Ibn Warraq

Given the preponderance of Islamism in just about every conflict in the world today it is not surprising that the faith is rendered to much scrutiny. Ibn Warraq is a pious Muslim turned apostate who opted for atheism in the aftermath of the Rushdie affair. Using majority Islamic sources accepted by Islamic scholars themselves he lays bare the fact that Islamism is a political ideology with totalitarian aims seeking to subdue the non-Islamic world.

His articulate references; polemical insights as well as surgical precision in evincing what he argues makes this book a compelling weapon in the fight to save the non-Islamist world. A must read for all future generations.… (mer)

I admit that I have never read Edward Said's Orientalism, but references and arguments that draw from that work have definitely trickled down into many articles and comment flame wars that I am quite familiar with. Colonialist representations of Eastern cultures and peoples as weak, static, passive and feminized for the purposes of implying inferiority and justifying subjugation are facts that can be attested. One need simply consider something as banal as the Tintin comic books and their portrayal of black Africans. But even while Orientalism is probably onto something in its breakdown of offensively stereotypical depictions of the East, the debatable point is whether Said's rather reductionist theory holds true for even the great majority of "Orientalist" work; whether nearly all Western engagement with the East can (rather ahistorically, the criticism goes) be attributed to colonial and racist malice.

I believe that Ibn Warraq's critique makes an almost unassailable case that Said's central thesis is nowhere near as universally applicable to Western depictions of the East as it is made out to be. The author extensively describes - so there can be no doubt as to the force of his arguments - examples of Orientalists who had genuine sympathy, passion and love for the cultures they studied. They often contended with colonialist powers on behalf of natives, and many endured great personal and financial hardship in order to carry out their work. These Orientalists - whether linguists, historians, painters or archeologists - are respected and appreciated by modern Eastern scholars, who acknowledge the Westerners' contributions and even thank them for the cultural and academic revivals that succeeded them - e.g. the Bengali Renaissance, which Warraq devotes considerable attention to. He mentions entire schools of Orientalists - for example the German school - that could impossibly be said to have colonialist ambitions or malicious motives. He notes the popularity of Orientalist paintings among Arab collectors, and tracks the history of Western openness to the "Other" from antiquity to modern times. All in all, he makes a good case for Orientalist pursuits and provides a much-needed counterpoint to Said's unbalanced and even pernicious rhetoric. He raises valid questions as to the methodology of Said and his followers (most notably Nochlin, who is subjected to very severe criticism, though not unfairly, I believe) and the book is well-sourced and based on quite extensive research.

However, it's important to remember that Defending the West is meant as a kind anti-Orientalism, hence it is skewed toward positive examples of Orientalists* and toward fair or sympathetic depictions of Easterners by said Orientalists. This is not really a criticism, since the book itself makes its nature abundantly clear, but I fear Ibn Warraq often frames his defense in very conclusive terms, and never recognizes any instance in which Said's theory holds true. There is no real acknowledgement of the racism and chauvinism that did in fact exist and no attempt to add nuance to the exclusively positive spin given on Orientalism.

Part of this bias also stems from the fact of Ibn Warraq's worldview - a devotion to the arts and sciences as the ultimate good, as humanity's raison d'être. He waxes lyrical (it is quite touching, really; I felt inspired to become an academic) about the glories of human achievement, the ennobling quest for knowledge for the sake of knowledge and the unassailable morality of his Orientalist subjects. Part of his narrative seeks to vindicate Western atheism/secular humanism as morally superior to other worldviews, which I think leads to some unfortunate pronouncements - such as the assertion that the audiences of Wagner concerts are vastly more spiritual than believers who seek deities in order to be healed of physical infirmities or otherwise aided in their lives. The problem is not so much the contention itself, but the arrogant certainty with which it is pronounced and the lack of insight into religious devotion and the many intersecting motivations behind it. To be fair, Warraq sometimes shows admiration for religion, but mostly in terms of certain philosophical or artistic achievements that he approves of. Too often, he assumes his worldview to such an extent that he does not seek to argue or develop even quite contentious points.

Here again, although I disagree with the author's convictions, it is his delivery that bothers me and that I wish to criticize. Defending the West often isn't sure whether it is a source of levelheaded analysis to balance out rabid Saidism or a polemical work advancing a particular philosophical vision. Small jabs and biased comments get a pass from me, as does the singling out of Islam for criticism (e.g. the section on slavery) since Warraq is a Muslim apostate, but what I found inexcusable was the following rant: Chapter 8: The Pathological Niceness of Liberals, Antimonies, Paradoxes, and Western Values. This chapter simply doesn't belong in the book, not because its claims are necessarily false, but because they are so sweeping and so subjective that their defense requires much more than the brief but blustering tirade that was this chapter. It jumped from topic to topic, making bold assertions as mere afterthoughts and generally departing from the largely respectful and scholarly tone of the rest of the work. It made a very bad impression and injected the book with an unnecessary dose of "opinionated jerk". I don't mind scholarly endeavor being colored by personal conviction, since pure objectivity is mythical, but chapter 8 crossed a line in terms of gratuitous subjectivity.

Addressing form, the quality of the writing in Defending the West is not bad, although not exceptional either. It is often a strange mixture of ironic jabs or impassioned language and very dry, encyclopedic run-downs that I found myself almost skimming. Chapters and sections often end rather abruptly without unifying conclusions and are structured in a less-than-obvious manner. Generally, however, the prose has a decent flow and the subject matter is of sufficient interest render the book quite engrossing. Its real problem is that Warraq tries to address far too many topics and struggles to structure them cohesively. Defending the West is at times an encyclopaedia, at times an essay, at times a textbook. Neither form nor substance are consistent throughout the entire work.

One thing I do appreciate is Ibn Warraq's point of view as a non-Westerner, which should deflect the standard accusations of racism, colonialism, privilege, etc. He highlights the variety of opinion on Orientalism among "Orientals" themselves and points out that Said and his ilk engage in a lot of the stereotyping and homogenization of Easterners that they supposedly condemn. He astutely remarks on Said's essentialization of the West, his (more than) occasional incoherence and his purely theoretical and ideological framework that does not accord much value to empirical evidence. In the spirit of Western self-criticism, Warraq also rightly points out the egregious racism that is not only tolerated, but completely normalized in many non-Western countries. Few non-Western nations are willing to self-criticize and soberly assess their culture, history and society, and I definitely agree that this is one of the most noble features of Western civilization.

As an overall assessment, Defending the West is fair and justified as a criticism of Said, but rather flawed in structure and tone; a necessary counterpoint to Orientalism that nevertheless remains ideologically charged and only presents the positive examples of East-West relations.

*The term "Orientalist" is used rather loosely by both Said and Warraq. It refers to the historical Orientalists of the 19th century, but also generally to Westerners who take interest in and study Eastern cultures, regardless of the time period.… (mer)

Ibn Warraq is the pseudonym of Pakistani expatriate now living in Ohio. The book dates from 1995 and was written in response to the “Rushdie affair”: the fatwa issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie in response to Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. In other words, it predates 9/11 - it’s from when things were just annoying, not really bad.

This work is a rationalist, secular humanist refutation of Islam, the title paralleling Bertrand Russell’s famous Why I Am Not A Christian. The author admits in his preface that he is “not a scholar” and that his work is a compilation from many sources. Perhaps because of this it suffers from a common failing of didactic works - every single anecdote, example or argument that supports the basic thesis is dredged up and presented. So we get a short discussion of evolutionary theory as a attempted refutation of the Koranic creation story, and a quote from Stephen Hawking on the possible nonboundary condition of the universe. Things like this, and the often chaotic overall organization, distract from the meat of the argument.

And meat there is. Ibn Warraq is quite critical of Western apologists for Islam. The very first chapter goes after various writers of the religious Right who have expressed admiration for Muslim “spirituality” and the “politically correct” on the Left who cut slack for Islam that they never would for Christianity because Muslims are “oppressed”.

After that we get a discussion of the origins of Islam that was eye-opening for me. My own research on Islam has mostly consisted of reading popular books by Islamicists such as Berhard Lewis, coupled with conversations with various Muslims. Neither of these sources ever discussed the problems with conventional histories of early Islam, the origin of hadith, and the sequencing of verses in the Koran that abrogate other verses. They wouldn’t; the Muslims because they wouldn’t say anything disparaging of their religion and the Islamicists for the subtler reason that if their professional lives depend on access to sources that would be denied them if they were too critical. Ibn Warraq goes as far as to claim that early versions of the Koran that contradict the current “revealed” text are hidden in some Middle Eastern libraries and denied to Western scholars. I don’t know whether to buy this last or not; it sounds a little to much like various conspiracy theories centering on things supposedly kept hidden in the Vatican Library. But it’s interesting that someone would even bring up the idea.

Ibn Warraq also discusses something that has been ignored by the Western Left - the colonial nature of Islam. Because the Koran is held to exist only in Arabic, the Arabic language and Arabic culture have been imposed by Islam on Ibn Warraq’s native Pakistan, Persia, Indonesia, Algeria - in fact, every Islamic country outside the Arabian Peninsula proper. The destruction of the Buddhist sculptures by the Taliban is minor compared to some of the havoc wrought on other cultures. I suppose I should be thankful that the Muslim Brotherhood hasn’t (yet) come through on its threat to destroy Pharaonic monuments in Egypt.

Much of the remainder of the book, alas, is just various anecdotes used to refute claims of Islamic virtue (“Islamic Spain was tolerant? What about the massacre of Jews in Cordoba in 1013?”) While all these stories are probably true, mentioning them as isolated examples without discussing the context isn’t very useful except as a direction for further research.

This is a worthwhile and interesting book; it would be a lot more worthwhile and interesting if it had a good editor and was about half as long. I look forward to reading some of Ibn Warraq’s other works.… (mer)

A book of collected papers that seek a method for reconstructing the historical Muhammad. The papers vary in quality, as this sort of work will, but overall, there is one common theme that can be traced throughout - the difficulty of putting together a history of the man associated with the beginning of Islam. In fact, as difficult as tracing out the historical Jesus. The main complaints with the work is that many of the papers are too long, and could accomplish their goal in about half the time, and they deviate in many cases from the topic to ramble around through a lot of side trails. Overall, though, it is satisfying, if a bit too filled with Arabic words and concepts (I finally discovered the glossary at the back of the book; silly me, I should have checked on that earlier. After that, I was able to make a lot more sense out of some of the things they were going on about). But do not expect this to be light weekend reading. You'll want to set aside a substantial chunk of time to commit to it. If you are interested in the topic, your time will be rewarded, though, like me, you will probably wish they had cleared out a few of the redundancies.… (mer)