Academic theologians creating Islamic disquiet

The Purview and the voice

The Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Benedict XVI are superb intellectuals and formidable theologians – it would be far from me to suggest with my little learning and experience the ability advice on any matter that decides to offer an additional erudite perspective on their pronouncements.

However, I can recall that when the Pope gave an academic lecture at Regensburg University in September 2006 entitled Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections; he touched on a topic that should probably entertain the purview of the learned but not the voice of the powerful.

Debate and reason

There, he alluded to the seventh conversation between a Byzantine Emperor and a Persian scholar on the subject of the truth of Christianity and Islam.

Emperor Manuel II Paleologus said “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

This was a conversation recorded in the 14^th Century and I am sure the Persian scholar would have reasoned intelligently and probably answered with views and ideas that validate Islam and Muhammad positively whilst trying to broaden the view of the Emperor to an enlightened perspective of Islam.

Unfortunately, very few would have taken time to put this all in context of the 14^th Century conversation or the academic lecture of the 21^st Century.

Whilst that question or statement should have offered the opportunity for those most concerned to reflect and offer a “gospel” of Mohammedanism that makes that view insignificant, many rose to the gathering of the mob and gave credence to that contention.

Stirring troubled waters

The wisdom of the Pope in giving voice to a latent view of the violence of Islam is still a matter for debate and history; in the end, he was able to placate the offended and make peace with those who mattered.

Lessons should have been learnt from the fact that Christian leaders are better suited to commentary on their areas of specialisation than on their appreciation, understanding or even ignorance of other religions where they hold no offices.

For Sharia Law relevance

Whoever the advisors of the Archbishop of Canterbury are, they surely must be pensioned off because in an academic lecture - Civil and Religious Law in England: a religious perspective - delivered to lawyers in London preceded by an interview (BBC audio) on Radio 4’s World at One the archbishop did touch on viewing aspects of Islamic law in a favourable light but it has created another set of unintended consequences.

It is quite revealing not a squeak has been heard from any of the major Anglican Archbishops in England in support of Dr. Rowan Williams, he might just weather this storm with the voice of support from the Presbyterian Prime Minister .

Considering the furore this has created, this great knight of the Anglican faith might just fall on his sword.

Allowances of the law for conscience

One cannot dispute the fact that certain aspects of conscience or conscientious inclinations by reason of religious belief are given the benefit of exception from legal duress in civil law.

However, the primacy of civil law must remain when a conflict arises that either removes the premise of equality before the law or religious law allows for illegal or unlawful actions.

Sharia law might be used to settle disputes for adherents of that faith but in cases where the female sex does not have equal access, evidence and representation before those courts; it becomes incompatible to existence in broad Western democratic societies as the interviewer stated when chatting to the Archbishop.

The popular Sharia view is scary

Obviously, the concern that has drawn the greatest opprobrium has been the vision of the more dramatic Sharia law judgements that include floggings, amputations and beheadings – these definitely have no place in the Western criminal justice systems, they should for all intents and purposes of a modern civilised world be consigned to history.

Meting out those punishments are considered deterrents that instil fear in the general populace acting as an opiate of contrived civility though they are as cruel and as barbaric as anything dragged out of the darkest ages.

Failed to convey understanding

Dr. Williams whilst understanding these complexities in his interview failed to demonstrate those differences clearly enough for people to appreciate the facts and temper their reactions to the possible visitation of the presumed evils of Sharia on our liberal Western comforts.

As one commentator stated on one of the Daily Telegraph columns; it is amazing that a man whose job it is to be clearly understood failed to convey understanding that he has become so misunderstood and left many seriously displeased.

Like smart person knows well to stick to their own knitting; the leaders of the church should stick to matters that concern the church and stop peering over the wall into mosques with academic lectures that get delivered to select audiences but create an unedifying rumpus amongst the masses.

If he survives, the grace of God with the munificence of Allah does abound towards him, he might find mercy but he would need to do a lot for the forgiveness of men. I, for one can see their points but the wisdom in giving voice to issues that can be so easily hijacked, misinterpreted and manipulated for unintended ulterior ends leaves one rather suspect of their good judgement.

President overrules Mohammed

President Mullah

This gets absurd and cannot approach farce faster than a shooting star zips past the world.

The President of Sudan as the military dictator who took power by overthrowing a democratically elected government in 1989, had two British Muslim peers of the realm in audience today.

Marshal Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir, you should read that again, the President of Sudan is not a religious leader; he gained power through the barrel of the gun. Sudan has been in conflict for decades first between the Muslim North and Christian/Animist South and now the genocide perpetrated by the Arabs on the darker skinned of the West of Sudan in Darfur.

The only religious authority the President can call upon can be as trivial as the fact that he is a practising Muslim though he made alliances that have boosted his power and status by allying himself to Islamist causes and making the North of Sudan an Islamic state governed by Sharia Law.

Power to forgive

As I write, the peers of the realm seem to have secured the pardon of Gillian Gibbons as it appears once her sentence was given there was no right of appeal apart from a commutation or pardon by the President who appears to have supreme authority to overturn or revoke the force of religious law.

It is welcoming at least to see that political power wields that much influence over religious excess and if this means that the President can exercise compassion and has elements of humanity rather than pandering to expediency it is time to stop the genocide in Darfur immediate – call the Janjaweed back to the mosques in Khartoum.

Beyond this all, it means that there are men on earth who can receive tribute on behalf of Islam, receive apologies on behalf of Allah and Mohammed the Prophet and commute any sentence zealous Islamic clerics can pronounce in scapegoating others and exercising enough fear, terror, trembling and loathing to keep the locals in line.

As for Teddy Bear, one wonders if there would be a renaming ceremony as Sudan showcases everything that is just not so about the “religion of peace” and at one time in the courts of Suleiman the Magnificent, the religion of great enlightenment.

Four weddings and a lesbian

Strangely not fiction

You probably have heard it said, there is no smoke without fire; well, that is the accepted wisdom in all places but the home country - it is never smoke or fire, it is usually an explosion, how and why is usually unfathomable.

News is a strange commodity in Nigeria; the truth is hard to gather, rumour and speculation is rife, everything seems to be stranger than fiction, superstition hinders objective analysis, urban legends have no time to develop because all is sudden like a miracle and impossible to investigate like waiting for a miracle.

I do, I do, I do and I do

Take for instance, a "devout" Muslim man is allowed to take up to four wives but rarely have we seen the four wives taken at one wedding ceremony; one such ceremony allegedly took place in Kano State last weekend. The venue where the event took place has now been flattened because it did not meet planning regulations apparently.

Civil law enforcement would not have been too concerned about the event but religious law enforcement using a vigilante volunteer force of busy-body people working in parallel or sometimes at odds with the police are out enforcing Islamic law and are after the "bridegroom" and brides who all seem to have gone into hiding.

Funding fo(u)r weddings

The big gathering was not a wedding, we are told by the "groom", but a fundraising event to provide for the weddings of the four brides who presumably are singular brides of different grooms, in fact, the "groom" refers to the brides as sisters and it appears "Big Brother" was just trying to help out little sisters - plausible enough, one can accept that at face value - weddings are an expensive business in Nigeria.

Those who have besmirched the name of the "groom" will find a robust counter-offensive to clear the good name of this benevolent sibling, considering the "groom" until now never knew the adjective used to describe the fiesta ever existed, talk less of the practical consequences of the noun as a lifestyle.

Only in Nigeria

Now, gender equality still has a long way to go in Nigeria, and we cannot even begin to talk about sexuality issues where homosexuality is viewed as abominable and un-African - we know where they are coming from - heap on that the concept of Lesbianism and people go into hiding, buildings fall, Islamic courts are agog and maybe we have a news story or a Nigerian farce.

So, imagine a situation where the groom is anatomically female going by the name Aunty Maiduguri and the incredible is almost drowned out by the derisive laughter around the world - It is Nigeria, where things do happen so differently, you can always expect to be pleasantly surprised, shocked or confounded.

This is not a good time for sexual orientation rights in Nigeria and it is not enhanced by this unravelling saga.