Kalamna - Middle East Studies at NYU

My main academic interest centers on how Islamic law was altered (read: ruptured, dismantled, reified, codified, desiccated, displaced, etc.) by the forces of colonialism in the late 19th and early 20th century.

This semester I wrote a paper on the development of Anglo-Muhammadan Law in colonial India in the 19th century.

It provides a really good example of the distorting effect that colonialism had on Islamic law -- something that is often forgotten.

Basically, Anglo-Muhammadan law was a (by)product of the colonial encounter. It was a fusion of elements of British common law, Islamic law, customary law, etc. that developed -- over a long period of time -- into an entirely new construct.

I think this is what makes Anglo Muhammadan Law so interesting. In other words, the British did not merely displace the legal system as it had existed under the Mughals. Rather, they selectively appropriated and interpreted elements of Islamic law to their own liking, creating something new in the process.

Charles Hamilton (d.1792) published a translation of part of al-Hidāya in 1791, which was originally authored by al-Marghīnānī, a well respected twelfth century Ḥanafī jurist.

Islamic law, as practiced in the pre-colonial period, was characterized by ikhtilāf, or a diversity of opinions.

Since Islamic texts rarely offered definitive answers, translation aimed to simplify their ambiguities. In fact, in order to deal with this diversity of contradictory opinions in al-Hidāya, Hamilton decided to prioritize the students' decisions over the teachers' decisions.

Translators also paraphrased Islamic texts, or cut out parts of them, or simply made unintentional errors. Since Hamilton took such extensive liberties in editing al-Hidāya, he actually created a new text, which assumed a new authority that it never had.

Since translated texts did not cover all issues, the British introduced precedent to the legal system. The decisions of Anglo-Muhammadan courts were recorded and published -- and through this process a literature about precedent accumulated.

One of the last acts of translation was renaming Anglo-Muhammadan law "Muhammadan law," which suggested (among other things) that the process of translation described above had never occurred.

Later, Anglo-Muhammadan became a lens which blurred interpretations of earlier Islamicate history / Islamic law.

Although the balance of power within Egyptian domestic politics is still very much up in the air, Egypt's post-revolutionary foreign policy is beginning to crystallize. Egypt's foreign policy under Mubarak played a somewhat minor - if any - role in fomenting the flames of revolution back in January and February. Certainly there was some modicum of popular discontent with the Mubarak regime's alliance with Israel and the United States, but these concerns certainly did not drive the revolution that forced Mubarak from power.

Egypt's foreign policy under the transitional government is breaking somewhat from the old alliances forged by the Mubarak regime. The most ovbious indicator of this break from the past is Egypt's role in negotiating a deal between Fatah and Hamas two weeks ago. Egypt had been attemtping to midwife an agreement between the two Palestinian factions for four years to no avail. There were accusations that Egypt was not an honest broker throughout the process, as it allegedly favored Fatah at the expense of Hamas. Yet not three months after the Egyptian transitional government took power, an agreement was struck between Hamas and Fatah through Egyptian mediation. Though it's difficult to know exactly what made the reconciliation possible at this moment, one is led to believe that Egypt's shifting foreign policy goals helped facilitate an agreement.

Egypt has also indicated it is open to closer relations with Iran. Egypt and Iran have not enjoyed diplomatic relations since 1979, when Anwar Sadat provided refuge for the deposed Shah. Iranian cargo ships are now allowed to pass through the Suez Canal, and there are even rumors that both countries are seeking to restore diplomatic relations and return their ambassadors.

The emerging strategic calculus on the part of the post-revolutionary Egyptian government is not entirely surprising. Throughout the last decade, many within Egypt have voiced dissatisfaction with its alliance with Israel, the US, and Saudi Arabia. Many claimed that these alliances limited Egypt's foreign policy options. It also arguably opened the door for countries like Turkey and Qatar to cement their status as independent mediators. As a consequence, these countries have acquired influence at Egypt's expense. How interesting, then, to see Turkey and Qatar invited to Cairo to share in the official announcement of Palestinian reconciliation two weeks ago. Of course, Egypt's options will be perpetually limited in a way that Turkey and Qatar's are not. As we were reminded time and time again throughout news coverage of Egypt's revolution, Egypt receives over $2 billion annually in US aid. Thus, there will surely be limits to Egyptian overtures to Iran and Hamas.

***I expect this to be my last blog entry, as I am graduating in a week. It's been a pleasure blogging for the department throughout the last two years. I'd like to thank Nadia Khalaf for managing the blog, as well as all the others in the department who have made this blog possible. I would also like to thank the readers. As for me, today I begin my long walk off into the sunset.

This is not a blog about American politics. Hence, I bet you are wondering why I plan to write about the US budget and how it affects us all at the Kevorkian Center. The answer lies in the fact that one of the victims of the bipartisan budget deal struck between President Obama and House Republicans last April happens to be Title VI of the Higher Education Act. According to this report, the deal cuts funding for Title VI by 40%, reducing the total amount of funds from $126 million to $76 million.

Title VI is the Department of Education program that funds Language Resource Centers across the United States, including New York University's Kevoriakian Center for Near Eastern Studies. This pool of money also funds the FLAS fellowships, which allow so many of us to pursue advanced level study in languages like Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. So many of us at the Kevorkian Center have benefiited enormously from FLAS fellowships. Not only do they facilitate language study during the regular academic year at NYU, they also allow many of us to study during the summer in the Middle East. As anyone who has tried to learn Arabic can attest, there is no way to reach a genuine level of advanced proficiency if you don't spend time living and studying amidst native speakers. Furthermore, the cost of independently financing language study halfway around the world makes these generous fellowships an absolute necessity for many of us.

It baffles me that lawmakers have chosen to cut these programs, practically rolling them back to pre-2001 levels. Out of all the things in the 2011 budget - which tops $3 trillion - why cut programs that give such tangible material assistance to graduate students learning languages like Arabic and Persian? Graduate school would literally be out of reach for many students without this funding. Here's to hoping that the Obama administration increases this funding in the fiscal year 2012 budget, which begins October 1st. If these levels become the new normal, lots of area studies programs and graduate students will be in serious trouble.

First things first: it is hard to be a blogger without reliable internet. It's also very embarrassing not to have reliable internet in New York. How does that even make sense? Well, I'm not going to explain it here. But I will blame the delay between this 'review' and the day I saw the film in question (April 30th, at the Tribeca Film Festival) on that particular problem.

Moving on:

Let me first state the obvious: you should watch Koran by Heart. I heard it's going to be on HBO at some point - keep your eye on filmmaker Greg Barker for news there. The story pretty much makes itself - adorable, intelligent, charming children with beautiful voices, competition, long difficult journeys, language barriers, bonds between parents, etc. etc. Somewhere between my last year of high school and my first year of grad school I became the sort of person who cries at the mere mention of 'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition' even though I don't watch the show. So even as I sat there scribbling notes as fast as I could, tears were running down my face (for happy reasons! sad reasons! reasons I can't explain!). Thank God movie theaters are dark.

However, like most students in this field, I lost my ability to just shut up and let myself be entertained a long time ago. Just recently I walked into my youngest brother and sister's dance competition to see a team of primarily white suburban New Jersey girls performing a very intricate, skilled rendition of some sort of Bollywood/Bharatanatyam dance, plus requisite high kicks and triple turns...to Arabic music. In bright orange harem pants, belly shirts, and scarves. The oldest members of the team were teenagers, and they were all really, really good. Every detail perfectly executed and perfectly in sync. But ahh...the headache came immediately.

So here are my complaints about what was otherwise one of the most promising examples I've seen of a blooming genre in film, I'll call it Movies-to-Make-You-Like-Muslims- closely related to Movies-to-Explain-Islam, often with nobler intentions, though often equally misguided.

1) The three main characters in the film are ten year old children from Senegal, Tajikistan, and the Maldives. For some reason, we never see a city or town name for these places, though the footage from each child's home country is made to stand up against Cairo, an imposing cityscape that gets its own sped-up, frantic, urban-life montage. Since Nabiollah Saidov from Tajikistan travels within his country, we do get a sense of the difference between his own very rural area and the capital city where he hopes to attend boarding school. The audience never learns which particular island Rifdha Rasheed hails from in the Maldives. Since most people in the U.S. have likely not even heard of the Maldives, we can maybe offer Barker a pass for just letting American audiences know that it exists! In the Indian Ocean! - even if these audiences never learn, say, whether the Maldives is one island, two islands, or twenty six. But the footage from Djamil's home in Senegal really bugged me. It seemed somehow unfair, and too easily in line with stereotypical portrayals of Sub Saharan Africa. Senegal is represented by a village setting, and that setting alone - Egypt by its largest city, and that city alone.

2) The filmmakers also left out some rather important details. For example, though Rifdha is a very successful student who wants to be an explorer, and her mother clearly wants Rifdha to continue studying science in addition to religion, one moment of serious tension in the film comes when Rifdha's father says that his dream for his daughter is that she'll get a religious education and ultimately be a housewife. In a Q&A session after the film, one of the Associate Producers told us we should all know that Rifdha's mother works. Why wasn't that information in the film?

Secondly: While watching we learn that Nabiollah's rural, one-room school has been shut down as part of a government crackdown on "Islamic extremism" in Tajikistan. Again, in the Q&A after the film some audience members asked for clarification. Was this some sort of blanket crackdown? Did it have more to do with politics? Or was Nabiollah's teacher really promoting extremism? The answer turned out to be that the government in Tajikistan was simply shutting down all small, rural schools dependent on the instruction of only one teacher, since it is difficult for the state to supervise or control what happens in such classes.

I'm not sure why a documentary that was otherwise well-crafted, beautifully filmed, compelling, and clearly assembled by people familiar with the material needs to have these sort of slips - to me it looks like sloppiness, since I don't think it was their intention to portray Nabiollah's school as a bastion of extremism (the film actually includes a very sympathetic interview with Nabiollah's teacher after the shutdown), or to imply that Dakar looks like Djamil's village, or that Rifdha's father is certain to have the final word on her future (or that his word is uncomplicated and unchanging).

Oh, well.The children are adorable, their voices really are beautiful, and according to my latest searches, you can't watch them on YouTube. All complaints aside - I recommend it.

Just be prepared for a few awkward moments, one of which was entirely out of the filmmakers' control. Our little heroes are competing in last summer's Cairo-based annual international Qur'an reciting competition. The competition always happens during Ramadan, and the winners are always announced on Lailat al Qadr...by the President. Yes - Hosni Mubarak makes a cameo appearance. How quickly it has become strange to see him playing the role he always envisioned for himself: a benevolent father figure, watching over his children and grandchildren.

Nabiollah, the only one to recite at the awards ceremony, had this to say: "That's when I realized it was a big deal, because usually presidents don't come for small things."

On one of our last days in Doha for the Terana Summit, we took a brief trip to the industrial area where migrant workers live. We arrived just as Friday prayers were ending and the market was beginning to fill with bodies. Men carried their prayer mats with them as they looked for ways to pass the afternoon, a rare chance to rest. The industrial area doesn't include a cinema, or really anything other than a few stores, some restaurants, and mosques. The fancy malls of commercial Doha - the Doha most visitors see - are forbidden to 'single men.' No one wants to be reminded of the workers who make that shiny fantasyland possible. I think the purpose of our own trip, arranged by our host, Georgetown Qatar, was just to let us look around a bit and see that somewhat-hidden, other side of Doha, but it so happened that there was a journalist in our midst.

Nadia Zaffar casually asked a few men about their experiences in Doha...and within minutes we were surrounded by a crowd of workers each trying to tell us his own story. Since I don't speak Urdu, and could really only catch the gist of what was being said (there was enough Arabic thrown in to know when the men were discussing a particularly awful supervisor, for example), my strongest impression was of a flood. It was a flood of complaints, of stories, of pain, even the odd joke. These men were overflowing.

Nadia captured some of what she heard in this short post. I hope you will take the time to read it.

Though most of the men we met that afternoon were from India, Pakistan, or Nepal, we did run into one Egyptian worker as we were leaving. "See you in Tahrir Square," he told us.

Two months have passed since the mass uprising in Egypt toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Since then, the supreme military council has commissioned a committee to amend the constitution, and a referendum was held to approve these constitutional amendments. Yet despite the euphoria that swept the nation two months ago, there are many concerns that the revolution's momentum has been stumbling of late.

For instance, the supreme military council led by Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi has come under fire recently for supposedly dragging its feet in prosecuting former Mubarak cronies. Mubarak himself may be constrained by house arrest in Sharm el-Sheikh, but there is little doubt that the vast network of patronage that underpinned his rule has yet to be fully dismantled. Furthermore, the military council's recent warning that continued demonstrations and strikes will not be tolerated certainly hasn't won it many new fans. The same can be said about the arrest of a blogger who has dared to criticized the military council's leadership.

Another source of frustration are the constitutional amendments that many considered to have been rushed through. Though the referendum approved these amendments by a solid majority of 77%, many of the leaders who were at the forefront of the uprising campaigned vigorously against it them. Since these amendments call for elections by September, they naturally privilege the parties that are more organized at the moment. This would give a significant advantage to movements like the Muslim Brotherhood and remnants of the NDP. Conversely, holding elections so soon would pose a challenge to many of the younger, less organized movements that still have not formed adequate cohesion following the uprising. This is why many of them campaigned against the amendments.

The military has pledged to transfer power to a civilian government after elections are held in September. Yet it remains to be seen if an elected civilian government will carry the revolution to its completion, or whether it will be subject to the military at the end of the day. The 18-day uprising that ousted Mubarak was certainly an astonishing achievement in and of itself. Yet clearly, the revolution has a lot more work to do.

One of the highlights of the Terana Summit, which whisked me away to Doha for the past week, was our trip to Al Jazeera. After the requisite tour of Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, not to mention the 'museum area' featuring ancient (it's from the 90's!) Al Jazeera gear and the last effects of Al Jazeera journalists who died when American forces bombed the Baghdad bureau, we headed into a meeting room to chat with the new media team. I'll post a more detailed rundown of that conversation later.

For now, let me direct you to some videos (shot by yours truly) of the next discussion, featuring some more big-whig characters, like Satnam Matharu, the Director of International Relations and Communications, Aref Hijawi, Director of Programs at Al Jazeera Arabic and TV presenter/anchor Ghida Fakhry, who looks exactly as glamorous in person as she does on TV. She explained the relationship between Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, something that has confused the channel's oldest and newest fans alike. Aref Hijawi spoke, er, shouted very candidly about the Palestine Papers, which he called Al Jazeera's biggest mistake to date.

The rest of the discussion was dominated by one of the lingering questions about Al Jazeera: is their main goal to report the news, or is it to influence what happens on the ground? What does it mean to be impartial? Do Al Jazeera reporters want to be impartial?
Another strand of that discussion revolved around whether it was fair to call Al Jazeera the "Fox News" of the Arabic-speaking world. Of course, the answer from everyone at Al Jazeera was a resounding 'no.' Matharu emphasized what he saw as the difference between Fox News and Al Jazeera: one imposes an ideology from top down, the other - if it encourages action - encourages action only through the voices of ordinary people and the reality on the ground. I began to wonder how a similar discussion with Fox News representatives might go....

Tablet Magazine recently published an interesting article about the Iranian Jewish community of Los Angeles. Themes include the departure of many Jews from Iran after the revolution of 1979, their arrival in Los Angeles, cultural differences between Iranian and Ashkenazi Jews in L.A., and the present state of the Jewish community.

Read the full article from Point of No Return via Tablet Magazine.

Check it out:

Many Persian families found their way to Sinai Temple, on Wilshire Boulevard, a popular stop for many Persian Jews arriving in Los Angeles after the revolution. By then, the Conservative synagogue had migrated from its original home near downtown to a modern building equidistant between Beverly Hills and Westwood. From the start, there were culture clashes between the Americans and the Persians. “They were breast-feeding their children in shul, during davening, and that was disturbing to a lot of people,” says Maurice Lamm, the rabbi emeritus of Beth Jacob, an Orthodox congregation in Beverly Hills. “So, Hillel Silverman, the rabbi there, was talking to me about how to handle it, and I said, don’t worry about it, let them come here.” Lamm offered David Shofet a room where he could hold a minyan and encouraged him to bring his father to Los Angeles. But Sinai’s associate rabbi Zvi Dershowitz, whose family fled Czechoslovakia a month before the Nazi invasion, campaigned to give his new congregants a home. “All I knew was that they were Jews, and we had to help,” Dershowitz explains now, waving away questions. But the clashes went on, growing almost senselessly petty. There were people upset that families were coming in late to services, that people were talking to each other in Farsi rather than English, that women were ululating at bar mitzvahs and weddings, and most infamously, that Persian regulars who were not synagogue members were taking home cookies after Friday night Oneg Shabbat services. Longstanding members resented the fact that the strangers weren’t trying to fit in.

While I wait for some videos to upload - painfully slowly - from some interesting conversations yesterday at Al Jazeera Headquarters here in Doha, I want to quickly point anyone who read my last post to some of the articles and interviews Tik has done since being released from detention in Syria on April 2nd.

Although I'm very happy that Tik is finally home, I'm not just highlighting these interviews because I know him or because he's a fellow Middlebury student or because I want to promote my former Arabic students, et cetera. His testimony is a very special opportunity for us to hear about the sort of things one sees and hears while being held in a Syrian prison. Tik is very aware of the protection his American passport afforded him, and careful to remind others of what happens to prisoners without that protection.

New links are regularly added to the Facebook page created when Tik first went missing: some in print, some audio and some video.

I don't know if the recent events in Syria will lead to regime change on the scale of what happened in Tunisia or Egypt. But judging from the way in which Mr. Assad has handled the protests, and the speech he delivered on Wednesday, it appears that he has not taken advantage of the opportunity to learn from Ben Ali's and Mubarak's mistakes.

Especially given the clumsy way in which Mubarak addressed the Egyptian protesters demands, one would think Assad could be a bit more tactful. Mubarak would repeatedly invoke foreign conspiracies and the vendettas of certain satellite television channels to belittle the demands of the protesters. He also thought that the excessive use of force would be able to squash the uprising before it reached its tipping point (remember those camels racing through Tahrir square?). He also frequently cited the 'progress' that Egypt had been making over the years in terms of economic and political reform, although always careful to throw in the caveat that it needed to happen quicker. Needless to say, that strategy did not fare well for him.

So how bizarre, then, to see Assad apparently following the same strategy. So far, the excessive use of force on the Syrian protesters in Dara'a have ended up generating more protests throughout the country. The hinting of vague, modest reforms sometime in the future will surely not satisfy the protester's demands. Rather, it will likely ensure that the protesters increase their demands. After all, that's been the pattern we have seen in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen.

So how will Assad deal with these protests that are increasingly gathering strength throughout Syria? What lessons has he drawn from Ben Ali and Mubarak? Judging from yesterday's speech, one wonders if he has squandered the opportunity of having almost three whole months to prepare for this moment.

Egyptian writer and activist Nawal El-Saadawi has been making the rounds in NYC the spring, including a lecture and book signing last week here at NYU.  Now, here in Dork World she is more than kind of a big deal, so let's just say a few of my friends/colleagues were riled up like, well, me at a beer garden.

But my favorite encounter was between El-Saadawi and a friend from my undergrad days back in Madison, Paul (who is currently a PhD student at Rutgers).  I'll just let the picture and summary of their dialogue speak for themselves:

A few weeks ago I realized that an Egyptian Youtube tribute to the international media mentioned Ahmed Abdallah, who I met in a strange and therefore memorable way when I was eighteen. I've had the idea of becoming a journalist on and off over the years – that was an on year. He gave the usual offers of help, left his card. For various reasons I won't mention here, I never used those contacts. It turns out he was among those who disappeared into the bowels of Egypt's state security system during the protests to emerge later, bruised and beaten. It would be a stretch to call Ahmed Abdallah a friend. Even so, it's unsettling, the first time a name in a headline corresponds with a name from your personal memories.

Later, friends and entirely unrelated people started posting a disturbing video of Abdallah Dawesteshy, an Alexandrian photographer who works with one of my friends. I interviewed him back in 2009 about music, change, history and social commentary. It is hard to reconcile my videos, filmed at his office in the Alexandrian library, with the dark and grainy one where he lies bleeding outside the city's state security center, a live bullet lodged somewhere in his chest. The injury kept him in the hospital for several days.

And then this headline appeared: "Middlebury student missing in Syria"

Last year, I was an Arabic teaching assistant at Middlebury College, which is also where I graduated in 2009. The group of students who were evacuated from Alexandria earlier this year were my students last year. The favorite topic of conversation, whether during our “conversation hours” or at other events, was study abroad. What was the program like? What was Alexandria like? What advice did I have for them?

The Middlebury program has changed a lot since I was there in its first year, so I didn't like to talk too much about my own experiences. But there was one piece of advice I was willing to repeat to anyone who would hear it: make your own connections with the city. Get out, escape the program if you have to. Follow your own interests; whatever clubs or activities or hobbies occupy your time at home should occupy you there as well.

I usually added that political activism is trickier, and they should be careful. But having watched many students go abroad, befriend the same dorm-mates who were hand-picked by our program administrators, and return complaining that they had missed having intellectual conversations (not due to limited vocabularies, but the limits of their conversational partners), I was concerned that too many students – even some of the brightest, most active and adventurous students – were allowing the parameters of the program to define their experiences in and impressions of Alexandria, or even Egypt as a whole.

I don't imagine my ranting had a large impact on anyone, but I was pleased when I saw that Tik and a few others, after being evacuated from Alexandria, only increased their connections with Alexandrians and (presumably) other Egyptians. I was actually hoping we could link this blog to the Mideastreports site Tik started with other returning students. For the moment, and for Tik's safety, friends have now made the site private and emptied the public Google documents that formed the basis of those reports.

I was never anyone's teacher, but I did watch Tik and other students grow over the course of a year, and I was especially proud of what I saw when they came back from Alexandria. Being a weepy sort, I even got a little teary when I saw Tik's photos and video footage from the demonstrations. I certainly applauded his decision to finish the year abroad, this time at a program in Damascus. I didn't expect him to become the first person-I-knew to go missing. No one did.

The latest news on Tik is that he is 'safe and well,' and that the Syrian authorities have located him. High-level authorities are working on Tik's case, and the story reached national media last Friday. But his parents have not been told where he is, or anything more specific about his condition. As his stepmother Andi Loyd said in a recent update, diplomacy is a slow-moving process.

Time moves especially slowly when you have unanswered questions: What was Tik doing when he was arrested? Why was he arrested? What did Syrian authorities make of this American student, likely speaking a a semester's worth of Egyptian colloquial Arabic, piled on a couple of years of Modern Standard Arabic? Why is the standard 'pressure from the State Department' not the magic key to an instantaneous release? Is his case at all influenced by or connected to that of Mohamed Radwan, the Egyptian-American also being detained in Syria?

Just one question is enough to slow time to a painful crawl. It's the one most likely playing over and over in his parents' minds: when will Tik come home?

The UN Security council has authorized a no-fly zone over Libya, which permits airstrikes but prohibits "a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory." Meanwhile, al-Qadaffi's forces gained ground against the rebels on Thursday.

The full resolution is not yet available at the UN website, however The Guardian has published the full text.

As a story published in The New York Times suggested, the implications of the resolution are far from clear. Is it too late for the rebels? How significant and forceful will the foreign intervention be? What will the consequences of the airstrikes be? Will they be sufficient to push al-Qadaffi from power? If not, then what will foreign intervention accomplish in the long term?

The vote, which came after rising calls for help from the Arab world and anguished debate in Washington, left unanswered many critical questions about who would take charge, what role the United States would play and whether there was still enough time to stop Colonel Qaddafi from recapturing Benghazi and crushing a rebellion that had once seemed likely to drive him from power. After the vote, President Obama met with the National Security Council to discuss the possible options, European officials said. He also spoke by telephone on Thursday evening with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the White House said.

Most of the protests that have been sweeping the region have been directed against aging autocrats that have monopolized power for decades. How interesting, then, to see an increasingly active protest movement being organized in Iraq. Unlike Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen, reasonably free and fair elections were held in Iraq just last March. So what are these protests about?

On the most basic level, these protests have been driven by corruption and the lack of services the Iraqi government provides for its constituents. Eight years after the US-led invasion, many areas in Iraq still don't have sufficient electricity. Corruption is rampant, with Iraq ranking 175th out of 178 countries worldwide by Transparency International.

But as Mashriq Abbas notes in al-Hayat, these protests are about something even more fundamental: the very structure of the post-2003 political order. During the last eight years, Iraqi politics have been governed by a sectarian logic. The various ministries have at times been run as sectarian fiefdoms. One's relationship to vast networks of patronage often determine one's status, rather than one's merit or level of expertise.

Furthermore, although Iraq is governed by a parliamentary democracy, there really is no "government / opposition" dynamic in parliament. After elections, the various competing parliamentary blocs work out deals so that almost every bloc is somehow represented in the cabinet. This is done in the name of "national unity". Even Ayad Allawi, whose 'Iraqiyya' bloc won the most amount of seats in the elections last year, chose to take a made-up position in the new government rather than play the role of the opposition. The result has been a government with an ideologically incoherent political program. As a consequence, the government has not worked towards solving substantive issues like providing essential services to the people.

So since there is no "opposition" in Iraqi politics, but just a handful of parties struggling to get a piece of the pie in order to reinforce their patronage networks, there is often no voice to keep the government honest. This is the void that the protesters are filling. So the protest movement is not simply about corruption and lack of services. Although those are certainly the core issues, the more fundamental concern is the presence of an opposition party willing to speak up for those who don't have a seat at the table.

In my last post, I mentioned Vogel's discussion of codification of the sharīʿa in Saudi Arabia. This made me think of a separate methodological issue, which I have failed to mention until now.

One thing I explicitly want to avoid slipping into, is (implicitly) defining what is "genuinely" Islamic and what is un-Islamic. This is clearly irrelevant to my study of sharīʿa.

In studying the sharīʿa, one must endeavor, as Mahmoud Ayyub put it, to "remove his shoes before entering the mosque."*

I think this can be reasonably accomplished by distinguishing between sharīʿa and fiqh. Samuel L. Hayes III and Frank E. Vogel elaborate on this crucial distinction in Islamic Law and Finance: Religion, Risk and Return (1998):

A distinction is possible between the perfect, immutable Divine Law itself as revealed in the Qur'an and the Sunna, called sharīʿa (literally "the Way"), and the sum of human efforts to apprehend that law, some of which may be in error or at least in dispute, called fiqh (literally "understanding."

For example, while God knows His perfect Law in its last detail, human beings often differ about that Law, particularly in details. Many schools of thought see little point in differentiating between sharīʿa and fiqh, since they believe that fiqh is the only valid means to know the sharīʿa and that any apparent flaws in fiqh are divinely intended. Yet the distinction remains useful and valid.

The outsider who wishes to comment on Islamic legal phenomena in history without questioning either the perfection of the Divine Law or the truth of Muslim beliefs may find it indispensable.**

Overall, while remaining respectful, at the same time, (as I already mentioned), I do not see myself as an apologist for the sharīʿa.
______
*cited by Edmund Burke III, 1979 original phrase does not relate directly.
**Hayes and Vogel, 23. This distinction is a little simplistic, but enough to give the reader a general picture.

As I mentioned in my previous post, proponents of the Saudi codification project argue that the project will bring significant benefits.

Codification could help make the sharīʿa more relevant to 'modern' issues, such as adapting to the growth of the global Islamic finance industry; the Saudi legal system has recently come under fire numerous times for alleged human rights violations.

Overhauling the justice system could help relieve the strain on currently overburdened courts, in part by establishing new criminal, family, traffic, etc. courts. New, better-trained judges would help make trials more fair, consistent, transparent and help establish consensus in rulings on important issues.

Of course, there is significant resistance to change within the Kingdom. Codification risks interfering with the independence of judges, for example.

Frank Vogel's Islamic Law and Legal System: Studies of Saudi Arabia (2000) is a substantive study on the legal system in Saudi Arabia; Vogel spent five years there conducting research (1982-1987). (he retired from Harvard Law School in 2007.)

As Vogel makes clear, the debate on codification is nothing new and has long been perceived as threatening.

He elaborates:

As we have amply seen, codification not only runs afoul of a long-standing allocation of constitutional powers that makes the ʿūlamāʾ the legislators in private law and criminal law matters. It also offers offense to the deeply related notion that Islamic law is microcosmic in substance and application, a notion cherished by Saudi ʿūlamāʾ and by other Saudis, ruler and ruled.

In the past Islamic legal systems existed that were much more macrocosmic in their practice, and [...] nowadays theories exist that attempt to legitimate modern democratic or liberal constitutional models as fully Islamic. Such findings as these make clear that Islamic law itself is not unalterably opposed to codification, and that there are many possible ways by which the Saudi system could evolve to include codification or a close substitute for it.*

*Vogel, 361-2.

Maria Bustillos recently published a piece in The Awl on the Tennessee sharīʿa bill. She points out how absurd sections of the bill are. She distinguishes between fiqh and sharīʿa (more on that in future posts), alludes to juridical pluralism, the effect of colonialism on the sharīʿa, etc.

For those unfamiliar with The Awl check out this article.

Bustillos' main source appears to be Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl's The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (2005). Overall, Bustillos makes comparisons to Christianity, but doesn't do enough to relate the sharīʿa to other religious traditions, namely Judaism. This brings me to a more general point.

While the anti-sharīʿa cases I have written about consist of polemic and discrimination against Muslims, a further problem is that the sharīʿa is all too often discussed as a monolithic, isolated entity. This is highly misleading, because it suggests strict boundaries which separate Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Historically, the reality was far more complex. Therefore, I call for more discussions in the news media to place the sharīʿa in relation to and in dialogue with other religious traditions.

To be fair, the similarities between religious traditions, say, Judaism and Islam, might seem painfully obvious and perhaps trivial to point out; however, my point is that these similarities merit further exploration because they tend to be severely underemphasized.

Rabbi Seth Adelson made a point about the Oklahoma sharīʿa case in November:

On Tuesday there was a ballot question in Oklahoma regarding shari’a law. Did you all hear about this? 70% of voters in Oklahoma voted to “ban” the use of Muslim law, known as Shari’a, by judges in Oklahoma. Now, there are obvious legal problems with this measure, and they will surely be worked through in court.

Shari’a, like halakhah, is an internal Muslim religious matter. It is not binding on non-Muslims, just like halakhah is not binding on non-Jews. The subjects that shari’a law addresses are similar to those addressed by halakhah - religious observances such as diet and prayer, areas of criminal law, torts, family law, and so forth. The Muslim courts that deal with shari’a are similar to what we call in Judaism a “beit din.” The very word shari’a means “the way” or “path,” which is exactly what halakhah means in Hebrew.

Now, how would we feel as Jews if New York State were to “ban” the use of halakhah? I know, it sounds ridiculous, right? But that is, more or less, what the state of Oklahoma has done. Until now, no judge in an Oklahoma court has used shari’a in a court decision, and this law would prevent them from doing so in the future.

Since 2003, the politics of Arabic language satellite television have been defined by the rivalry between the Qatar-based al-Jazeera and the Dubai-based/Saudi-funded al-Arabiya. Indeed, al-Arabiya's sole raison d'etre since its founding in 2003 is to counter al-Jazeera. Needless to say, the last eight years have seen some rather interesting media wars between the two.

A poll released last week will be sure to up the ante. The poll was conducted by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and focused on ascertaining which news sources Egyptians tuned into during the protests. The BBG is a Washington based group that apparently used regional subcontracting to carry out the actual polling of 502 Egyptians in Cairo and Alexandria. The results indicate that 65% of Egyptians turned to al-Arabiya to get the majority of their news during the uprising, while only 22% turned to al-Jazeera. I'm sorry, but these results are just not credible.

Anyone who has spent any time at all in an Arabic-speaking country where al-Jazeera is available realizes that it is by far the most popular satellite news channel in the Arab world. During my time in Cairo this past summer, al-Jazeera was simply ubiquitous. Even the World Cup (which I watched religiously) was broadcast on al-Jazeera Sport. I can't remember ever seeing anyone watch al-Arabiya.

Another reason why I have a hard time accepting the credibility of this poll is because its results indicate that Egyptians deemed Nile TV - Egypt's state channel - to be more credible than al-Jazeera. Now, it goes without saying that al-Jazeera certainly has its biases and limitations (doesn't everyone?). But to say that Egyptians put more trust in their state television channel than al-Jazeera is simply laughable. Until Mubarak was practically out the door, Nile TV was continuously downplaying the scale of the uprising in order to discourage popular support. Furthermore, the poll indicates that al-Hurra was more popular and more credible than al-Jazeera during the protests. I find this extremely hard to believe, to say the least.

So what's going on here? My guess is that a significant part has to do with al-Jazeera being blocked by the Egyptian authorities for a week during the uprising. The polling took place between February 4 and February 10. al-Jazeera was blocked during a good part of that period. I wish I could come up with a more sophisticated critique that focuses on the poll's methodological flaws, but it's been a while since I took statistics and econometrics as an undergraduate. Therefore, I'll just stick to my instinctual critique that this poll surely cannot be credible.

Two recent articles about the sharīʿa are of particular interest.

A new bill would make practicing the sharīʿa a felony in Tennessee, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The bill is interesting in that it explicitly targets the sharīʿa and attempts to precisely define it. According to a Washington Post blog, the bill was introduced last week by Sen. Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro) and state Rep. Judd Matheny (R-Tullahoma).

In my next post, I will take a more in depth look at this bill and the issues surrounding it. For now, here are some noteworthy excerpts, courtesy of Elizabeth Tenety of the Washington Post blog:

sharīʿa, as defined and understood by traditional and authoritative sharīʿa scholars and leaders, is a legal-political-military doctrinal system combined with certain religious beliefs; further, sharīʿa is based historically and traditionally on a full corpus of law and jurisprudence termed fiqh and usul al-fiqh, respectively, dealing with all aspects of a sharīʿa-adherent's personal and social life and political society.

sharīʿa as a political doctrine requires all its adherents to actively support the establishment of a political society based upon sharīʿa as foundational or supreme law and the replacement of any political entity not governed by sharīʿa with a sharīʿa political order.

sharīʿa requires all its adherents to actively and passively support the replacement of America's constitutional republic, including the representative government of this state with a political system based upon sharīʿa.

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In Saudi Arabia, legal experts are working on a project to codify the sharīʿa. On Thursday, an article was published by the Media Line / Jerusalem Post, elaborating on the project. Overall, codification aims to render rulings in criminal, civil and domestic matters more consistent.

"Codifying Islamic law has nothing to do with Muslim identity, but doing this [codification] will be more adherent and meritorious to the Islamic law," explained Professor al-Shāmī, a supporter of the initiative, and Professor of Comparative Jurisprudence and Islamic Studies at The Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi.

Most interestingly, al-Shāmī compared the Saudi project to the Mecelle, i.e. the Ottoman civil code of the late 19th century which represented an effort to codify the sharīʿa.

"Islamic law can be codified, and has already been codified during the Ottoman dynasty. Many Muslim countries did the same as seen in Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. Although a codified sharīʿa is nearly ready for implementation, the kingdom is still struggling to find qualified judges and deal with resistance from current judges who believe only they can interpret Islamic law," he said.

More on this as well in my next post.

As violence in Libya continues, the international community is considering punitive measures. On a lighter note, it seems nearly impossible to resist the temptation to mock and ridicule Muʿamar al-Qadhāfī. His eccentric personality and unique sense of style are the most obvious targets. Jon Stewart made fun of al-Qadhāfī on "Daily Show" last night, comparing him to a "1991 Lionel Richie."

Life magazine recently published a really interesting series of photos depicting a young al-Qadhāfī. One picture, dated 1970, depicts him sitting with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, President Abdul Rahman Iryani of the Yemen Arab Republic and President Abdel Nasser of Egypt.

Check it out: (please excuse the ridiculous title)

Foreign Policy magazine also published an interesting photo essay.

Finally, here are some other slideshows of interest:

This little interlude from the wonderful people of Jadaliyya pretty much says everything I could want to say about the aging rulers of Egyptian cinema...and those other guys who won't give up the spotlight.

Tamer Hosni's fangirls are not the only people likely to find themselves turned off by their favorite tunes these days. Yesterday, the popular CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper sent out this message on Twitter: "Why would #Beyonce and #MariahCarey sing for Gadhafi's son at a private party? How much did they get paid? #ac360 10p"

The private performances Cooper was referring to happened a while ago (2010 for Beyoncé, 2009 for Mariah), and backlash was fairly minimal. But that was back when most Americans who had heard of Gaddafi were more familiar with his eccentric fashion choices than his human rights record.

Now that we have all seen Gaddafi threatening the Libyan people with mass chaos, death and destruction on live television (or at least Youtube), the situation is a little different.

Cooper was quickly echoed by a number of others accusing the stars of accepting "blood money" from the dicatator's family. Some called out Lionel Ritchie and Usher for their own Gaddafi performances. While many Twitter users harshly condemned the stars, @sumyasalem took a softer, punnier approach:

@Beyonce show the people in #Libya your "Halo" and donate money at feb17.info hospitals need medical supplies and could really use your help

@UsherRaymondIV "OMG" you performed for a sadist! make up for it and donate to the people dying in #Libya in need of med supplies feb17.info

@UsherRaymondIV <3'd your song "More" we know u make "more" than the avg american. Ppl in #Libya could use ur help. Donate at feb17.info

@mariahcarey people are dying in #Libya right now and they need your help -- donate at feb17.info or say "Bye Bye" to all your Libyan fans!

So far, none of them are scrambling for their checkbooks. The stars look particularly bad in light of another of that morning's stories. Apparently, Lady Gaga traded exclusive distribution rights for a special edition of her "Born This Way" single for a commitment from Target. Not only will Target stop contributing to groups that advocate against LGBT rights, but will instead fund groups championing those rights.

I'm not a huge Gaga fan (in fact, this is the highest concentration of American pop stars you will ever find in a post from me), and not too long ago I was joking about how, not when, Gaga would most likely cash in on the revolutions sweeping the Middle East. But I am impressed. Most pop stars who support a "cause" do so by writing forgettable music, making speeches, allowing advocacy groups to use their image, and performing at one-off benefit concerts. They don't tend to use their own music and the business it generates to pressure major corporations into more ethical policy.

Imagine if stars started making similar deals that pushed corporations to say, drop anti-union policies or operate along BDS guidelines (hey, a girl can dream)! Although Target says the shift is the result of many factors, it seems clear the "Born This Way" deal was among them. Stars like Beyoncé, Mariah, Lionel Ritchie and Usher have more power than many, and as Lady Gaga has shown, they could use that power to support real change. So what's their excuse?

Normally, I'm a firm believer in the idea that one can appreciate art independently of its creator. But some things just make me queasy. Dancing to the tune of Hannibal Gaddafi's private entertainment is one of them.

While I work on Part II of Blacklists & Boycotts, I wanted to share this beautiful, beautiful essay by Libyan writer Hisham Matar in The Guardian.

I particularly love his description of the women in his family as "mad scientists, whisking up egg, honey, olive oil and God-knows-what..." It reminded me of the beauty routines Moroccan writer Fatema Mernissi described in her own memoir, Dreams of Trespass.

One of the things we - as an international community - must take ourselves to task for is allowing ourselves to buy into the idea that Gaddafi is Libya. As hard as it is to get accurate information out of Libya right now, it's even harder for outside observers to see Libya or Libyans as anything other than Gaddafi's victims. What exactly is this country that so many are now dying to see free of its addled but ruthless dictator? It's frankly hard for us to imagine.

Literature is one of the best correctives for that sort of mental gap, if not the best, and it so happens that Arabic Literature (in English) has [in honor of Banipal's highly prescient issue on Libyan Fiction] an excellent rundown of Libyan authors and where you can find their work.

One of the less urgent stories out of Tahrir over the past month was that of Egyptian pop star and heartthrob Tamer Hosny. The hapless singer, already saddled with one-half of an aging autocrat's name, made a big mistake when he called in to an Egyptian talk show during the early days of the protests. Poor Tamer not only defended Mubarak, calling on protesters to return home, but sobbed audibly. Although I cannot confirm this - the audio quality on those youtube recordings is just poor enough to confuse me - many say he even referred to Mubarak as "Papa." Perhaps Tamer internalized the paternalistic rhetoric of Mubarak's regime.

When Tamer later attempted to apologize and speak to the crowd in Tahrir Square about his confusion and change of heart, the crowd not only booed him off the stage but kicked him out of the square entirely. Soon, another teary Tamer video appeared on the web.

Tamer's reception in Tahrir - and a flood of anti-Tamer tweets - prompted Khaled Said admin Wael Ghonim to remind the protesters that they should be understanding and forgiving to those who have had a change of heart. It was a noble statement from Ghonim, but probably did little to convince those who saw all of Tamer's tears - for or against Mubarak - as cynical PR moves.

In the meantime, websites and Facebook groups appeared to document which celebrities either maintained close relations with the Mubarak family or actively supported them during the "January 25 Revolution," as some are calling it. Other big names appear on those lists, such as the ubiquitous film actor Adel Imam, who has appeared in a number of controversial and critical movies over the years. It is hard to imagine an Egypt that truly turns its back on Adel Imam. One wonders if a revolutionary hard-liner would have any movies left to watch, particularly since a number of the names on these blacklists-in-progress belong to other prominent actors.

For now, the blacklists are not attached to any comprehensive calls to action. It is up to the individual to decide whether or not she can now stomach the crooning of a man who cried for Mubarak on national television.

Two bills, which sought to ban foreign law in South Dakota, failed to pass in its legislature on Thursday. Tim Murphy of Mother Jones magazine reported the story on Friday.

Both bills resemble the South Carolina bill. They target foreign and international law, and do not explicitly mention the sharīʿa. (any direct reference to sharīʿa is unfeasable as it would likely be struck down.)

More specifically, House Joint Resolution no. 1004 sought to prohibit "the application of international law, the law of foreign nations, and certain foreign religious or moral codes in the state courts of South Dakota." Similarly, Senate Bill No. 201 sought to "restrict the application of certain foreign laws, legal codes, and system with respect to state legal proceedings."

Banning foreign or international in South Dakota would have interfered with treaties with other countries on child abduction and custody. It would have made it difficult for banks to do business overseas and interfered with Native American tribal courts, among other issues.

One of the sponsors of the bills, Rep. Phil Jensen (R-Rapid City), also tried (unsuccessfully) to introduce legislation that would define abortion as "justifiable homicide."

It's been a while since my last post, so I was hoping to write something exciting about the South Carolina bill. Unfortunately, there are no major developments to report.

In the meantime, there are several issues with the Bill itself.

The South Carolina bill is redundant. It allows religious arbitration courts to function provided that they comply with US law. However, there are already oversight mechanisms in place to make sure that sharīʿa arbitration complies with federal and state law. Michael Helfand, a legal scholar, made a similar observation regarding the Oklahoma case.

Helfand elaborates:

Rex Duncan, a Republican state representative in Oklahoma and a sponsor of the amendment, has explained that part of its purpose is to ban religious forms of arbitration: “Parties would come to the courts and say we want to be bound by Islamic law and then ask the courts to enforce those agreements. That is a backdoor way to get sharīʿa law into courts. There … have been some efforts, I believe, to explore bringing that to America, and it’s dangerous.”"

In reality, such arbitration is well established. For nearly half a century, Jewish, Christian and Muslim tribunals have operated in the United States in concert with government courts. These tribunals preside over matters of religious ritual and also apply religious law to a wide range of disputes between individuals and even commercial entities. Parties, in keeping with shared beliefs and values, can voluntarily agree to submit employment, divorce, contractual and various other types of disputes for resolution. State and federal courts currently treat such religious tribunals as they do all other arbitration panels that litigants can seek out as an alternative to going to court. And, as long as the tribunal and its decisions meet certain standards, government courts routinely “confirm” them — that is, render them legally enforceable.

The US legal system cannot operate in a vacuum and must be aware of norms in international law. As Garett Epps points out, ignoring "foreign law" is perilous and could interfere with U.S. obligations under international treaties.

The South Carolina Bill risks infringing on freedom of religion. Like the Oklahoma bill, it could interfere with marriages, inheritances, burials based on Islamic principles, etc.

These are prime examples of the problems that such bills could raise. Anyway, even if passed, the South Carolina bill is likely to be struck down like the Oklahoma bill.

For US legislators determined to restrict the sharīʿa, this type of approach seems ineffective.

The recent events in Tunisia and Egypt have inspired activists in other localities, and in the past days we have seen protests in Iran, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria, and Wisconsin. Yes, you read that correctly. Wisconsin. I'm not kidding. On Tuesday the home state of the reigning Super Bowl champions saw one of the largest protests in recent memory, and believe it or not, hints of inspiration from Egypt protestors could be seen.

WISCONSIN UNION PROTEST RALLY - DOCUMENTARY from Johnny Clark on Vimeo

In an attempt to address a deficit in the current budget, Gov. Scott Walker proposed a bill that would cut teachers' salaries, severely weaken organized labor unions and limit collective bargaining rights of public employees.  Well this has not gone over well, and on Tuesday 15,000 angry badgers flooded the Capitol in Madison, chanting "KILL THE BILL!" and trying to get into Walker's office. My aunt has worked at the Capitol for over 27 years, and these protests are the the biggest she's seen since the anti-apartheid protests of the 1980s.  More than a few signs smeared Walker as a dictator, and some made direct references to Egypt, as the Nation reports

Signs at Tuesday’s rally — which the AFL-CIO said attracted a crowd of 15,000 and which news outlets broadly reported drew more 10,000 state and local employees and their backers— referred to the governor as “Hosni Walker” and declared: “Protest Like an Egyptian.”

One senior state employee had gone online to find the Arabic words for “Remove Walker” and made a picket sign with the message.

To me this really stands as a true testament to just how spectacular and inspiring the Egyptian uprising has been.  As a native Wisconsinite, I can tell you that you don't generally hear anybody mentioning the Middle East unless they know someone who serves in the military and is being shipped off to Iraq.   Of course these protests are arising out of local conditions and grievances, but the mere presence of snarky signs calling the governor of a midwestern state "Hosni" really speaks volumes on how significant these uprisings have been.