Islamic characters

[C. Jordan]

Islamic characters

by C. Jordan

This could debatably appear under "Creative Writing." However it is written in answer to the thread on Islam. While the characters described are fictional, they were inspired by real people.

This may also serve as an apology, as such, for my absences; I have been busy writing. Here is a sample on what I've been writing.

But first: let me give a rough interpretation of the word "jihad."

A "jihad" is LITERALLY a struggle, a difficult (and presumably a righteous) purpose to achieve.

"Jihad al-Nafs" is a SPIRITUAL interpretation, of every person struggling in his or her soul to always uphold what is righteous and reject what is wrongful.

A "military jihad" involves the use of violence. I consider that there are military jihads for both righteous causes and for wrongful causes.

The characters I am about to describe are both Islamic leaders, but they have come to form a pair of precise opposites in the ways they interpret Islam and practice their Islam.

The Ayatollah Ma Zhenjin

Han-Hui, meaning an ethnic Han Chinese of the Muslim religion. Born in Qinghai province, western China. He grew up in a city of riots between Buddhist and Muslims. (This has happened historically in western China, and there is often blame on both sides.) He originally read the Holy Qur'ân because he did not agree with it, and later came to believe it. The Ayatollah is an example on how Muslims (in my belief) should behave. Ma Zhenjin believes military jihad is justifiable IF AND ONLY IF either he, or his brother and sister Muslims, were under attack. Then we must fight back, but only until the enemy has surrendered. In no other circumstances can military jihad be righteous.

In fact, John Galt makes a similar argument in his famous speech.

Abd'ulâh the Mule

Military leader in Badaq'shan. This is the area of the Pamir Mountains and the Waqh'han Valley, where Tajikistan and Afghanistan sort of melt into one another. Abd'ulâh believes that he is al-Mahdi, an untranslatable term which suggests Messiah-hood. He believes he has every right to impose Islam on the rest of the world. He is unhappy unless he is at war with someone; this is a psychiatric condition which sometimes results from the extreme trauma of combat. He in fact declares a military jihad, and the only justification for his actions are that he is declaring war on a man who is as bad as he himself. However, he believes that all unbelievers should convert or die. He considers any Muslim who disagrees with him in any respect to be a hypocrite to Islam and therefore worse than an unbeliever.

I don't think it needs saying who was the inspiration for the second character.

I'm not here to give you the plot to the book; I mentioned these two characters because they illustrate my point: different people practice different kinds of Islam.

This has been said before, in this Forum, and should be underscored.

I gave the different ways of interpreting the word "jihad" to say that what the word means depends on what the speaker intends for it to mean. When the real-life "Mules" speak of jihad, they mean one thing. When a Sufi master speaks of "jihad," he is more likely to refer to the Jihad al-Nafs.

I am operating here with one fundamental moral premise, when it comes to religion: WHAT EACH PERSON BELIEVES OF RELIGION IS BETWEEN ONLY HIM/HER AND GOD.

Either God does or does not exist.

If God does exist, then He and only He has the right to make judgments on a person's religious beliefs. I could argue that it would be blasphemous for anyone to make God's judgment for him, but that would be another argument.

If by contrast God does not exist, then there can be no religion and no one has the right therefore to make religious judgments.

I shall be back later.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This showed up in the Article queue. Chrys is correct that it is more suited to the "Creative Writing" section than here.

But it characterizes so well what an intellectual can do in concrete terms about the "Islamist fundamentalist versus Muslim" issue that I decided to run it for a while as an article. It is one drop in the bucket but it is a drop. As it comes from the private plans of one individual with respect to his own work, and not preaching to a choir, that makes it a potent drop.

Good job, Chrys.

Michael

[C. Jordan]

Thank you for the compliment, Michael. I hope it will be earned, when I finally (some time next year) get done with this massive piece of writing.