ISLAM

STANDING ALONE IN MECCA: ONE WOMAN’S STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF ISLAM

By Asra Q Nomani

[HarperSanFrancisco, 320pp., 2005]

 
Forgive my dense honesty. While I agreed with many of Nomani’s descriptions of Muslim malaise, I strongly disagreed with the methodologies informing her prescriptions, though less harshly with respect to those prescriptions in and of themselves. In other words, I was less concerned with the practices Nomani suggested than I was by the means by which she arrived at her suggestions. Nor, I imagine, should Nomani expect any less of an examination: Her book claims to be more than it is, or can be. Her effort would be better recognized as a Muslim woman’s struggle to understand her faith, and then live out that understanding; her book conveys a possibly impossible intention. A “struggle” for the “soul of Islam.”

 
For this reason, one cannot and must not overlook Nomani’s lack of qualifications; indeed, she often picks up ideas from various sources— secular, materialistic, feminist, existential—without bothering to see if these ideas are in harmony with Islamic prioritizations or even each other. She can be pushy, conceited, inappropriately honest—there is a pertinent difference between admitting a wrong and celebrating it—and she seems altogether too concerned with demanding all our spiritual attention on an agenda that has the unfortunate effect of skewing Islam. It seems gender has more salience than God, truth, morality or justice.

 
But though I might seem uncomfortably critical, I must also admit that Nomani tugged at me. What does she want? To live. And what human being can reject such an intention? She had a child out of wedlock; that is a great sin in the eyes of God, but mine are not the eyes of God. Mine are the eyes of a Muslim who has stumbled and still feels the scrapes inside of himself. One cannot simply announce, “Nomani is wrong, she should not have written this book.” It would be better to argue that in some respects Nomani is wrong, but not to go from there to saying that the book serves no purpose. Though she might not have the methodology the conscientious Muslim would demand, she is at least pointing to (and putting in print) an uncomfortable reality.

 
A Muslim should not be a coward. While personally I am ill at ease with the ideologies of radical feminism, in part because they poison the already difficult relationship between men and women, I cannot deny that women, especially Muslim women, have countless reasons to be up in arms. Things are generally better in the West than they are in most of the Muslim world, but this is a lame excuse: Muslim women are too often sidelined, ignored, talked over or down to, harassed, abused or otherwise insulted. It has long been time for a critical and thorough evaluation of why this situation endures, and what can appropriately be done to realize a just, moderate ideal. Where we seem to get stuck, however, is what exactly this ideal is. Progressivism proposes another picture altogether.

 
Before addressing this point more seriously, do not take me to presume that progressives represent some kind of homogenized bloc of revolutionaries. There are, clear differences within the schools and ideas that constitute “progressive Islam.” Nevertheless, this much is a safe assumption: Progressives tend, broadly speaking, to find themselves on the left-end of the Western intellectual spectrum; as such, they are especially prone to relying upon and even preferring materialist and socialist ideals. One consequence is that some progressives view life not firstly as the struggle to submit to God, but as little more than a contest for hegemony, wherein various discourses function to mask or subvert concentrations of power.

 
Hence progressives often do not take mainstream Muslim objections seriously, believing that in criticizing them, we are trying only to preserve our hegemony. Perhaps that is true for some of us, but not all of us. Reading Nomani, I feel concerned about the process by which her progressivism subsumes Islam into itself, absorbing the tradition and in the process conveniently expelling whatever it does not find congenial. What does this mean for Muslims who believe that the Qur’an, and not unaided intellectual speculation, is the guide to life? Does the Islamic tradition present, to openminded minds and unbigoted eyes, the possibilities for renewal and reform, or do we have to look elsewhere? Are we to turn to progressivism to fix our problems? More importantly, can it improve us without simultaneously and more drastically undermining us?

 
There is no argument that women are often oppressed in Islamic societies; the question, however, is whether a strategy that focuses largely on lifting the external sources of this oppression will be enough to change hearts. The mistakes of a previous generation of liberals, who dominated academic, intellectual and policymaking circles for some time, should concern us. While there have been noticeable and laudable improvements in civil rights, for example, in the United States, the rise of the Republican and Christian right seems to throw some of these gains into jeopardy. It is as if much of middle America is sick of being told what to do, especially by liberals who deny what is important to them—family, country, decency and God. Now the Right has lashed back, by various means, and liberalism seems increasingly confined to the coastlines of America - from where it can more easily be pushed into the sea —or the scholars who have little influence outside academe.

 
What is change, and what are the means for change? Is the decision for a woman to lead prayer, for example, only an end in itself, or rather an unfortunately outrageous means to a nevertheless appreciable end? Will the mainstream Muslim community, here and abroad, listen to lectures from activists who, while well-intentioned, often feel it is unnecessary to produce arguments for their conclusions, or to explain, patiently, the innovative and questionable methodology that motivated them? If you are reading Asra Nomani’s book for deeper insight into Islam, you will instead find a different way of understanding how Islam is lived. This, itself, is worthwhile—we need to understand what is wrong. Not only with interpretations of Islam, but with the criticisms and subversions of those interpretations, some of which have stood for centuries. If we refuse to understand, we will not have dialogue, and considering the consequences of that, I trust Muslims will prefer dialogue.

 
Haroon Moghul

Columbia University, New York

ART

 
PALACE AND MOSQUE: ISLAMIC ART FROM THE VICTORIAL AND ALBERT MUSEUM

By Tim Stanley

[V&A Publications, London, 144pp., 2005]

 
Palace and Mosque is the catalogue of an exhibition that has been bringing the good news about Islamic art to an international audience. Having just visited the Kimbell Art Museum in Texas and the Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo, its final destination is the Millennium Galleries, Sheffield. The motives behind the world tour are practical as well praise-worthy. The Islamic gallery at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum is closed until mid-2006, when it will re-emerge as the Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art, thanks to the generosity of the Abdul Jameel Latif Group. In the meantime, the V&A has a world-beating collection with no display space.

 
London’s (temporary) loss is the rest of the world’s gain. Art lovers from Sheffield to Fort Worth have had an opportunity to view works that they might not have known existed. At the same time, the V&A has also produced an outstanding catalogue. The full title is Palace and Mosque: Islamic Art from the Victoria and Albert Museum, and even this does not a full impression of how wide-ranging the book is. Although intended as an exhibition catalogue, it turns out to be a matchless introduction to Islamic art. The standard reference works are, in comparison, a bit dull and lifeless. This could partly be the fault of the typical format, which is paperback size, while the V&A book breathes life into artefacts by giving them enough space to impress the viewer. Fully illustrated in colour, the quality of the images and printing is very high.

 
Another marvel of Palace and Mosque is that it does not tackle architecture. This comes as a surprise, given the architectural emphasis of the title. What a relief, though. Architecture is perhaps the greatest glory of Islamic art, and yet is something almost impossible to convey on the printed page. By excluding squinches and quoins, this book is able to look in more detail at real life in the Islamic world over a twelve-hundred year period. The only failing is not the range of material covered; rather, it is about geography. The exhibition title fails to give any clue that, once again, ‘Islamic art’ is going to be limited to the Middle East. At the V&A there are some acceptable reasons for this, one of which is that its Islamic-art holdings are actually divided into two— one department for the Middle East and another for South and Southeast Asia. The latter lost out on this occasion. One also wonders where the V&A squeezes in such important parts of the Islamic world as China and sub-Saharan Africa.

 
Given this one geographical limitation, the book is still essential reading, partly because it is so much more readable than most introductions to the subject. The principal author, Tim Stanley, writes with absolute authority and an occasional sense of mischief. He is not afraid to make suppositions. Other specialists have been called upon for some of the additional mini-chapters that give the catalogue such a vigorous feel. Even the V&A’s director, Mark Jones, has made a contribution that goes far beyond the usual museum-management platitudes. The reader senses that Islamic art is important once again, although not necessarily for reasons of aesthetics.

 
The book is also made more readable by its thematic approach. Chronology and material typology have been replaced by topics such as “The Issue of Images” and “The Poetic Environment”. Stanley is not afraid to get into the politics of the past. Especially where images are concerned, he makes important points about compromises between Muslim rulers and their subjects. The extent to which rulers could satisfy their thirst for luxury and status was tempered by dialogue with the people. There are modern resonances which he avoids, but there is still plenty to set the imagination racing and to remind the reader that Islamic art is a record of a living culture. The only betrayal of a fascinating argument is the author’s use of the word “ordinary”, as in “ordinary people”. His writing is of a quality that would rarely be encountered in an American publication, but he lets himself down with the vocabulary of Tony Blair or the BBC. Readers may wonder why townspeople are “ordinary” while villagers are not.

 
The subject of patronage is dealt with in as entertaining a manner as the topic of poetry. The role of the maker is explained clearly, and above all the importance of markets is emphasised. Instead of treating the Islamic world as a curiosity situated between Europe and China, Stanley explores Islam’s centrality to the world. Rather than wheeling out the usual references to science, philosophy and preserving the works of the Greeks, he looks at Islam’s economic significance. The world was a far more global entity in the pre-industrial era than protestors at Live Eight would believe possible. The Islamic world was central to this cosmopolitanism. Islamic art embodies a civilisation that led, rather than followed, and as late as the 19th century was sufficiently respected for the Victoria and Albert Museum to seek out its products as an inspiration for the dreary manufacturers of Britain’s industrial revolution. This book is about far more than palaces and mosques.

 
Lucien DeGuise

Islamic Arts Museum, Kuala Lumpur