4 november 2019

The Feast of Sacrifice is one of the two most important Islamic feasts. It relates to the story in the Qur’an according to which Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Ismael at the request of God. But at the moment that Abraham was to sacrifice his son, God sent a sheep and allowed Abraham to sacrifice the sheep instead of the son.

I have always been puzzled by this story which I know of course already since my youth in the version of the story which can be found in the Old Testament (and where Isaac has the honour of taking the place of Ismael). But it is confusing (or not at all) that Islam gives this story such a central place. What are we actually celebrating ? That God is so good to save Ismael ? That Abraham, as the example for all true believers, was willing to sacrifice his son at the simple request of God ? Or the combination of both : that God is good for the ones who are fully submissive ? I suppose the last explanation is the most accurate. The core of Islam is blind submission to Allah. A horrible message for a humanist.

One could argue that the same message can be found in the Old Testament and thus in Christianity. They are completely wrong. Christianity is not based on the Old Testament but on the New Testament. And a key difference is exactly that in the Old Testament God asks Abraham to kill Isaac while in the New Testament God sacrifices his own son to save the human kind. Islam goes back to the logic of the Old Testament.

Given the essential concept of submission to Allah in Islamic belief, we can question if there even exists something as ethics in Islam. Or if it exists, ethics is reduced to the question of obedience versus non-obedience. For Islam the believer is obedient or not. There is however no room for “real” ethics ; there is no room for an individual that has to take an autonomous decision following an internal moral compass.

19 september 2019

In religious debates, there always exist people on the one hand who want to stay close to the source texts, be it the Quran, the Thora or the Bible, and others, who believe these sacred texts require a “smart” reading. According to these people the sacred texts were written in a very specific context and when using them today as guidance for the Faith, readers should only focus on the part which is relevant for the core of the religion.

Although I have a great deal of sympathy for what I will call “the interpreters” or “modernists”, the truth is that I see an important epistemological problem for them. Do these modernists have a procedure available to distill the everlasting truth from a religious text or do they take what they like and throw away what they do not like ? Do they have an algorithm or a direct connection with God that gives them the appropriate inspiration to make the distinction between the Truth and a simple human-made story ?

17 september 2019

In English the word “respect” can be used in two different meanings. It can be used to refer to “accept/tolerate” ( as in “I respect their choice” ) but it can also be used to refer to a more positive feeling of admiration (as in “I have a great respect for their decision” ). The word is the same, the meaning is different.

This introduction allows me to express my opinion about the headscarf. I respect the choice of women who want to wear it  but I have no respect at all for their decision. 

With great regularity states in Western Europe are confronted with legal cases against prohibitions to wear the headscarf. Unfortunately these discussions remain at a “formal” level. The discussion is then whether women are free to choose to wear the hijab or not. Personally I’m in favour of the French concept that the state should be neutral and that therefore a headscarf is not acceptable for people working for the government. Next to that I believe that the principle of freedom of religion should reign and that therefore women should be free to decide whether they want to wear the headscarf or not.  I respect their choice. 

But the question of freedom of choice only skims the surface. It does not ask to the muslima why she wants to wear the hijab or believes she has to wear the veil. I assume here that she wants to wear the headscarf for religious reasons. If not. the Muslima would not be able to defend wearing it based on the principle of freedom of religion. 

But then, why does her religion impose the wearing of the hijab? 

In general, reference is made to two different soera’s in the Quran. 

First, there is soera 24 (“Light”), verse 31 :

“And tell believing women that they should lower their eyes, guard their private parts, and not display their charms beyond what [it is acceptable] to reveal; they should draw their coverings over their necklines and not reveal their charms except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their womenfolk, their slaves, such men as attend them who have no desire, or children who are not yet aware of women’s nakedness; they should not stamp their feet so as to draw attention to any hidden charms.”

Next, there is soera 33 (“The Joint  Forces”), verse 59 :

“Prophet, tell your wives, your daughters, and women believers to make their outer garments hang low over them so as to be recognized and not insulted…” 

In his famous novel “Snow”(chapter 2), Orhan Pamuk depicts how a Muslim kills the Director of an institute because he prohibited the wearing of the veil. This extremist refers to the two soera’s mentioned above and states that “a woman who has covered herself is making a statement. Through her choice of clothing, she is saying,           ” Don’t harass me. “” and he adds “The veil saves women from the animal instincts of men in the street.” 

In their book “Finalement, il y a quoi dans le Coran?”, Rachid Benzine et Ishmael Saidi also focus on those two soera’s. Overall they mention that the wearing of the hijab was not introduced by the Quran but was already in use before the arrival of the prophet and was the habit of non slave women. As such it was an indication of a social status. The use of the hijab was only confirmed by Islam. 

It’s time to draw some conclusions :

Assuming that the hijab is a religious phenomenon (and not a merely cultural one), we take note that :

> it serves to differentiate and therefore polarize between good women and bad women; between women that should not be harassed and women who are allowed to be harassed. Sometimes it is stated that it is more important what is in the head than what is on the head. According to a more conservative interpretation of Islam, this statement is highly questionable.

> it assumes and insinuates that men cannot control their instincts when confronted with a non veiled woman. Such an assumption should evidently be considered an insult by any modern man. 

At a more fundamental level two additional concerns should be raised :

> The veil is sexist and there is no valid argument why only women should wear it. Tariq Ramadan himself claimed to be irresistible to (some) women but did not consider to wear it.

> Further, it requires a twisted mindset to want to hide beauty. From a hedonistic perspective it would be reasonable to hide (male or female) ugliness.

Evidently, The veil is therefore not in its place in the 21st century and while I respect the choice of women to wear it I have no respect at all for their choice. 

17 september 2019

In “The Red-haired Woman” (p.219) it comes to a confrontation between a father and his son with the following dialogue as a result. I dare to assume that for Pamuk this dialogue does not only reflect on father-son  relations but also, if not mostly, on the relation between the believer and his God.

“What is a father to you?”

“A father is a doting, charismatic figure who will until his dying day accept and watch over the child he sires. He is the origin and the center of the universe. When you believe that you have a father, you are at peace even when you can’t see him, because you know that he is always there, ready to love and protect you. I never had a father like that. “

” Neither did I, ” I said  impassively. “But if I’d had one, he’d have expected me to obey him, and he’d have suppressed my individuality with his affection and the force of his personality!”

17 september 2019

Here some clarifications why I am an atheist. These clarifications may be useful in further discussions on religion.

I was raised in the Catholic culture and initially the Catholic belief had even an important emotional value for me. However, over time, I could not make it connect with my strong rational mindset.

I realised that an assumption that God had created the world did not clarify anything at all. Even assuming that a creature would have created the world, the questions would become (1) what kind of animal that was, where it came from, what it’s chemical substance was, if it could think… (2) what it’s motivation was to create the world… (3) if it still alive , and so many other questions.

In the area between ontology and ethics it was off course always difficult to accept that an all powerful God allowed so much suffering in the world.

In the purely ethical area I had two additional problems. In 1981 Ronald Reagan became the new president of the United States and soon observers noted that he had, what was called, a teflon-image, meaning that if something positive had happened, all the honours were for him while, if something went wrong, some assistant was to blame. At that moment I noted the similarity with the guilt-concept in Catholicism and Christianity. If something went wrong I was to take the blame while if something went well, I had to praise the Lord. This seemed completely unfair, especially if the all powerful had created myself.

A second ethical problem which bothered me was that the concept of God seemed to imply that we humans had to obey blindly. At school we learned not to accept a “befehl ist befehl” logic but when it came to relgion, suddenly the rules changed. The story of Abraham willing to sacrifice his son Isaac was in that context deeply disturbing. Should an ethically aware not revolt to that creature who called himself God ?

It was also difficult to understand why 2000 years ago a man died on a cross for my sins while I was not yet born.

Further, I could early on in life not believe in a concept of eternal life after death or a resurrection at a certain moment at the end of times.

17 september 2019

Sometimes the question is raised whether there exists a need for a European Islam. Hereafter I defend that at its core there is no need for such a thing and that it certainly is not up to atheists like myself to create something like a European Islam. I do believe that in the margins there might be room for a European “format”. I will explain that at another time in another text.

Of course we should not be naïve and be aware that if European governments apply the principle of separation between state and religion, the outcome may be that in practice Moroccan, Turkish, Saudi or Qatari governments organize Islam in our cities or preach their versions of Islam in our land. We should ensure that this does not happen.

What we can however offer to the Islam in Europe is a critical dialogue with Islam. Such a critical dialogue is not possible in its homelands, be it Saudi-Arabia or Iran. We can question the key values and their underpinning, their sources and the basic reasonings. We can question whether practices are really religious or rather cultural. However, again we should not be naïve.

In November 2014 the eminent Flemish professors Rik Torfs and Etienne Vermeersch gave an interview in the Flemish newspaper De Standaard. Earlier, Etienne Vermeersch, renowned atheist, had in another discussion with a hijab wearing muslima on television, stated in a very affirmative way that the Quran did not impose the wearing of the hijab. In the interview in de Standaard of November 2014, Rik Torfs, professor at (and at that moment also Rector of) the KUL questioned why the atheist professor tried to convince the Muslima of his point of view. According to the catholic professor, there was no reason why the atheist professor would intervene in what the catholic professor called an internal religious debate. According to me, Vermeersch answered correctly that his only intention was to correct a wrong statement by the muslima. Whether Vermeersch was correct with his statement on the hijab is in this context irrelevant. What we see at work is how an overall “rationalist” catholic professor tries to stonewall religious discussions against an atheist discours.

In his book “Snow”, the Turkish Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk describes a discussion with a muslima who states that “when God makes a clear and definite command, it’s not a matter for ordinary mortals to question”. However , she adds : “but do not assume from this that our religion leaves no room for discussion.” But she concludes : “I will say that I’m not prepared to discuss my faith with an atheist – or even a secularist. I beg your pardon.” (page 114)

These two examples demonstrate a refusal by religious people to discuss the religious phenomenon with outsiders. Religious people might prefer to flee (hide) in their “mental parallel-communities”, but that is something the Free, Critical West should not allow.