Hiding behind one finger and Banu Islam

Both my presentations were lengthy ones, but I have to admit, I learned more from two very short comments on my speeches than what I tried to impart through these very speeches.

The “hiding behind one finger” comment came from a woman whose name I forgot to ask while seeking her permission to use the phrase in my column. A volunteer in a Muslim organization, this Danish woman told us: “Here in Denmark most of the Muslims hide behind one finger. They respond to everything with ‘I am Muslim!' Their response to any question is a declaration of Islam as an exclusive identity.”

This comment was made in response to my suggestion that “identity” is a Western construct and does not necessarily correspond to an external reality. I based my suggestion on two observations. One belonged to Abdolkarim Soroush, a famed Iranian philosopher. About two years ago I interviewed Professor Soroush about religion and war, and he told me that a particular verse in the Holy Quran distinguishes between “religion as faith” and “religion as identity.” “Identities necessarily clash. Faiths necessarily coexist,” he told me.

Soroush's distinction of religion as faith and as identity is based on a rather esoteric verse in Surah Hujurat. “The desert Arabs say, ‘We believe.' Say, ‘Ye have no faith, but ye [only] say, “We have submitted our wills to God,” for not yet has faith entered your hearts',” reads Quran 49:14. The verse suggests that there are two levels of being a Muslim. At the initial level the newcomer to the faith adopts Islam as an identity, and by time faith enters his heart and he becomes a true believer.

The second observation I mentioned about the “identity” issue belongs to Professor Süleyman Seyfi Öğün. Öğün has written several pieces on his premise that “identities are a gift of modernity to us. The ancient world was without any identity. Instead it was built on a network of ‘belonging,' most of which was centered on localities. Modernization destroyed this world of belong through its corrupting effect. In a sense, identities are formed in order to fill that vacuum.”

According to Öğün, Ottoman society was a society of no identities but provided a sense of belonging. This explains, to a certain extent, the success of the Ottoman system in keeping all those different ethnic, religious and linguistic communities under its rule for over 600 years in relative peace: They did not have identities that would clash, and they all felt they belonged to the same overarching House of Osman.

If for 1,400 years Islam did not provide a sense of identity but a sense of belonging, can we claim that the clash of identities that we observe in the world is Islamic in nature?

A second response to me came from Asmat Mujaddedi, a son of Afghan leader Pir Sibghatullah Mujaddedi. Asmat Mujaddedi said the kind of people who regard Islam as an identity can mainly be called “tribal Muslims.” “All their acts are on tribal lines. Their rules are not Islamic, but tribal. We may call these radicals Banu Islam,” he said.

Banu Islam is a very strong, very innovative neologism. It corresponds to all the necessary meanings some Westerners load to terms such as “Islamist,” “jihadist,” “Muslim extremist” and so on, and it does not have the derogatory and denigrating connotations they have. It is also familiar to the Middle Eastern tribal context.

I thank both respondents for their contribution to my vocabulary and understanding of the identity issue.