English Language Mania

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Dogs and Statuary in Islam

Hugh Fitzgerald explains Muslim reaction to dogs on the Jihad Watch website:

A recent story in the Reading Evening Mail describes a 71-year-old blind Englishman and cancer sufferer who was asked to get off a bus because of the hysterical reaction to his seeing-eye dog by some Muslims on the bus....

The hatred of dogs is not rational.  It is simply based on the slavish acceptance of Muhammad’s strictures, in a well-known Hadith, in which he is reported to have said:  I will not enter a house in which there are statues and dogs.

This is a strange, and even mysterious coupling of two items deemed haram:  Statues and dogs.  Why, one may ask?  I think I know the reason.  Statues, of course, were to be found in homes of Christians, and if those statues are clearly declared to be haram, and if Muslims are told that Muhammad, the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil) will not enter a house with statues, then no Muslim would do so either.  That would be one bright line to distinguish Muslims from the Christians whose lands they conquered, and it would be one way to impose on those Muslims the duty not to become too friendly with Christians, not to enter their houses where there might still be statuary.  And if Christians, in order to allow the members of the ruling Muslim class, to enter their houses, which might for those Christians be a desirable thing (they would need to curry favor with the Muslims who now ruled over them) they might find themselves more willing to themselves do away with statues and icons of every kind.

But why the warning against dogs?  It is likely...that because dogs were prized by Zoroastrians, and treated with great affection and reverence, Muslims would want especially to distance themselves from the same practice, even to hold up dogs as objects of hysterical hatred.  In so doing, they would again, as with Christians and statuary, clearly distinguish the superior Muslims and their practices from those of the inferior non-Muslims, in this case represented by Zoroastrians.

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On Moderate Islam

I just finished Bruce Bawer's new book, Surrender.  Let me give you a small taste:

While there are such things as moderate and liberal Christianity, there is no such thing as a moderate or liberal Islam.  Yes, there are millions of good-hearted individuals who identify themselves as Muslims and who have no enmity in their hearts for their non-Muslim neighbors and coworkers.  Some of these Muslims are religiously observant, some are not; but their moderation is not an attribute of the brand of Islam to which they officially subscribe but is, rather, a measure of their own individual character.

Almost all of them are moderate or liberal not because they subscribe to a less conservative interpretation of their faith, but because they have chosen to put a certain distance between their own religious thought and practice and the strict tenets of institutional Islam.

As a rule, then, a moderate Muslim doesn't see extremist Muslims as getting their religion wrong in quite the same way that, say, a liberal Episcopalian might feel that a conservative Southern Baptist has gotten Christianity wrong; such a Muslim, rather, even though he deeply abhors the actions of his violent coreligionists, may well be unable to shake off the feeling that they're more dedicated to Islam than he is.  The result:  A profound reluctance to criticize.

The fact remains that if there are indeed millions of moderate or even liberal Muslims out there, the great majority of them tend to keep an extraordinarily low profile with regard to their moderation or liberalism; and when push comes to shove (as it has with increasing frequency in recent years), few will speak up against Muslim extremists.  I am reminded of a previous post quoting Sam Harris.

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Left versus Right

Public political discussion is most often driven from the Left.  Why?

Young, smart left-of-center types flock to government, academia, and journalism because they sincerely believe that these professions are the best way to contribute to society.  Moreover, these professions garner the greatest respect from their left-of-center peers.  These individuals have what Thomas Sowell describes as an unconstrained vision of what society could become given the correct leadership and direction.  And they want to be a part of it.

Young, smart right-of-center types are more likely to join the business world, particularly small business, and later entrepreneurial endeavors.  Do they sincerely believe that this is the best way to contribute to society?  Do they think about this question at all?  It does not matter, because whatever their reasons, they join the vast productive engine of our society.  That part of society that pays for everything.

And there they often disappear from public political discussion.  Sure, they might join the chamber of commerce.  But for the most part, they do not take an active role in politics.  Unlike journalists and academics they do not make a lot of noise.  They just quietly go about their business of creating wealth for our society.

Of course there are exceptions to this rule.  Big business attracts left-of-center types seeking secure employment, stability, and corporate welfare.  And, there are indeed talented journalists, academics, and public servants from the Right.  But these career choices go against the grain, and thus, draw smaller numbers.

This is why political commentary, as delivered by journalists and academics is most often disingenuous.  The Left fields its large A team, and the Right fields, well, something substantively less, both qualitatively and quantitatively.  For every Charles Krauthammer, there are ten Paul Krugmans.  And Doctor Krauthammer did not set out to become a pundit, but rather fell into the field some time after leaving Harvard Medical School.  As a practical matter, it’s any number of smart left-of-center pundits from Krugman to Michael Kinsley versus the bombastic Rush Limbaugh.  No contest.

This situation contributes, in no small part, to the leftward drift of our society.  In the public discourse, there is simply no relative counterweight to the left-of-center point of view.

They win by default.
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