Difficulties of a Muslim Writer

Tahir Aslam Gora

(I ask today, how deep can Islam or any religion be???

My community of intellectuals, writers and poets attack me and claim aggressively that I do not have the knowledge of the religion.  The question is, “How much knowledge is there to be had???”) 

Being born in a Muslim family, I am not allowed to write the truth by the Muslims. I have been accustomed to being the subject of religious verdicts, threats of beatings and death. Sometimes I think that I should restrict myself to my basic field, literature and like most Urdu writers keep myself in touch with refreshing of the feelings and leisure of the creativity. But the rakishness of literary elegance is right in its place; it is not possible for me to write being unconcerned for the prevailing situation. A writer like me has another difficulty, namely that if I write novels the Muslim writers and journalists derogate them and my poetry will be examined on the Islamic scale. I have concluded that being a Muslim I am not endangered by common Muslims, but by Muslim intellectuals and writers. It is ironic that while there are innumerable Muslim writers who deal with risky, sexual themes and who find their works widely enjoyed across the Muslim world, I find myself condemned and threatened for dealing with something as innocuous as the issue of why Muslims continue to treat other religions and worldviews as unequal to their own. This attitude is tolerable for me if it is only expressed in words, but not when it is translated into threats of violence. They do not accept such writings as a Muslim.

I do not favor my nation’s idea of ‘Jihad’ although our “broad-minded” people present the descriptions that jihad does not mean the war, but it involves a personal struggle against sin. I understand that the term Jihad may involve personal morality, but it is also commonly used to mean “holy war”, and it is evident from history that we, the Muslims have always preferred this meaning to the more personal, spiritual one. Historically, Muslims used to attack their neighbors, exhorting them to accept Islam, pay tax or get ready to die.

I understand the Islamic provision that allows men to have four wives to be a violation of a basic human right (for women, of course, not men), and I openly oppose it. I also consider meaningless the Quranic order that women be obedient to their husbands. The interesting thing is that there is no shortage of women who oppose me on this point, since they think that opposition to polygamy is incompatible with their Islamic beliefs (they are right, of course).

In addition, I have heard virtually every Muslim I’ve talked to say that Jews and Christians cannot be our friends and that this is written in the Quran too. My straightforward opinion on the facts is not acceptable to my religious fellows. This attitude of intolerance has actually become our major problem. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of Muslim poets, writers and intellectuals are not prepared to concede the very fundamental notion that it is a writer’s intrinsic right to say and write whatever he wishes. These intellectuals include many who consider themselves to be symbols of broadmindedness. My struggle is therefore to demand complete freedom of expression from the writers, poets and intellectuals within my own community. Muslim countries will be able to walk shoulder to shoulder with the world on that day when Muslim media, writers, and common people will accept the right to complete freedom of expression. I am therefore struggling for the right of freedom of expression, because I know that freedom of expression is the basic pillar of human rights.

On my criticism about Muslim thoughts for basic matters of humanity, most of the Muslim intellectuals, journalist and sages respond with the reply that critics do not know the depth of Islam. I ask today, how deep can Islam or any religion be???  My community of intellectuals, writers and poets attack me and claim aggressively that I do not have the knowledge of the religion.

The question is, “How much knowledge is there to be had???” In every Holy Book for every major religion, most of the basic points have a basic and fundamental placement. No sacred book holds, not even more than 1% of the golden principle present in the book of the law of a civilized country. The constitutional book of a civilized country therefore has 99% more material than any religious book. It is also true for Islam. I did not therefore see a role of any social or state related religion in formulating a civilized modern society.

In short, my dialogue is not only with Islam but it is with all religions. But the other societies have separated the religion from human freedom and all state related matters, while we the Muslims are still ready for drubbing on religious matters even more than ever before. In my opinion religions are now no longer needed because human society is capable of functioning perfectly well without them. Religion can only be required at spiritual or personal level. Spirituality also runs better without the existence of religion, but it is a separate discussion, which can be discussed later. I am therefore ready to respect all the religions because different groups still have faith in these religions but this is not acceptable that the followers of some religion do not accept the others’ human rights. It is a matter of pleasure that the civilized societies established so far respect for all the religions, but religion is not playing any role in the civilized outline of the civilized society.

Our Muslim majority living in the free world is not desirous of terrorism, seeing the western values with hatred are desirous to live in the free world and also want to see the dominance of its specific Islamic sect to the free world in case of the failure in this respect want destruction.

We have another major problem that we do not contribute to establish the human values at all and have expectations from America and Western World even more than 100%. Moreover the ridiculous thing is that we call western nations cruel, non-believers and reprobates and demand human rights from them. There is no similar expectation and demand from us. In the same way we demand from he western media to show our stand, as our own media remain busy in preaching against the futile and cruel forces. And the western media is still blamed for spreading propaganda. These nations are declared as futile forces day and night and standing before them with the begging bowl. The reason for this attitude and debility is supposedly that the west has grabbed all the resources. Do we, the Muslims, not have any wisdom to formulate a good society for our living? A society where keeping aside the minorities, we can provide justice at least to the people of our own sect? 

Here again is an interesting argument that the West is a hindrance in formulating a human society in the Islamic world. The West is the cause of instability in our countries through inefficient rulers.

Here is really a painful reply to this argument that we are so incapable that we cannot construct good countries for us, and our own religious book Quran says that inefficient people are posted to rule the senseless nations.

These are our attitudes in the prevailing dreadful situation. We the Muslims always love to put all responsibilities on the shoulders of the West and Western media that they have to observe the human rights and, they have to feed the entire world. So we are to eat, get aid, become hypocrite and then preach our religion and establish its hegemony.

In spite of all these attitudes the society of the North America is going to become a broadminded world having freedom of humanity. This world had become laboratory where people of various religions, races, languages and civilizations were learning to live together but our, Muslim’s the attitudes of hatred and hypocrisy, expressed after the Sept.11th incident has shattered all this even more than the incident itself.

This war is, therefore in between the free nations and the religiously slave nations.   This is not the war of Christianity and Islam but it is war of the free worlds and the religiously slave worlds. The oligarchy class of religiously slave worlds has established its monopoly in the name of the religion. This war is in between the civilized and the uncivilized attitudes. It is the war of the hypocritical attitudes with the clear attitudes. This is a war against the serious confusion.

If the writers of the world can bring this war to the warfront of the attitudes from human destruction and bring it to expression of the facts on the bases of truth, we can step forward to a shared global society, which has already been started in the North America. Although there is a great shortage of impartial and honest intellectuals in the Muslim world, this can be remedied through time. A better human society can then be established in the whole world if Muslim intellectuals can lead Muslims out of religious rigidity.