I have just watched the Truetube clip on Jihad: https://www.truetube.co.uk/film/what-jihad
It is a very useful piece which challenges the media stereotypes around Jihad and offers a more positive image of the concept. Lots of teachers have used it with success. But I was left uneasy.
For perfectly understandable reasons the clip perpetuates a popular view that there is a simple distinction between ‘true’ real Islam and the abuse of the religion by those described as Islamists or extremists. Problem solved! Our students need to understand that the problem with Islamists is that they don’t understand their own religion!
One way of expressing this popular view is to distinguish between religion and culture. So forms of religious practice which are less palatable are consigned to ‘culture’ with the implication that we can access the true essence of a religion uncorrupted by ‘culture’.
True religion = good; religion infected with culture = often bad. The distinction looks very dubious and hides of form of ‘essentialism’. The underlying idea seems to be that there is a culturally neutral ‘essence’ of a religion to which someone in authority (who?) has access. Is this a form of ‘confessionalism’ which assumes that the religion has a divine revealed meaning which we can access and use to judge different expressions of the faith? The origins of Islam, the Quran and the Hadith are saturated by their cultural context. Is the idea of ‘culturally neutral’ form of religion remotely credible?
A few days in Morocco quickly cures you of this dangerous assumption. Immersing yourself in any Muslim context would have the same effect. Three brief anecdotes about my most recent visit will suffice.
- In Marrakech visited seven shrines (or zaouias) containing the tombs of marabouts, holy men who are considered to possess baraka or spiritual power. Interestingly the Muslims who ‘use’ the shrines are often those marginalised by more orthodox forms of Islam. Sidi Bel Abbes, the most impressive of the shrines, supports people with sight impairments who visit in the hope of receiving blessings from the saint as well as more practical support for their disability. The majority of those visiting a second shrine, Sidi Abdel Aziz, are woman as the saint is renowned for supporting those seeking help with matters related to childbirth. These forms of practice are commonplace across the Muslim world and can be found in, for example, Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia. Often the practices will include invocations to the saint, circumnavigation of the tomb or, as in the case of Sidi Chamharouch in the High Altas, the sacrifice of animals.
- On one evening in Marrakech I shared dinner with two young Muslims from Leicester. It was their first visit to Morocco. We quickly fell into discussion. We had the usual wander round the issues about Charlie Hebdo. Yep, those responsible were not true Muslims. Later I shared my experience visiting the shrines. Although my dinner companions had passed by some of the shrines they had taken them for standard mosques. When I explained, they were astonished. ‘But worshipping at tombs is forbidden in Islam’ was their rather assertive response. They were quite clear that whatever I had seen had ‘nothing to do with Islam’. Anyone worshipping at the shrines is not a true Muslim. So who is defining what constitutes a ‘true’ Muslim?
- Some days later I was in the Dades Valley in the edge of the Atlas staying with a Moroccan family. The father, Moha, was a highly educated man with a degree in English. We spent three days together walking and talking. He admitted he had little time for formal religion although he did not reveal this to his friends. In one telling conversation he talked about what he saw as a crisis for many young Muslims living in England. He felt they ‘suffered’ from anomie, the loss of a sense of identity; the experience of an anxiety caused by the breakdown of social bonds or cultural norms. For Moha, Islam in the UK seemed arid and thin; a rather hollow orthodoxy with little spiritual depth. For him, Islam thrives best when it is embedded in a rich and diverse culture, however unorthodox that might be!.
There are some real challenges here for us as teachers of RE. The resources about Islam available to us rarely reflect the true diversity which is found across the Muslim world.
Do we need to actively question the idea that there is such a thing as ‘true’ or ‘reaI’ Islam? There are just lots of different Islams. Some forms are pleasing to the eye; others are distasteful but they are all just versions of Islam. Some Muslims will claim some kind of authority for their version, and that is ‘interesting’, but it cannot be taken as a baseline for our teaching about the religion.
We need to be very cautious in using simple distinctions between true and false Islam or between religion and culture. The same is true of any religion, but the current energy and confusion around Islam makes it all the more important that we retain our integrity as students of religion and belief.
Is Islamic state, however unpalatable, as authentic an interpretation of Islam as the shrine worship in Marrakech? And someone somewhere will tell you both are ‘nothing to do with true Islam!’
One final anecdote. I also visited an exhibition of Muslim women’s art in Marrakech. The pieces were all expressions of the struggle for equality within Muslim society. Two of the pieces are below. As well as acknowledging the diversity within Islam we obviously also need to recognise the internal struggles within the religion.