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Islam is innocent of Fallaci’s
accusations
Maimonides, the great Rambam who wrote his
Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith in Arabic, in Islamic
Spain, while the “civilized” world lived its darkest ages,
would not have had any freedom in the Catholic Kings’ Spain.
He probably would have been the first to defend Islam, which
many have reduced to being a castigator of “holy war,” an
extremist religion which “locks up women,” and a
fundamentalist ideology that “hates the West.” Its pillars and
ideals have been completely distorted by Muslims and
non-Muslims alike, and Oriana Fallaci is one more in a horde
of Islam-bashers spreading deceit about what the Koran
supposedly says.
Under the pretense of relating her
reactions to Sept. 11, for which she blames not terrorists but
Islam, Fallaci penned a preposterous diatribe in the Italian
daily Corriere della Serra on Sept. 29, “La rabbia e
l’orgoglio” (rage and pride) whose every sentence awoke my own
rage and pride. Having often savored her discourse, I never
imagined losing respect for a writer whose contributions to
journalism are undeniable; surprisingly, she has decided to
end her distinguished career with intolerance and deception.
Instant rebuttals from several writers were not
comforting, for they unfortunately confined themselves to
arguments about the invalid concept of the “superiority” of
civilizations (such as Umberto Eco’s indirect but sensible
riposte in La Repubblica) or about side issues (such as Juan
Goytisolo’s vindication of Omar Khayyam’s Rubbayat in the
Spanish paper El Pais). The defense of Islam itself shone by
its absence, especially from the heirs of the great
civilization which Fallaci considers so inferior.
Fallaci concluded her article by implying she would
never speak again, telling her editor: “Ask nothing further of
me.” Since then, however, she recently published an attack on
“anti-Semitism” in the Italian magazine Panorama, in which she
laments (among other anti-Palestinian statements) the fact
that European youth “flaunt the keffiyeh” and compares it to
Mussolini’s fascist badge, and now this sensationalist account
of Islam that bears few truths and even fewer facts in a book
that will be translated into several languages. As no one
seems to object to her hypocrisy, muted exasperation is no
longer an option.
Fallaci deliberately chose the most
vindictive, vulgar and offensive terms to describe Islamic
civilization and to make up outright lies about Islam and the
Koran. That a writer of her caliber should show such
gratuitous antagonism and exploitation of events to turn her
tirade against Islam into a call to arms to her “superior”
Western citizens is revolting. It is not necessary to stoop to
Fallaci’s level by denigrating writers like Dante Alighieri
(whom she prefers to Khayyam), because like her, I know he is
great. Unlike her, I know one can appreciate writers, artists,
philosophers and scientists of different civilizations, and
that cathedrals and mosques can each be beautiful in their own
right.
Throughout her tirade, Fallaci refers to
Muslims as “the sons of Allah,” resorting to the pathetic and
worn ploy of implying that Muslims believe in some god named
“Allah,” knowing well that it is simply the Arabic translation
of God, used by all Arabs of all religions. In fact, she only
uses the term Muslim to state that “some 24 million Americans
are Arab-Muslims,” nearly quadrupling the estimated number of
Arab-Americans and merging them with Muslim-Americans, between
which she can’t seem to make a distinction.
It is
difficult to decide whether it is her violent discrimination
or her listing of “facts” from the Koran that is more
astonishing. Repeatedly, she remarks on Islam’s “inferiority”
by drawing “examples” from the Koran. In effect, Fallaci’s awe
for Western civilization seems largely limited to the wearing
of mini-skirts and drinking alcohol, for which she wrongly
accuses the Koran of advocating the death penalty.
Conveniently neglecting to provide references for this
supposed punishment, Fallaci would be hard pressed to find
anything in the Koran about this.
Odious to the end,
Fallaci provokes readers into imagining what living under
Islam would mean: “Instead of bells, we will find muezzins,
instead of mini-skirts, the chador, instead of cognac, camel’s
milk.” She warns Westerners: “You do not want to realize that
we are facing a crusade in reverse,” stating along the way
that “apart from Blair, I see few Richard the Lionhearts among
European leaders,” surely meaning to compliment the British
prime minister.
Fallaci’s ignorance climaxes when she
refers to the Koran’s supposed treatment of women: “The
principle that women count for less than camels, that they
must not go to school, they can’t go to the doctor, they can’t
have their pictures taken … this is in the Koran.” Not only
are these fabrications nowhere to be found in the Koran, but
Fallaci’s intelligence must be questioned when she attributes
the concept of photography to a scripture that was revealed 14
centuries ago. If by some miracle she can prove this, then the
Koran is amazing indeed.
It should have been beneath
someone of Fallaci’s stature to suddenly invent ludicrous
stories, among which one relating to the chador which she once
had to don to interview Ayatollah Khomeini. She recounts first
having to remove her jeans (in a room accompanied by her
interpreter) when a mullah supposedly threatened killing them
both unless they got married! Not even finishing the story,
because it simply could not have happened, Fallaci counts on
readers’ unawareness that the chador is in fact a type of
cover worn over clothes, not instead of them.
Not
satisfied with these inventions, she blames women for
restrictions imposed on them: “If in certain countries women
are so stupid as to accept the chador or rather the veil … too
bad for them. If they are so stupid to accept not going to
school, not going to the doctor, not getting photographed …
too bad for them.” By the same logic, she could have said: Too
bad for the rape victim who is so stupid that she accepted
getting raped. Too bad for poor people who are stupid enough
to accept being poor. Too bad for Palestinians who are stupid
enough to accept Israeli occupation.
Fallaci even
denies the Islamic world recognition for its contributions to
science and philosophy, first brought to European light by
Adelard of Bath in the 12th century. “I am still alive, for
now, thanks to our science, not to that of Mohammed,” she
writes, although if anything could describe the essence of
Islam, particularly in its golden era spanning eight
centuries, it is precisely the search for knowledge.
She
also forgets how Ibn Battuta’s travels, before her own Marco
Polo or Ibn Khaldun’s “Muqaddima,” a century before
Machiavelli’s The Prince, contributed to our understanding of
the world.
Were it not for the multitude of Muslim
scholars who were able to think, write and research in all
liberty, and even translate Greek texts, then medicine and
philosophy would have taken much longer to develop her
ancestors’ civilization.
Racist, bigoted, prejudiced are
words which, for all their viciousness, seem too weak to
describe Fallaci’s baseless attack on Islam. Islam is innocent
of the crimes committed in its name, and it is innocent of the
misrepresentations of ignorant people who cannot even be
bothered to browse a copy of the Koran in any language. And
Islam is certainly innocent of the offenses of which Fallaci
accuses it.
Rime Allaf is The Daily
Star’s London correspondent |
