\u0628\u0633\u0645 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u0627\u0644\u0631\u062d\u0645\u0646 \u0627\u0644\u0631\u062d\u064a\u0645<\/p>\n
The goal of building (or rebuilding) an Islamic State is something as yet under-appreciated in the West. \u00a0Do we in the West ask what kind of State is it? \u00a0Or do we just assume it’s the oppressive, misogynistic monolith that we have dubbed it? \u00a0Do we even ask ourselves if there is more than one model of the Islamic State? \u00a0More than one Shariat legal system? \u00a0Has the American public ever thought about how an Islamic State under Maliki law might differ from Hanbali or Hanafi or Shi’i law?<\/p>\n
Do Americans care about this sort of thing at all?<\/p>\n
My own family \u00a0survived to see the 21st century grace \u00e0 the Ottoman Islamic State.<\/p>\n
In 1992, on the quincentennial of the reconquista<\/em> of Spain, I presented a paper at the Sepharad ’92 Conference in San Francisco, CA. \u00a0My thought was to use the Sephardi experience of protection under the Ottoman Islamic State as a model for contemporary Jewish-Muslim relations. \u00a0I also curated an exhibit that traveled across the USA for two years, thanking the Turks for five hundred years of refuge.<\/p>\n This is not to say that every moment of Sephardi history under Islamic rule is above reproach. \u00a0Not at all. \u00a0But that we did thrive. \u00a0We did survive as a People. \u00a0Our language and culture were preserved through the Ottoman policy of religious apartheid \u2014 which allowed the self-regulation of each religious community under their own legal system. \u00a0The State was highly decentralized.<\/p>\n The Ottoman State lasted from 1453 to 1924. \u00a0That’s a chunk of change that I’m not sure our own ‘democratic’ state is likely to beat in terms of longevity. \u00a0Surely, it worked because it had some virtues. \u00a0And surely, we should pay attention to what those virtues might be.<\/p>\n However, does the Islamic State need to be brought about by violence? \u00a0Do we need Osama bin Laden’s methodology to bring Islamic law and \u00a0justice back into the world as it was originally \u00a0intended? \u00a0Do we need jihad<\/em> to do that job? \u00a0 And do we rightly know anything about jihad \u2014 or is it the shorthand ‘holy war’ we think it is?<\/p>\n There are two kinds of jihad<\/em> \u2014 internal and external. \u00a0Jihad is a concept even Freud would have been proud of. The word simply means ‘struggle.’ \u00a0And it recognizes that there is internal<\/em> struggle, and external<\/em>. \u00a0Of the two, the ‘greater jihad’ is the internal one. \u00a0We struggle against (I’m borrowing Freud’s language here) our base id impulses. \u00a0We reach for superego moral teachings to help us in this regard. \u00a0The ‘lesser jihad’ is external. \u00a0And it is supposed to be entirely and wholly defensive. \u00a0We struggle against those who would prevent us from exercising our religion. \u00a0Jihad is invoked legally for no other reason than this.<\/p>\n It is not to be used as an offensive weapon.<\/p>\n It is not to be used as a tool to force conversion (forced conversion being illegal in Islam).<\/p>\n It is not to be undertaken against innocents.<\/p>\n And, most important, perhaps \u2014 it is not the mechanism by which the Islamic State is born or reborn.<\/p>\n Abusing jihad, according to Islamic law, dooms the abuser to hellfire.<\/p>\n I offer here a kaddish for Osama bin Laden \u2014 believing that some of his goals were nevertheless worthwhile and worth fighting for.<\/p>\n At the same time, I offer a kaddish for the terrible loss of life and lives that have been perpetrated as a result of his terribly misguided methods \u2014 may the victims of both terror and oppression now rest in peace.<\/p>\n My prayer (if I may be so bold) is that the history and precepts of Islamic law be taught both far and wide \u2014 so that Muslims and non-Muslims alike can come to appreciate the innovations in religious tolerance that Islam and the Islamic State can bring, when done correctly.<\/p>\n And I offer yet again my thanks to the Ottomans for taking us in when the Spanish solution to what we now call ‘diversity’ was a choice of forced conversion, expulsion, or death. \u00a0We lost almost everything leaving Spain in 1492. \u00a0The Islamic State gave us our safe passage.<\/p>\n Barak’allahu’fik \u00a0\u2014 \u0628\u0627\u0631\u0643 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u0641\u064a\u0643<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u0628\u0633\u0645 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u0627\u0644\u0631\u062d\u0645\u0646 \u0627\u0644\u0631\u062d\u064a\u0645 The goal of building (or rebuilding) an Islamic State is something as yet under-appreciated in the West. \u00a0Do we in the West ask what kind of State is it? \u00a0Or do we just assume it’s the oppressive, misogynistic monolith that we have dubbed it? \u00a0Do we even ask ourselves if there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[250,216],"tags":[68,481,480,479,482,379,483],"class_list":["post-3034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-kaddish-in-two-part-harmony","tag-faith","tag-islamic-state","tag-jihad","tag-osama-bin-laden","tag-ottoman-empire","tag-sephardi","tag-terrorism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3034"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3042,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions\/3042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}