us in the narratives. that doesn't mean they are unreal; only that the words real and unreal fail to convey their presence to us, a presence that has become 100% textual over the centuries. when precisely they lived, what they did and said, everything became shaped by the needs of the chronicler who recited their version. some insist the chronicler never changed a word. i'd argue there were changes with each performance. you can believe sundiata never changed, the bible never changed, the quran never changed, etc.

that belief might comfort you; just like the belief in the material and physical reality of these figures.

there is no sense in my trying to talk you out of your belief. i am simply expression my own belief about the historicity and narrative truths that convey to us figures from the past...starting with my own parents.

by the way, my name is kenneth wettroth harrow. i was born kenneth harrow, but married elizabeth wettroth and changed my name. my mother wanted my middle name to be joseph, but when the birth certificate was made, they omitted the middle name, so she had them go back and insert it.

i changed it when i married liz, and my kids now bear both my names. i even named my youngest son joseph, to get back what i lost.

which of the chroniclers of my life could ever have figured any of this out? even starting with a name we have long stories, which change over time, with repetition, with the limited knowledge of the teller.

you historians here on the list, what do you find in the past?

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2021 11:11 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Critiquing Muhammed, the Founder of Islam: Between Intellectual Exploration and Blasphemy

 

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,

Just witness how seriously I take you. If I didn't take you seriously, or if I ignored you completely as if you did not exist, that would be a sign of great disrespect.

True: For me to have a civilised discussion with a gentle or gentle-man like you, I would have to be civilised, and as you know so very well, unfortunately, unlike you, I am not civilised, at least not in the sense in which you suppose yourself to be civilised or are supposed to be civilised, and here I'm thinking of the opening lines of Diop's The Vultures :

“In those days

When civilization kicked us in the face

When holy water slapped our cringing brows...

I am not into Modern Man in Search of a Soul and I am not one of the lost seed of the House of Israel in need of your kind of civilisation. I want you to be famous, so please help me if you can and whenever you can. An Islamic definition of God is He who helps and does not need help. This is slightly in contrast with the general Judaic understandingly which postulates that we have to help God - firstly through circumcision – otherwise we would have all been born already circumcised and we have to serve God, and to help him make this world a better place, not just in terms of mankind's new awareness taking responsibility for climate change as a religious commitment and for “bani Israel” what's known as tikkun olam...

The most important “thing” I want to tell you is that the laws of Lashon Hara also apply to whatever you may have to say about our Muhammad Ibn Abdullah salallahu alaihi wa salaam.

Hopefully, before making pronouncements about him and passing evil judgments on him you already know who and what you are, and even if you don't yet know who you are, at least you know that you are not the seal of prophecy and you should pray that you are not destined for the everlasting hellfire for the sin of vilifying Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's beloved prophet to mankind.

My advice to you is to start digging deep, where you are standing - in no way am I implying that you should start digging your own grave , I'm only saying that it's up to you to stop playing the role of dilettante ( jackass of everything ( all trades) and master of nothing ( none)

Hopefully, you also understand that there is and must be a world of difference between reading 52 weeks a year for thirty-four years about e.g. Sufism and meeting an actual Sufi Master or becoming one yourself.

Now, as to the demands that you make on me :

“ If you disagree with my views, please present a personal point of view, justified by logic and evidence. Please don't direct me to any links to read. It's also good if you are able to sustain your own views and not rely on Ken for help.”

Are those your commandments to me, and if so why do you think that an unintelligent and uncivilised savage like me should listen to someone like you? Don't you think that you are overestimating yourself, getting too big for your boots? And who told you that I “rely on Ken for help”?

“Justified” by “ logic”? Your kind of logic no doubt. Yours and Immanuel Kant's and I suppose goldilocks, Sir Isaac Newton too, after the apple that Eve gave to Adam fell on his head.. Should I also follow the obtuse inanities or configurations of Sir Franklin Per-Roguey before he gets knighted and then blighted by Her Majesty?

And you tell me all this after - as evidence - supplying us with some al-Jazeera links to read? Al-Jazeera as you source. Where else to get news, since we are not there? Do you find anything wrong with the news and views at Information Clearing House?

About The Taliban and women and Human Rights, you ought to be smart enough to know that we must be on the same side. Of relevance to my “ position” - are the lessons to be learned from this Sabbath's Torah Portion Ki Teitzei (( The woman of Beautiful form ), what you would refer to as “war booty”

Last piece of sober advice of which the unrepentant had better beware is to be found in

Revelation 21:8

Dear Adepoju, if you don't click on that last link, you should only have yourself to blame about where you will be spending eternity. Don't say John didn't warn you...

[Toyin Falola]

Elder Cornelius:

You crossed the line and you need to apologize to Mr. Adepoju for your invocation of Revelation 21:8.

In some religious circles, the idea of “second death” is regarded as a mortal curse,an imprecation offered to your worst enemy.

A debate should, no matter what, leads to this. When imprecation is altered, its symbolisms are powerful.

This is not needed.

Matthew 18:21-22

"Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?' Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.' "

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/e15dc24c-92f4-4f5c-b391-2c51ea494273n%40googlegroups.com.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,

My short response to you is that I have kept the company of some who know, followed some debates, read some really insightful, detailed, well-articulated books that are critiques of Islam and some well informed critical responses and commentaries on the history that is and has been in the making. For that reason, I'm not all that enthusiastic or interested in getting embroiled in any ignorant. petty, poorly informed, low or high-level hit and run discussions in which you in particular or some other toothless crybaby is representing one side or the other, about anything – global terrorism, witchcraft, Aleister Crowley, Sufism, Kabbalah, Biafra, Boko Haram, Fulani Herdsmen, Ifa priests about whom I know nothing at all, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Islam ( with you and Robert Spencer on one side against Hans Küng (the author of Islam) and Yasser Al-Habib on the other side.

In the future I will be following the ribaldry and your genocidal discussions about “ Northern Hegemony” , Fulani Herdsmen, your “ terrorist government “ etc., from peeperdom in cyberspace and wishing you the best of luck, that's all.

Some feeling here : The Look of Love

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Dear Oluwatoyin Adepoju,

Please accept my sincere apology. I do not wish that fate for you or me or anyone else. 

May the good become better and the worst of us turn from evil and start trying to do some good. 

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[Femi Kolapo]

"you historians here on the list, what do you find in the past?"

We Historians go into the past only via the evidence of the human and natural events and activities that the past yields to us through written, archaeological, oral, and other source evidence. We produce histories, or narratives, based on these sources and these narratives could and would read differently depending on who the historian is, which of the sources they use, misuse, omit, stress, or misread, what questions they ask and when they write, etc.  But the character of textual and other sources we historians use is diverse, some with forms, structures and contents that constrain the latitude within which the historian or any user of historical evidence creates their narrative of the past or of the people of the past, of prophets from the past and of God, gods, and goddesses from the past.  Some source evidence come in structures, forms, nature, and texture that permit a definitive attribution of some facts to the person, the prophet, the ruler or the thing from the past as opposed to narrativization of evidence done ex post facto by readers, interpreters and others in temporal or spatial contexts that do not cohere with the original. 

So,  what do historians find in the past? I’ll say, they find evidence of what and who “happened” in the past both in textual form, but also independent of textualization and rendition, and they also find and develop shifting narratives, interpretations, renditions, and perspectives, i.e., the whys & hows, of the what, who and the when from the past which may themselves become primary evidentiary sources for future historians or readers. It seems to me that the historian finds that the author is not dead at his or her core and that whatever new reality the reader creates from the historical evidence, nonetheless, that historical evidence which is the past that we can work with, does have root/s and elements emanating from outside of the contemporary contexts of the readers and interpreters.  I see that this revisits the question of the content of form and form of content. But , one thing, I want to believe is that even if they relate the two to each other ever so closely, I dont see historians, even if they are post-modernists, doing away with content however creatively and remaining historian. 

---

Femi J. Kolapo  | Department of History | www.uoguelph.ca/history   

IMPROVE LIFE

________  

A thought for the month: 

Innovation . . . is potentially infinite because even if it runs out of new things to do, it can always find ways to do the same things more quickly or for less energy. (Matt Ridley, How Innovation Works and Why It Flourishes in Freedom.)

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2021 3:01 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Critiquing Muhammed, the Founder of Islam: Between Intellectual Exploration and Blasphemy

 

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[Moses Ochonu]

Not here to defend Oga Falola’s moderating decisions, but Toyin Adepoju, you make it sound as if scholarship is without responsible, ethical self-censorship. You make it look like scholars don’t wrestle with ethical questions about what can be ethically critiqued and if so how such a critique can be executed without causing offense, endangering people, or deepening injuries and fissures, with attendant tragic consequences.

Scholars routinely weigh the potential cost of launching certain critical inquiries. Universities themselves have human agent rules and other kinds of ethical protocols governing research that investigators have to accent to before they can begin certain inquiries.

Not only that, in North America where I teach, there are several unspoken and unwritten research guardrails and limits as well as taboo subjects of critique. They are taboo not because academics are barred from critiquing them, but because everyone knows that it is irresponsible to do so because of the hurt and offense such a critique could cause to millions of people or the insult that would be deduced from it.

Of course, part of it is that the academic and his/her institution could pay a steep price as.

But the bigger issue is the ethical responsibility upon the scholar to resist the temptation to launch a critique that has the potential to cause offense to groups and faiths. And in this consideration, you must step out of your natural scholarly bubble of curiosity and inhabit the perceptual possibilities of members of particular groups or faith communities. How would they perceive the critique regardless of your intention and the scholarly curiosity that underpins the critique?

In other words, to use a biblical logic, certain critiques may be possible but are they expedient or wise or responsible or even ethical?

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 21, 2021, at 4:56 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Yahaya Danjuma]

On Aug 22, 2021, at 04:01, Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

you historians here on the list, what do you find in the past?

ken

Nothing. The past no longer exists. It cannot be visited, much less can we go there to find things. 

To know what the past was we can only study the remains of the past in the present, which is the only time we can know. 

That is why Langlois and Seignobos, when they famously wrote “pas de documents, pas d’histoire”, defined documents as the remains of the past in the present. 

N.B. that the phrase does not define documents as only written documents, but as any remains of the past in the present, including artifacts and oral traditions. 

But the past is how the present came to be. To understand the present we must know the past. 

Anyway, read my book, if you’ll pardon the cliché. There’s more about this there. 

John Edward Philips 

International Society, College of Humanities, Hirosaki University

"Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." -Terentius Afer

<https://boydellandbrewer.com/writing-african-history.html>

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Beautiful one from Ken

Fine summation encapsulated in the immortaly perceptive lines " a presence that is 100 percent textual"

Please accept my identification with your family and Jewry's loss through Nazi barbarism.

Thanks

Toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks Moses.

Taken to it's logical conclusion, there would be no scholarship at all.

Is Toyin Falola, Professor of the Humanities, scholar of Yoruba spiritualities, operating within the bounds of valid scholarly ethics when he asserts that his scholarly platform should not be used for a comparison of Sunday Igboho and prophet Muhammed in terms of patallels between the challenges they experienced beceause, according to him, Igboho is a human being and Muhammed was not?

That is a substution of arealistic, fundamentalist thinking for the critical thought that his profession is centred in.

I also made a comparison between Muhammed as militant empire builder, contemporary Islamic militancy and Jesus and Buddha as pacificists, comparisons based on publicly known history, unavoidable comparisons particularly strategic to the self questionging necessitated for Islam by the fact that it remains the only religion where militant, terroristic politics is still promiment, centuries after the other Abrahamic faiths have left such orientations behind. 

We are all suffering the horrors of this orientation so to argue that these issues should not be discussed beceause some people could be offended is not a viable claim.

I also referenced Muhammed's marriage to Aisha when she was a little girl as likely to be feeding the destructive practice of child marraiges in Nigeria's Muslim North, a live practice discussion about which cannot be avoided.

Falola responded by claiming that critique of religious figures is equivalent to insult, a view that negates his own scholarly vocation.

The issue is about the grounds for Falola's position.

Is he responding to lampooning of Muhammed, to mockery of the prophet?

Is he responding to such ridiculous stances as denying the Holocaust, denying slavery etc

No.

He simply launches a claim that has no basis in any logic execept that of the most fundamentalist of Muslims- that Muhammed was not human and that any kind of critique of these religious founders who were biological creatures like you and I is abuse, and in the case of Muhammed, blasphemy.

The victory of Islamic and other arealistic religious fundamentalisms in the academy?

May that never be.

Thanks

Toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks Yahaya.

Which book is that?

please, who is John Edward Philips signed at the bottom of your mail?

great thanks

toyin

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

It is contradictory to reply to Ken's, question by stating ' Nothing ' and then refer to documents including oral texts.  Oral texts are quixotically ' the past in the present.'  So it is impossible for the past to be gone for ever as psychoanalytical clinicians/ historians well know.

OAA

Let those who believe in majority rule ensure its practice in the centre in Nigeria come 2023.

Sent from my Galaxy

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Critiquing Muhammed, the Founder ofIslam: Between Intellectual Exploration and Blasphemy

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On Aug 22, 2021, at 04:01, Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

you historians here on the list, what do you find in the past?

ken

Nothing. The past no longer exists. It cannot be visited, much less can we go there to find things. 

To know what the past was we can only study the remains of the past in the present, which is the only time we can know. 

That is why Langlois and Seignobos, when they famously wrote “pas de documents, pas d’histoire”, defined documents as the remains of the past in the present. 

N.B. that the phrase does not define documents as only written documents, but as any remains of the past in the present, including artifacts and oral traditions. 

But the past is how the present came to be. To understand the present we must know the past. 

Anyway, read my book, if you’ll pardon the cliché. There’s more about this there. 

John Edward Philips 

International Society, College of Humanities, Hirosaki University

"Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." -Terentius Afer

<https://boydellandbrewer.com/writing-african-history.html>

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Many thanks to the Almighty, for the presence and inputs of Professors Kenneth Harrow, Moses Ochonu and Femi Kalopo in this thread .With reference to  Adepoju, the term “scholarly” with reference to Islam should be used with caution, with due consideration to the meaning of the distinctive term  "Scholar” - and "scholarship" not meaning a dabbler, even a serious one, in mere fundamentalist word sophistry -. not even that. What can be more irritating than to listen to someone rediously pontificating when that someone does not know what he is talking about? Time without number the mostly facile polemical thrust at the base and bottom of those irate ( passionate? Hateful ?) critiques of Islam border on Islamophobia – and in some cases antisemitism too ( sporadically, it's all in the archives) and this has to be called to order as it has been by the aforementioned scholars, with regard to what overall can be felt as insensitive with regard to the anti-islam polemics.

The reason is simple , if we agree about religious freedom and respect for one another, I for one am not going to sit here and be silent when anybody - including anybody - takes it upon himself to pollute the air by disparaging the prophet of Islam salallahu alaihi wa salaam. And for the self-preservation of such “critics” even if they think that it's absolutely safe to hang out in cyberspace , we should not forget the existence of the Dark Web where the criminals can put out a contract, put a price on anybody's head....

dark indeed...

Light: 

Psalm 1 

According to beautiful King James translation ( published in 1611 – the state of the English language in those days )

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” etc. etc....

Last night the sharp reprimand from our Moderator-in-chief about Adepoju and all of us being warned according to Revelations , the last book of the new testament about the terrible future that awaiteth wanton sinners , necessitated an apology from me, thus redeeming the forum as a safe haven for sinners or as "the seat of the scornful."

How to strike that delicate balance between the scholarly and what boils down to fake news, the falsification of history, and hate speech?

He who feels it knows.

The late Rabbi Jacob Neusner , a must read author of these books including the closely argued “a rabbi talks with Jesus” observed in his afterwords, 

“It remains to answer a second question. Why did I write this book? Because I like Christians and respect Christianity and wanted to take seriously the faith of people I value. I cannot imagine a Jew who grew up in a Muslim country writing such a book about Muhammad ( or surviving its publication for very long).”

A great pity. Hopefully, someone will write such a book - “A rabbi talks to Muhammad” which should be a best-seller overnight , except that apart from – depending on the contents of such a book, the inherent dangers of a Rushdie-style fatwa emerging from somewhere or nowhere, sentencing the author and publisher to death ( an extreme form of literary criticism in Rushdie's case) there are some real problems of “ a rabbi talks to Muhammad “. Rabbi Jacob Neusner conducted that conversation with Jesus through the agency of what Jesus is reported to have said in the Gospel According to Matthew - supposedly the most Jewish of the Gospels ( whereas the Gospel according to John is so full of unconcealed hatred for " The Jews”) however in the case of Muhammad ( s.a.w.) – and Islam, there is such a virulent streak of anti -Jew polemic that runs through the Quran ( I have read the Quran fourteen times, and the Torah, with rabbinical commentaries at least twenty four times ) so in a discussion between a rabbi and the Prophet of Islam ( s.a.w.) via what's written in the Quran and what's available in the sahih hadiths of both the Sunni and the Shia, the rabbi would be arguing with the representation of Ishmael , the leader of the opposition – therefore the discrepancy and the inevitable controversy about e.g. Islam's Eid ul Adha - according to which Sheikh Abraham was going to sacrifice his son Ishmael ( and not Isaac as narrated in the AKEDAH which is foundational to Judaism....

I suppose a good starting point for such a discussion ( a rabbi talks to Muhammad) would be the opening statement in that historic debate between the Shia and the Sunni under Shah Nader, verbatim published here in Documents of the Right Word

‘Whatever Hârûn (Aaron) was in relation to Mûsâ (Moses), you are the same with relation to me. The only difference is that no Prophet shall come after me “( On page 10)

So, the question is, what was the relationship between Moses and Aaron? I think that I can answer that question., shortly: It was a profound relationship...

Keep on truckin'

[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

Oga Cornelius:

Was there a Sheikh Abraham?

Do Isaac and Ishmael refer to two different sons of Abraham as in the siblings Cain and Abel?

OAA

Let those who believe in majority rule ensure its practice at the centre in Nigeria come 2023

Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------

From: Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>

Date: 22/08/2021 15:47 (GMT+00:00)

To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Critiquing Muhammed, the Founderof Islam: Between Intellectual Exploration and Blasphemy

Many thanks to the Almighty, for the presence and inputs of Professors Kenneth Harrow, Moses Ochonu and Femi Kalopo in this thread .With reference to  Adepoju, the term “scholarly” with reference to Islam should be used with caution, with due consideration to the meaning of the distinctive term  "Scholar” - and "scholarship" not meaning a dabbler, even a serious one, in mere fundamentalist word sophistry -. not even that. What can be more irritating than to listen to someone rediously pontificating when that someone does not know what he is talking about? Time without number the mostly facile polemical thrust at the base and bottom of those irate ( passionate? Hateful ?) critiques of Islam border on Islamophobia – and in some cases antisemitism too ( sporadically, it's all in the archives) and this has to be called to order as it has been by the aforementioned scholars, with regard to what overall can be felt as insensitive with regard to the anti-islam polemics.

The reason is simple , if we agree about religious freedom and respect for one another, I for one am not going to sit here and be silent when anybody - including anybody - takes it upon himself to pollute the air by disparaging the prophet of Islam salallahu alaihi wa salaam. And for the self-preservation of such “critics” even if they think that it's absolutely safe to hang out in cyberspace , we should not forget the existence of the Dark Web where the criminals can put out a contract, put a price on anybody's head....

dark indeed...

Light: 

Psalm 1 

According to beautiful King James translation ( published in 1611 – the state of the English language in those days )

“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” etc. etc....

Last night the sharp reprimand from our Moderator-in-chief about Adepoju and all of us being warned according to Revelations , the last book of the new testament about the terrible future that awaiteth wanton sinners , necessitated an apology from me, thus redeeming the forum as a safe haven for sinners or as "the seat of the scornful."

How to strike that delicate balance between the scholarly and what boils down to fake news, the falsification of history, and hate speech?

He who feels it knows.

The late Rabbi Jacob Neusner , a must read author of these books including the closely argued “a rabbi talks with Jesus” observed in his afterwords, 

“It remains to answer a second question. Why did I write this book? Because I like Christians and respect Christianity and wanted to take seriously the faith of people I value. I cannot imagine a Jew who grew up in a Muslim country writing such a book about Muhammad ( or surviving its publication for very long).”

A great pity. Hopefully, someone will write such a book - “A rabbi talks to Muhammad” which should be a best-seller overnight , except that apart from – depending on the contents of such a book, the inherent dangers of a Rushdie-style fatwa emerging from somewhere or nowhere, sentencing the author and publisher to death ( an extreme form of literary criticism in Rushdie's case) there are some real problems of “ a rabbi talks to Muhammad “. Rabbi Jacob Neusner conducted that conversation with Jesus through the agency of what Jesus is reported to have said in the Gospel According to Matthew - supposedly the most Jewish of the Gospels ( whereas the Gospel according to John is so full of unconcealed hatred for " The Jews”) however in the case of Muhammad ( s.a.w.) – and Islam, there is such a virulent streak of anti -Jew polemic that runs through the Quran ( I have read the Quran fourteen times, and the Torah, with rabbinical commentaries at least twenty four times ) so in a discussion between a rabbi and the Prophet of Islam ( s.a.w.) via what's written in the Quran and what's available in the sahih hadiths of both the Sunni and the Shia, the rabbi would be arguing with the representation of Ishmael , the leader of the opposition – therefore the discrepancy and the inevitable controversy about e.g. Islam's Eid ul Adha - according to which Sheikh Abraham was going to sacrifice his son Ishmael ( and not Isaac as narrated in the AKEDAH which is foundational to Judaism....

I suppose a good starting point for such a discussion ( a rabbi talks to Muhammad) would be the opening statement in that historic debate between the Shia and the Sunni under Shah Nader, verbatim published here in Documents of the Right Word

‘Whatever Hârûn (Aaron) was in relation to Mûsâ (Moses), you are the same with relation to me. The only difference is that no Prophet shall come after me “( On page 10)

So, the question is, what was the relationship between Moses and Aaron? I think that I can answer that question., shortly: It was a profound relationship...

Keep on truckin'

On Sunday, 22 August 2021 at 05:09:53 UTC+2 MEOc...@gmail.com wrote:

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/c1894afc-1155-41ec-92dc-9dce70e2e235n%40googlegroups.com.

[Harrow, Kenneth]

toyin, a very brief comment here is in order. christian forces are pretty active in central africa fighting against muslims. you can call that an anomaly if you'd like but if you were here in the states at the time of 9/11 and bush, you'd have heard plenty of rhetoric about combatting islam, coded as terrorism, in the name of christian values. he backed off after it became blatant when he said "crusade," but the preachers of the land did not, and you can be sure than very large numbers of people took the war in iraq as a version of holy war.

the language used nowadays against islamic militancy is "cleverly" disguised so that instead of calling them muslims, or even islamsists, the usual term in the news is terrorists. so now, our violence against them is supposedly secular; they are religious fanatics.

i can't tell you how often that formulation is used repeatedly in the accounts of the sahel. until you get to reporters who are actually there, who are actually describing conflicts that are local, that at times are taken up under the umbrella of the al qaeda of the maghreb or some such version, but that typically are entailing fulani or dogon or tuareg or other groups, no longer effectively protected by their govt, attempting to protect their resources against other predators. the same goes in east congo.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2021 4:26 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Critiquing Muhammed, the Founder of Islam: Between Intellectual Exploration and Blasphemy

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfMQxPVQYLM0sF%2By%2BrQ9s0-6%3DzU0KrjM0BpJZDp1ipeGfQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

Toyin Adepoju.

You said inaccurately that only Islam is left with militant, terrorist politics, centuries after the other Abrahamic faiths have left such tactics behind.  What was the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan by the West about then?  Was it not at the behest of the far right Christians in American politics?

I watched Madelaine Albright defend on prime time television how the American state during her time as Secretary of State surreptitiously funded opposition groups and armed underground movements to topple the Taliban ( and imposed westernisation by force and not by persuasion.)

This was the backdrop to the Gulf States and Pakistan in turn arming the Taliban for the past 20 years as revealed in that document shared by the Moderator.

This is why scholars go the extra mile to be seen to be even handed in their critiques, and this is why several have accused you on the forum of Islamophobia.

OAA

Let those who believe in majority rule ensure its practice at the centre in Nigeria come 2023.

OAA

Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------

From: Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>

Date: 22/08/2021 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Critiquing Muhammed, the Founderof Islam: Between Intellectual Exploration and Blasphemy

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Thanks Moses.

Taken to it's logical conclusion, there would be no scholarship at all.

Is Toyin Falola, Professor of the Humanities, scholar of Yoruba spiritualities, operating within the bounds of valid scholarly ethics when he asserts that his scholarly platform should not be used for a comparison of Sunday Igboho and prophet Muhammed in terms of patallels between the challenges they experienced beceause, according to him, Igboho is a human being and Muhammed was not?

That is a substution of arealistic, fundamentalist thinking for the critical thought that his profession is centred in.

I also made a comparison between Muhammed as militant empire builder, contemporary Islamic militancy and Jesus and Buddha as pacificists, comparisons based on publicly known history, unavoidable comparisons particularly strategic to the self questionging necessitated for Islam by the fact that it remains the only religion where militant, terroristic politics is still promiment, centuries after the other Abrahamic faiths have left such orientations behind. 

We are all suffering the horrors of this orientation so to argue that these issues should not be discussed beceause some people could be offended is not a viable claim.

I also referenced Muhammed's marriage to Aisha when she was a little girl as likely to be feeding the destructive practice of child marraiges in Nigeria's Muslim North, a live practice discussion about which cannot be avoided.

Falola responded by claiming that critique of religious figures is equivalent to insult, a view that negates his own scholarly vocation.

The issue is about the grounds for Falola's position.

Is he responding to lampooning of Muhammed, to mockery of the prophet?

Is he responding to such ridiculous stances as denying the Holocaust, denying slavery etc

No.

He simply launches a claim that has no basis in any logic execept that of the most fundamentalist of Muslims- that Muhammed was not human and that any kind of critique of these religious founders who were biological creatures like you and I is abuse, and in the case of Muhammed, blasphemy.

The victory of Islamic and other arealistic religious fundamentalisms in the academy?

May that never be.

Thanks

Toyin

On Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 04:09 Moses Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

john philips opens up the question by taking one of the classical physics positions called presentism, and i am sympathetic to it. he might founder on the one key question, when is "now" or what is "now"? that's the question, isn't it? the other approaches include the notion that the worldline of a particlce carries the past, or the marks of the past, the encounters with other forces/particles in the past, in the full trajectory it traces. it carried the past, like the documents of langlois. of course the documents had to have been archived, and someone might have had a fever when they put it in the archive, messing up the picture so to speak.

the alternative version of the universe, which i personally favor, is called the block universe, where time continually expands outward with space, which both are curved of course by the effects of gravity. the block is always expanding (at least since the big band) which is all we can know. i love the limit it imposes on time, always approaching a future without ever arriving there. i agree that the past is always being carried into ever expanding spacetime. what else could it do? some might call this eternalism, as if the block were always there.

i don't know what happens on the quantum level when we get down to the elementary particles or bits, like strings.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

---

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Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2021 9:12 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Critiquing Muhammed, the Founder ofIslam: Between Intellectual Exploration and Blasphemy

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB2982344257E86913C3554017A6C39%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Toyin Adepoju,

Getting into the substance of your posting, the problem with your type of critique is not so much the critique itself as it is the fact that you've created an imagined discursive universe in which Islam is uniquely violent, its adherents uniquely disposed to violence and extremism, and its canons uniquely prone to violent interpretation. This is patently not true.

As has been demonstrated, there are just as many if not more violent scriptures in the Bible (the Old Testament mostly) as in the Quran--scriptures that can plausibly be plucked from their contexts and interpreted to mobilize and authorize violence of different kinds. Scriptures that can be rendered semiotically usable for different periods, purposes, and climes. The Old Testament contains justifications and practices of slavery, racism, "tribalism," colonization, conquest, massacres, genocides, etc. Interpretively stripped of their contexts and/or taken literally, these instances can become manifestos for violence and other forms of oppression today.

Christian scriptures have been interpreted and invoked by people with political and economic agendas to justify slavery and its violence, religious persecution, wars of conquest, terrorist attacks, racism, colonialism.

Muslim scriptures have similarly been mobilized to to justify slavery, slave trading, racism, conquest, imperial conquest, colonization, and terrorist attacks.

Hindu texts have been mobilized to justify discrimination and to designate some people as untouchable inferiors.

Even the unwritten texts and bodies of belief in African traditional religions (ATRs) have been instrumentalized to enforce slavery and its associated violence and to justify the devaluation of other humans as inferior untouchables. The examples of the Arochukwu and Ibinokpabi shrines and the Osu caste system in Eastern Nigeria come to mind.

What this says clearly is that all religious texts and bodies of received or revealed beliefs, written or unwritten, are malleable. Throughout history, people with self-interested agendas have reached into the bag of religion to normalize and stave off resistance to various forms of oppression, control, and violence. Power works in many situations through religious mobilization and through the strategic interpretation of religious texts that have multiple interpretive possibilities.

Even scriptures that appear to be overtly supportive of violence and racism can be interpreted in a more benign and harmless direction. So the question that interests me is that of why people, Muslims, Judeo-Christians, Hindus, and African religious adherents, who practice violence in the name of religion choose a certain interpretation over others. 

Another productive question for me is why religious texts are so amenable to violent purposes. My tentative answer is that it's largely because faith and emotions are implicated. When you tell people that acts of violence, abuse, oppression, and discrimination are divinely ordained, they are more likely to follow you and fight to the death to defend, protect, and spread the political or discursive regime that is associated with the claim. As a tool for securing and consolidating power and control, it is perhaps the most effective.

This is why Ken's point about how humans give meaning and life to religious texts in different epochs is important. In Islam, Talal Asad's seminal work on Islam as a discusive practice/tradition support's Ken's position. The canons of all religions can do all kinds of work--both good and bad--depending on the political circumstances. But more crucially, it's the evolving discursive tradition and how it corresponds to changing political fortunes and aspirations that ultimately shape whether particular interpretations gain ascendancy or are sublimated to others. My only divergence from Ken is that his poststructural and deconstructive position that such mediations and recalibrations are removed from or completely independent of the received textual entity goes too far for me as a historian. Nonetheless, I agree with his broad point that texts are living beings open to mediation, meddling, and mobilizational readings and re-readings.

That's why your insinuation that violence is intrinsic to Islam or to the example of its prophet and that its canons are frozen archives of fixed meanings is problematic. It takes the vast temporal and spatial agency of many generations of Muslims out of the equation. I don't believe that violence is any more intrinsic to any religious canon than peace and charity. It is the work of faith pioneers and subsequent generations that shape certain interpretive tendencies, whether hegemonic/orthodox or heterodox.

The question that this provokes and which you asked on the other thread is a good one, which is, why are there more violent Islamic extremists than there are violent Christian or other religious adherents today? Others may quibble with the quantitative premise of the question, but not me. I do believe that violent political Islam and violent Islamic extremism are a bigger problem in Islam today than violent extremism is a problem in Christianity. But it's not because Muslims or their texts or prophetic tradition are inherently more violent or prone to violence. There is a convincing explanation that does not support or align with the Islamophobic extrapolation that Muslims (or their religious texts or their prophetic tradition) are more violent than people of other faiths. Here, below, is a link to a brilliant essay that compellingly answers your question. I highly recommend it. 

There is a struggle going on in Islam between a violent extremist fringe and a pacifist, tolerant mainstream. It is no different than the struggle that happened in Christianity during the reformation and in other seminal periods, the outcome of which has now been so naturalized in contemporary Christian practice that it seems as if the Christian canon is less violent than the Muslim one.The author doesn't make this point. Rather, his most compelling point has to do with the different relationships that Muslims and Christians (Judeo-Christians) have with their foundational religious texts--the Bible/Torah and the Quran, which is in turn based on their differential beliefs about the texts' origin and mode of transmission. I'll let you read the piece for yourself. It is very enlightening. Here's the link.

http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/03/08/dark_passages/

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks for that clarification, ken, but does it alter the overall reality?

there is no secular or anti-Islamic  equivalent to boko haram for example, and i doubt if there is to ISWAP and Al Shabbab.

islamic terrorism of the kind i have described is quite definite.

does it have any Christian  or anti-Islamic  equivalent?

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks, OAA.

An interesting argument but more speculative than factual and significantly  limited in the geographical and ideological range of its points of reference.

You are uncritically conflating US politics with right wing Christianity and conveniently ignoring the geographical scope and variety of Islamic terrorism and the religious factor represented by the Taliban and its allies. 

You construct a generous conflation of US foreign policy, right wing Christian influence on that policy, the geo-political motivations of the Gulf States and Pakistan in relation to the Taliban.

You do this  while leaving out the religious factor in such motivations and how these synergies  relate to Islamic terrorism in Africa, from Boko Haram to Al Shabbab to ISWAP that has  little or nothing to do with that configuration  you are plotting, or ISIS that cannot be neatly conflated within that axis.

You use  this narrow lense in trying to debunk  Adeoju's description of the global  multi-headed  presence of extremist Islam which is not  replicated by any other religion.

You then conclude by using this conflation of speculation and geo-political and ideological selectivity in trying to  invoke the testimony of  others in calling Adepoju an Islamophobe.

How is that going to work?

thanks

toyin

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks Moses.

I suggest you read my comments closely.

You don't seem to have been doing so and so are responding to arguments that are not my own.

I have discussed this group human sacrifice in the history of the Yoruba origin esoteric school, Ogboni, even as I build my own version of Ogboni. I referenced the Hebrew construction of the theology of divinely sanctioned genocide and land theft, as evident in the Bible. I have referenced the Chrisrian wars against heretics, such as the Albingesian Crusades, its burning of heretics, such as Giodano Bruno, among other horrors.

Such primitivities are hardly present in other religions anympore but they are still very publicly  and globally  alive in Islam.

In that sense, the violent dimension in Islam is uniquely virulent. 

I shall now go over the rest of your response.

thanks

toyin

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

hi toyin, i am not sure i understand you entirely. If you look at Afghanistan and Iraq, which were invaded by an enormous force led by the U.S., and maintained by its four generations of presidents, i think most people there would have viewed themselves as conquered...  if you will, victims of state terrorism or global terrorisms. this takes us to the arguments often posited by many on this list which hold the west responsible for monopolizing violence and rationalizing it under the banner of liberalism or humanism or the like.

i want to be clear that i find muslim fundamentalism abhorrent. but colonial conquest, with its ideologies of civilizing missions, are no less totalitarian for people subject to conquest.

i think this appears relatively clear in afghanistan where the very rapid demise of the western constructed afghani regime fell with no resistance, i.e., fell because all the afghani people seemed to want it to fall, not because they were in love with the taliban.

there is no one of a certain age in africa who shouldn't be aware of this situation first hand, as it were.

if the ideologies under which western conquest were not overtly christian, well, it is not coincidental that the french slogan for their colonial conquest was "mission civilisatrice."  mission--sound familiar. and the mission for the british was no less missionary when framed around race, the "white man's burder." for the german's it was another burden of the superior toward the inferior, "kulturarbeit."  culture work. and i don't know what the portuguese called it. but they no doubt had a similar ideological term.

where it might get interesting to take up your issue of islam in this regard is north africa, even in egypt under the turks and brits, the effendis and their rule, the modernization platform of mohammad ali. and then the brotherhood.

how all this fit into a new globalized order with its neoliberal capitalist dominance might be very interesting to work out. in the end, you'll find the terrorists of one camp might be seen more positively by another.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2021 2:11 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfMkSQN_9ShbKd1hGDv5i2XAK0Kyvv1_%3DvdpQxMrf6Vh7A%40mail.gmail.com.

[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

My brother Toyin Adepoju.

I admire your polemical resilience but the evidence justifies my position.  Im only contextualising ideologically motivated ( and justified) western terrorist motivated Islamic regime changes from the perspectives of those whose regimes are violently overthrown.

In the game of reciprocal violence, it takes two to tango.

OAA

Let those who believe in majority rule ensure its practice at the centre in Nigeria come 2023.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfOP9YgicfC9it0nwEjJKZ3u_ytcWbAmvoW3Y3RFhP9bDg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

The Prophet of Islam is very much an historical figure 

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Lord Agbetuyi,

Of course, I was referring to Aba Abraham ( the first Jew ever) as “Sheikh Abraham to sort of Islamize him as is the wont of Muslims , since Islam says that all the Prophets that we find in the Jewish Scriptures were “Muslims”. You get the drift? Civilised discussion? The Quran says quite categorically that “Abraham was not a Jew”.Didn't Arafat assert that Jesus was a Palestinian ? I can imagine Jesus himself, his disciples, Apostles, and some of his Nigerian pastors saying in unison, “God forbid!”

Here is what t5he Jewish Encyclopedia says about Ishmael the son of Abraham and Hagar

We have actually been here before further down in this link where this and more occurs:

“ Genesis 22 : 1 - 2 :

“And it happened after these things that God tested Abraham and said
to him, “Abraham”, and he replied , “ Here I am.”
And He said, “ Please take your son, your only one, whom you love –
Isaac – and go to the land of Moriah ; bring him up there as an
offering upon one of the mountains which I shall tell you.”

Note: “Your son” - God did not immediately reveal to Abraham, the
clear identity of the intended offering. The Talmud records the
conversation as follows:

“ God said, “ Take your son”
“But I have two sons. Which should I take?”
“Your only one!”
“But each of them is the only son of his mother.”
“Whom you love”, God answered.
“But I love them both.”
“I mean Isaac,” God replied.

There are two reasons why God did not say directly, “ Take Isaac”.
Firstly, He wanted to avoid giving a sudden command, lest Abraham be
accused of complying in a state of disoriented confusion. (This is
also a reason for having him travel for three days of reflection
before carrying out the injunction.) Additionally, the slow unfolding
of the offering's identity was to make the commandment more precious
to Abraham, by arousing his curiosity and rewarding him for complying
with every word of the command.” (Sanhedrin 89b; Rashi)

The Akeidah (Genesis 22:1-24) is so important that it is recited in
each morning prayer. It also delineates and accentuates the
everlasting difference between Yitzhak the son of Abraham's wife Sarah
and - Ishmael his older brother, the son of Sarah's maidservant
Hagar who later became Abraham's concubine Hagar and begat Ishmael. In
the Akeidah, it is suggested that Eliezer and Ishmael are the two men
that Abraham leaves behind “with the donkeys” (Genesis 22.4- 5 ) :
“ On the third day, Abraham looked up and perceived the place from
afar. And Abraham said to his young men, “ Stay here by yourselves
with the donkey, while I and the lad will go yonder; we will
prostrate ourselves and we will return to you.”

“ And perceived the place from afar “ : Note: “ Abraham saw a cloud
hovering over the mountain and recognised it as signifying God's
presence (Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer). He said, “ Isaac , my son, do you
see what I see?”
“Yes, “ said Isaac, and Abraham understood that Isaac had the degree
of spiritual insight that made him worthy to be an offering.
He then turned to the two attendants and asked, “Do you see what I
see?” They did not . Noting this, Abraham put them in the same
category as his donkey( next verse) and said, in effect, “ The donkey
sees nothing and you see nothing, therefore stay here with the
donkey.”

The differences in the character of Yitzhak and Ishmael - according
to the Bible - is in essence what separates the lineages of the Jews
on the one hand descended from Abraham through Yitzhak and Jacob,
Sarah, Rebekah, Leah and Rachel; - and some of the Arabs descended
through the common ancestor Abraham , via Ishmael.

Ishmael, son of Abraham

And there is the irreconcilable rift between the Torah and the Quran
which insists that it was not Sarah's Yitzhak but Ishmael the son of
the Egyptian maidservant Hagar that was going to be sacrificed -
Ishmael and not Sarah's Yitzhak - ( although Yitzhak means “ She
laughed” - when she was told she was going to have a baby - at the
age of 90 years (when Abraham was 100 years old) and she passed away
at the point at which she heard the false news that her husband
Abraham had sacrificed her only son....)

And that is what the Muslims' Eid al- Adha is all about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Adha

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Toyin Adepoju,

Read the rest of my post and response as appropriate, but more importantly, please read the essay I linked. I think it contains answers to some of your questions about why, to quote you,  "such primitivities are hardly present in other religions anymore but they are still very publicly and globally alive in Islam." The essay doesn't shy away from the question but provides the contexts for the differences and divergences. The essay also dispels your premise about the discursive and textual traditions of Islam being more oriented towards violence that those of other religions, and gives the answer as to why Christianity may have done a more successful job of reforming itself away from the interpretive and theological orientations that justified and promoted violence than Islam.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfOv9G8o7Gn_LJDjvyScW88v_K3UAM3y2Ct1qOUuPXoXCA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

Well if all these logically argued explanations 

by OA, Moses, CH and Ken still don’t get through 

to you, I would have to conclude that this is 

just a publicity stunt to grab attention through 

an outlandish argument. 

Another possibility is that you want Falola 

to go the way of Charlie Hebdo and 

Rushdie before him, and be collateral damage 

in your little religious war. 

Prof. Falola is quite right to reject the post of 

which you speak.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2021 4:10 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Critiquing Muhammed, the Founder of Islam: Between Intellectual Exploration and Blasphemy

 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAAHJfPpCy07xRJoTBkv1B8D-tqSoBVRyuhdFtS05wCT9KoYVAQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks Moses.

I have read the rest of your essay.

Could you please provide evidence for this claim:

''There is a struggle going on in Islam between a violent extremist fringe and a pacifist, tolerant mainstream. It is no different than the struggle that happened in Christianity during the reformation and in other seminal periods, the outcome of which has now been so naturalized in contemporary Christian practice that it seems as if the Christian canon is less violent than the Muslim one.''

A claim which you use as a means of answering the question ''why are there more violent Islamic extremists than there are violent Christian or other religious adherents today?''

First of all, that is not my own question although you present it as mine.

First, I am making a statement to which I have given some answers. I wonder if I ever presented it as a question.

My statement is that the culture of violence and of imperialist conquest, of inhuman enforcement of religious  dictates dramatised by the texts and histories of other children of the Abrahamic traditions, Judaism and Christianity,  have been transcended by those traditions but not in Islam.

I never referenced such a culture as still existing in Christianity beceause it does not. It can be argued it does not even in Judaism in spite of the influence of the right wing Jews in Israel in the context of the inhumanities visited on the Palestinians by Israel.

I would be pleased to be directed to evidence of ''a struggle going on in Islam between a violent extremist fringe and a pacifist, tolerant mainstream'' particularly evidence that is akin to  ''the struggle that happened in Christianity during the reformation and in other seminal periods''.

Thanks for the link but please forgive my deferring until later reading links to external posts in the context of a discussion, since my immediate focus in the discussion is on the views presented by the person im discussing with as  there is a world of difference between a discussion and a stand alone essay. 

The Reformation was a convulsion in European history that redefined Europe. We know the main actors, the catalyctic forces and incidents, the wars fought within Christendom, the political  reconfigurations, the textual and idealogical positions fashioned on all sides and the enduring transformation thereafter.

Entire nations took stands against Rome. England created its own church with its own rules. Luther, the ideological centre of the rebellion,  broke away to begin his own Christian church. The Bible, building on  Luther's lead, was translated into modern European languages so everyone could read it, instead of its being confined to the clergy and the class learned in Latin, thereby breaking the absolute control of the Church hierachy over the transmission of the sacred teachings. 

What are we observing today within Islam? 

The Islamic terrorists are on a global jihad. They are attacking  Muslims and non-Muslims. Within the general ranks of Muslims in various locations, the culture they represent is demonstrated in varying degrees of intensity, with Nigeria's Muslim North as a glaring example.

The Muslim North is a place where a person was  recently sentenced to death for blasphemy beceause he is seen as praising an Islamic cleric at a higher level than the founder of Islam. Its a place where people have been beheaded or otherwise summarily  killed recently for being perceived as not being respecful to Islam, or simply for preaching Christianity, a volatile region where people have been massacred beceause of the anti-Muhammed cartoons in far away Denmark and beceause a comment was made about the founder of Islam as possibly being attracted to women in a beauty pageant and beceause of a Christian crusade.

Where, on this planet, in the last fifty or perhaps even one hundred years have such savageries occured in a Christian or Jewish context?

When last did you read that a Christian in a Muslim or secular country took it upon himself to kill someone beceause of an artistic product critical of Christianity as was done by the Muslim immigrant in Denmark who killed van Gogh for making a film critical of Islam?

These are examples of people who are not organised into terrorist groups but operate in terms of a culture where human life has little value in the context of defending their religion as they understand it.

A more accurate picture might be  that Islam is facing an identity crisis rather than an internal struggle. 

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, all demonstrate their own questionable, religion fueled orientations.

These are not all the Muslim or Muslim dominant communities in the world, but on the whole, I'm not able to see evidence of a struggle between '' a violent extremist fringe and a pacifist, tolerant mainstream.'' 

I'm certainly not seeing anything akin to the cataclysmic struggle involving nations and the Church that was the Reformation. 

Jews were disperssed by the Roman conquest, spending centuries in exile. Such conditions inspire adaptation, not clinging uncritically to ancient practices.

After the Reformation and the scientific, technological, economic and poitical transformations  of Europe, there was no way Europe wpuld return to the atavisms of Christianity.

Islam, on the other hand, has never experienced any transformative upheaval, to the best of my knowledge.

Saudi Arabia, Mecca and Medinna have never been occupied, its inhabitants dispersed, as happened to the Jews with Jerusalem. In spite of serious diferences within Islam, it has never experienced an upheaval provoking a fundamental reworking of how its sacred texts are approached. Arabic, for example, remains the primary lamguage of its engagement by adherents in Muslim countries, while the original  Biblical languages, such as Aramiaic, are now known only by specialists. 

I wonder if the atavisms among some Muslim faithfuls and in Islamic terrorism may not partly be explained by this.

Secondly, the fact that Muhammed was a warrior and the question  of its implications is unavoidable even though  I see people on this list seeming to struggle to avoid that fact. 

How did Mecca come under Islamic rule? 

Beyond Arabia, what was Muhammed's principal method of spreading the faith? Was it by preaching or by conquest?

What was the primary means through which Islam achieved its greatest spread at the height of its political power?

We know Christianity was spread significantly  through conquest. Its also true that the factors I have mentioned have reshaped Christianity.

In the absence of such transformative factors, the warrior, imperialist  origins of Islam remain vibrant for many.

I'm not claiming deep knowledge of Islam, simply making deductions from observations.

We should also ask ourselves about the contrastive influences of a religious founder who refused his followers drawing weapons on his behalf, declaring ''those who live by the sword die by the sword,'' insisting his kingdom was not of this world, and another whose major means of gaining contriol of what is today the central geographical location  of his faith was by the sword and who made empire building a primary goal.

If my information is inaccurate, I would be pleased to be educated.

The Koran is a sublime text. Muhammed was a transformative leader, creating an entire civilisation. Islamic cultures are among the richest in history.

We must, however, as with all religions and ideologies, respectfully and critically  ask both comfortable and uncomfortable questions about Islam and its founder in order to better understand and possibly contribute to this branch of the human family, as we should do with all religions and ideologies. 

As a student and practitioner of classical African spiritualities as well as other spiritualities, I have publicly  examined the logic of human sacrifice in African and other spiritualities  and suggested alternatives to human sacrifice  in ''Human Sacrifice : Incidence, Logic, Effects and Alternatives'' publlished in 2015.

I did not, thinking such acknowedgement embarassing,   ignore that facet of classical African spiritualities. I am aware of its attractions in the quest for penetration into arcane realities, in the lust for power  and wealth. I therefore consider it my duty to counsel against following that road as those whom I learnt from also guided me through such education. 

How would our classical African spiritualities rise beyond such debased practicies  if they are not acknowledged and replaced?

We should be bold enough to respectfully  and critically ask and examine comfortable and uncomfortable  questions about religion and spirituality in public as scholars have been doing for centuries.

The human family is one. No one is above examination or critique. We should be able to look critically at each other in the search for truth.

Allah, God or Yaweh  will not descend to repair the world. Only we humans can.

Its not realistic to insist your religion or its founder must not be critically examined or compared with other people who share the same planet or universe with you, particularly when your activities in pursuit of that religion affect those other people.

thanks

toyin

On Sun, 22 Aug 2021 at 19:36, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAAHJfPoSrJs3KZMKJY0dFW6Y7K%2B-gGPZFusK1-8fbXZxs-ST-Q%40mail.gmail.com.

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

thanks moses.

i never made this claim-

''your premise about the discursive and textual traditions of Islam being more oriented towards violence that those of other religions''

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAAHJfPpCy07xRJoTBkv1B8D-tqSoBVRyuhdFtS05wCT9KoYVAQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

thanks OAA.

Ive explained that your argument about the scope of influence of right wing Christianity on US foreign policy is more speculative than factual. it will take  more than one or two paragraphs to prove that point.

secondly, your thesis does not account for isalamic terrorism in africa and for isis and i doubt if it accounts for the origins of the taliban.

thanks

toyin

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB29829771A719203370F63D9FA6C39%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

thanks Ken.

the Afghan and iraqi invasions were a reaction to al qaeda.

as for colonialism, is that not a pre-to 20th century phenomenon, even if we want to correlate it with islamic militancy?

is the equivalent of western colonialism not  the previous  empire building by islamic states, less so the actions of non-state islamic  actors?

even then, was imposing Christianity a primary vision by the colonising Western politicians? did they not do their best not to disturb the islam in northern nigeria for example?

is there anyChristian group pursuing goals such as the various islamic terrorist groups? 

is the lord's resistance army still active? even then, were they not alone in Christendom?

the question remains-why do the barbarisms from some individual muslims, some muslim communites and islamic terrorism persist when other religions have moved on?

i might have asked this qs before. ive suggested an answer in an earlier post. 

thanks

toyin

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/BL1PR12MB5191F3399ADEA5A485EDE83ADAC39%40BL1PR12MB5191.namprd12.prod.outlook.com.

[Yahaya Danjuma]

We can’t study the documents in the past. We can only study them in the present, where we are. 

Certainly the present grows out of the past as quickly as it becomes the future. Time flees. 

In that sense all three times are one, but that is from God’s perspective, not our own. 

Time travel is an interesting literary conceit, but not something we can do. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB2982344257E86913C3554017A6C39%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.

John Edward Philips 

International Society, College of Humanities, Hirosaki University

"Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." -Terentius Afer

<https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781580462563/writing-african-history/>

[Yahaya Danjuma]

Sorry. I should probably change the settings on this mailbox. John Edward Philips is my legal name, but many Hausa know me as Yahaya Danjuma. In Ghana they call me Kofi John, which means the same thing. I’m not sure why I opened this mailbox with my Hausa name, but it was untaken on gmail, so why not? 

The book is the one in my sig file at the bottom. I discussed some of these philosophical questions related to history. 

On Aug 22, 2021, at 21:33, Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Yahaya.

Which book is that?

please, who is John Edward Philips signed at the bottom of your mail?

great thanks

toyin

On Sun, 22 Aug 2021 at 13:30, Yahaya Danjuma <yahaya....@gmail.com> wrote:

On Aug 22, 2021, at 04:01, Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

you historians here on the list, what do you find in the past?

ken

Nothing. The past no longer exists. It cannot be visited, much less can we go there to find things. 

To know what the past was we can only study the remains of the past in the present, which is the only time we can know. 

That is why Langlois and Seignobos, when they famously wrote “pas de documents, pas d’histoire”, defined documents as the remains of the past in the present. 

N.B. that the phrase does not define documents as only written documents, but as any remains of the past in the present, including artifacts and oral traditions. 

But the past is how the present came to be. To understand the present we must know the past. 

Anyway, read my book, if you’ll pardon the cliché. There’s more about this there. 

John Edward Philips 

John Edward Philips (Yahaya Danjuma)

International Society, College of Humanities, Hirosaki University

"Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." -Terentius Afer

<https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781580462563/writing-african-history/>