Saturday, September 5th, 2009
By Mona Eltahawy
Jerusalem Report
I was getting ready to head up to my room on the last night of a retreat for emerging Jewish and Muslim religious leaders when I stumbled upon an argument between two of my favorite people at the gathering – a Jewish woman and a Muslim man.
It went something like this:
Woman: “My people were kicked out but it’s always been our land. And now we’ve just returned to our homeland.”
Man: “European Jews? It isn’t their homeland. It’s the land of the Palestinians. “
Woman: “I can’t believe you said that. We’re this tiny country…”
Man: “Yeah and because you’re so tiny and yet so powerful is proof of how you people control everything.”
I thought for sure they’d lost their minds – three days in the stiflingly hot, clean air of the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York had obviously melted the politically correct masks they’d worn so well and here they were saying how they really felt. Here they were finally acknowledging the elephant in the room. It was more like elephant wrestling.
Not once in the three days we’d spent comparing and contrasting the Torah’s and Quran’s rendition of the Joseph saga – the theme of our retreat – had either one of them exhibited any tell tale signs.
My face obviously gave me away. They burst out laughing.
“We’re rehearsing for the “Difficult Conversations” session tomorrow morning,” the man explained.
In the skit’s final version the Jewish Woman and the Muslim Man – they are stand-ins now, I know – are sitting next to each other on plane and learn of their respective backgrounds when a flight attendant arrives with a Kosher and a Halal meal.
The elephants are truly in the mud now.
Muslim Man: (when the woman mistakenly takes his Halal meal) “Just like a Jew, taking what isn’t yours.”
Jewish Woman: (when the man says something she doesn’t like) “Just like an Arab, ignorant and uneducated.”
Our group – 20 participants and four scholars – laughed with a mix of horror and relief.
We’ve all heard such ugliness. Seeing it so starkly aired out loosened us up to see what we were up against and how to fight it.
I’ve never understood why they always put the Christians between us Muslims and Jews at interfaith groups. Christian friends: please understand. It’s not that I don’t want to “dialogue” with you. It’s just easy to lose focus when there are three sensibilities waiting to be offended and who has bigger elephants waiting to wrestle in the mud than Jews and Muslims?
And surely that “Judeo-Christian” term should be “Judeo-Muslim” in recognition of everything we have in common, from dietary laws of the observant to marriage laws of the conservative.
So I salute Rabbis Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer and Melissa Heller of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College for bringing us together. It was brave and necessary to bring just Jews and Muslims together, especially those of us here in the U.S., where our respective communities are minorities whose relationship is too often determined by a conflict most members of our respective communities have never experienced in person.
We tread a fine line. Isn’t the conflict hostage enough already to the religious zealotry of Jews and Muslims who have often marginalized Christians and turned the conflict into one over whose side God was on?
But it’s also foolish to ignore religion. Especially when some of us are trying to have that “difficult conversation” – e.g. the harsh things our respective religious texts at times say about people outside of our faith and how easily such harshness seeps into and stains attitudes over the conflict.
Starting that “difficult conversation” with the “other side” can nudge us into talking to our “own side” about the things that hurt the most and for me, it’s women’s issues that hit every bone.
I joke that if I was Jewish I would be Reconstructionist or maybe Reform – a liberal denomination that ordains women. I was one of 50 women and 50 men who prayed behind American Muslim scholar Amina Wadud in the first public mixed gender prayer in New York in 2005. Several other women have since led men and women in prayer but we’re still far from ordaining women.
So it gave me hope to learn that about 150 years ago or so Jewish women began writing their own commentaries and interpretations of the Torah and that the first woman rabbi was ordained in the U.S. in the 1970s.
Several Muslim women have interpreted various parts of the Quran during the past two decades and Laleh Bakhtiar became the first Muslim woman to translate the Quran into English in 2007.
Although it wasn’t as painful as the Jewish Woman vs Muslim Man skit, I had my own difficult conversation at the (off the record) retreat with a Muslim man I promised to call Omar.
Here’s a snippet; not a rehearsal but very real:
Omar: (hearing that Mona supported the rights of gay and lesbian Muslims to identify as such and to lead active sexual lives) “Where in the framework of Islamic jurisprudence does it allow that?”
Mona: “I’m outside the framework. Where are women in that framework? It’s all been written by men.”
Omar: “Oh so you’re way out there.”
And it is in the vulnerability of embracing being way out there or inside the framework, despite the judgment, that the conversation really begins.
Comments (24)
F1Helper said:
Mona, You’re absolutely free to believe in Islam or not, but coming up with your own ideas -actually they are not that original, just recycled western ideas- and telling us this is Islam, or taking the parts that you like and leaving the parts that you don’t like is not Islam according to the Quran.
Islam is not that mysterious that you need to have your own interpretation of every little thing in it. Most of the Issues discussed in the Quran are very clean only, but for the blind.
Maybe since it’s Ramadan you can pick up a “Mus7af” and read surat “al-A3raaf(7)” specially the part talking about prophet “Lut” and then tell me why in your understanding did Allah sub7anahu wa ta3ala, punish the clan of Lut?
September 5th, 2009, 6:23 pm
F1Helper said:
“So it gave me hope to learn that about 150 years ago or so Jewish women began writing their own commentaries and interpretations of the Torah and that the first woman rabbi was ordained in the U.S. in the 1970s.”
FYI: a Woman wrote about 1/3 of of the Sunnah, her name was Aishah bit Abi Bakr. And there are a long list of muslim women scholars
September 5th, 2009, 6:49 pm
F1Helper said:
Sorry for the multiple comments, the topic is keeping me from sleeping, but I want to ask this:
Do those gay/lesbian “Muslims” have pre marital sexual relationships, or they only become couples after marriage ?
Because, come to think of it, pre marital relations are forbidden in Islam and marriage in the Quran is between a man and a woman.
September 5th, 2009, 11:43 pm
Faezeh said:
Dear Mona
I liked the article very much. My only point: who decided Laleh Bakhtiar is the “first” woman to translate the Holy Quran into English?
Dr. Tahereh Saffarzadeh(RIP) published her bilingual(Persian & English) translation of the Quran in 2001.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahereh_Saffarzadeh
Ramadan Kareem.
September 7th, 2009, 6:08 pm
Ahmed said:
Dear Mona,
I’m tired of hearing comments like “or taking the parts that you like and leaving the parts that you don’t like is not Islam according to the Quran”. Actually that commented is not that original, especially when they don’t take their own advice. So Please F1Helper take your own advice.
September 8th, 2009, 7:06 pm
ahmed samir said:
Ahmed: I really don’t get what you’re saying. So you mean one can just believe in the parts that he likes and disregard the parts he doesn’t like, or what? please elaborate!
September 8th, 2009, 7:50 pm
sana said:
F1Helper, not every single human being is going to see and interpret every single thing in this world the same way. people have different opinions about what their religion and faith means to them. muslims are not monolithic. some believe in the religion but do not take every single word ever written literally. some solely follow the koran, and don’t find the hadiths valid. some follow mostly the koran, but will take guidance from the hadiths. other take both the koran and the hadiths word for word! that does not mean that one is more “muslim” than the other, or that one is right and the other is wrong.
For me personally, i will not take the word of some mullah, or some fatwa, or even an islamic “scholar”- i will interpret everything in the koran myself in the manner that i see fit. i dont need others to interpret my faith for me.
and “FYI”, human rights (whether womens rights, or homosexual rights, or whatever other rights there are) are not “recycled western” concepts as you put it. To say so is an insult to anyone who is not western. Rather they are universal ideas that belong to all humankind. That you might not believe in them is another issue, but do not say they are foreign to muslims.
September 9th, 2009, 3:47 am
Don C said:
sana said:
“and “FYI”, human rights (whether womens rights, or homosexual rights, or whatever other rights there are) are not “recycled western” concepts as you put it. To say so is an insult to anyone who is not western. Rather they are universal ideas that belong to all humankind. That you might not believe in them is another issue, but do not say they are foreign to muslims.”
Very nice post. Well said…
September 9th, 2009, 8:54 am
someIntegrity said:
My first comment on this site; my best wishes to Mona. She publishes fearless enlightened inspiring independent universally humane thoughts.
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She promotes communications between the people of different faiths.
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Her readers should absorb and nurture these ideas to their own benefits.
September 9th, 2009, 10:56 am
Ahmed said:
What I mean is that F1helper shouldn’t take the parts that she/he likes and disregard the parts she/he doesn’t like!
September 9th, 2009, 11:41 am
Craig said:
I’ve never understood why they always put the Christians between us Muslims and Jews at interfaith groups.
Why were there even any Christians there? It was a retreat for Muslims and Jews, right?
As for the “Judeo-Christian” term, as far as I know it was coined by Christians to indicate that Christianity is based on Judaism. Since Islam is based on both Judaism and Christianity, I suppose Muslims would have to go with “Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition” if they so desire, right?
Personally, I don’t like that term. I’m not a Judeo-Christian. I’m a Christian. And Judaism doesn’t really seem very much like Christianity, to me.
September 9th, 2009, 4:22 pm
F1Helper said:
Sana:
“F1Helper, not every single human being is going to see and interpret every single thing in this world the same way.”
Agreed, but there is a minimum level of interpreting that should be agreed up. There are so clear predicates that don’t need interpretation.
If every single word we say needs interpretation. what’s the use of language??
does 1+1 need interpretation ?
does “No Smoking” need interperation?
does “لَا إِكْرَاهَ فِي الدِّينِ ۖ قَد تَّبَيَّنَ الرُّشْدُ مِنَ الْغَيِّ” need interpretation ?
Which part of “وَالسَّارِقُ وَالسَّارِقَةُ فَاقْطَعُوا أَيْدِيَهُمَا جَزَاءً بِمَا كَسَبَا نَكَالًا مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَاللَّهُ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيم” that is so difficult to understand ?
Let’s agree that if you’re a Muslim you should follow the Quran,right ? Now are you trying to say that what the Quran says is so vague that in the end everyone should just come up with whatever he likes to think of it and then follow it ? Well this is exactly what the terrorists are doing! I’m sorry lady, the message from Allah subhanahu wa ta3ala Is clear for the average person.
September 9th, 2009, 4:46 pm
F1Helper said:
Sana:
Excuse me, but when did I name human rights as recycled western ideas? or that’s what you like to believe that Muslims are so much against human right , which unlike the quran -off course – have one and only true version that does not need any interpretation.
September 9th, 2009, 4:51 pm
F1Helper said:
Ahmed:
If you’re refering to me, I do believe in the Message of Islam as a whole, I do not disregard any part of it.
September 9th, 2009, 4:53 pm
Solomon2 said:
Mona, do you have the full text of the skit avaiable?
September 10th, 2009, 2:18 pm
Zainab said:
Mona: “I’m outside the framework. Where are women in that framework? It’s all been written by men.”
Clearly, your ‘education’ has not even slightly benefitted you religiously. After all these years reporting on a genre you claim to specialize in, Islam, how do you NOT know that Islam, drawn from the Qur’an & Sunnah, is divine? In other words, how can you say that ”it’s written by men” when everything established by the beloved Prophet Muhammad SAAW was revealed to him from Allah SWT? The beloved Prophet did not make his own thoughts & desires into Islam. Allah SWT established & gave us Islam as a way of life we must follow to meet Him on the Day as successful slaves, & to earn Jannah. A Muslim is one who surrenders his life completely to His Creator & Sustainer, & following one’s own desires & definitions of the halal & haram is certainly not surrendering. Only Allah SWT can judge you, so one can not say that your defiance toward Allah SWT makes you a kafirah, but your actions are certainly acts of Kufr… & may Allah SWT guide you. Open your mind, eyes & heart:
Seek guidance in these last 10 days of Ramadan; you have nothing to lose.
September 10th, 2009, 2:44 pm
michael said:
Mona,
Thank you for a wonderful post. It was a joy to meet you at the conference, and I feel like i have a Muslim journalist who I can turn to for candid, frank, and important responses.
You are a beacon of light.
All blessings for a meaningful Ramadan,
Michael (RRC student)
September 10th, 2009, 8:55 pm
Mona Eltahawy said:
Michael thank you so much!
As a fellow participant at the retreat and a new friend I’m happy to have made there, do please share any points you would like to highlight that I didn’t touch on in my post.
Thank you for your kind Ramadan wishes. I wish you a joyous Elul and success and happiness in your studies.
September 10th, 2009, 8:59 pm
Rachel Barenblat said:
I have to laugh, reading this, because the story you tell here (about encountering our roleplay for the “Difficult Conversations” session) is a story I also chose to tell in my essay about the retreat, which has just been published in Zeek! (There’s a post about it on my blog: http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2009/09/jewishmuslim-retreat-chronicled-at-zeek.html)
It was a treat to connect with you in Garrison. I look forward to our paths crossing again.
September 15th, 2009, 1:07 pm
Sara Moussavi said:
Homosexuality is completley outlawed in Islam, and is a grave sin..there is no doubt about that. Mona, I do not believe that in your heart of hearts, you truly believe that homosexuality is acceptable in Islam..fear Allah, be courageous and stop trying to fit in to what you think your Western readers and Western friends want to hear.
September 16th, 2009, 4:11 pm
Dave Abramowitz said:
Hi Mona,
I saw you on Bill Mahers show last night and I was impressed with you to the degree that I had to Google you not having heard of you before.
I am a 73 year old non practicing uneducated Jew and, having seen a book of rules for a religious Jew, have no idea if anyone can follow all the listed rules.
I believe the Bible was a book written by a man as well as other books supposedly citing beliefs from a God to follow.
I consider myself an Agnostic accepting the scientific belief in the big bang theory thereby disbelieving that a human being of faith can believe without doubt of the existance of a superior being.
As to Israel, I believe it to be the ancient home of the Jews but I think they should be able to live in peace since people of other faiths have many other lands to occupy to join others of their own faith. As a side thought, Israel is the only country that I have thought of, that has been asked to return land it has won in a war,
My sincere hope is that people of all or none faiths learn to live in peace with each other rather than start conflicts that have been the major cause of loss of lives in the worlds history.
When I saw you last night, you were like a breath of fresh air and I hope you and people who are as rational as you are, can unite for the benefit of all man and women kind.
Best Regards,
Dave
dave.abramowitz@yahoo.com
February 5th, 2011, 9:14 am
Darren Taylor said:
Mona, I loved you on Real Time with Bill Maher! I can’t believe Maher was unable to let go of his cynical pose and realize that this is one of the most inspiring things that’s happened in too long of a time. A lot of people I know are inspired and in awe of whats happening in Cairo. People are taking power for themselves, organizing with a clear purpose, and my fellow Americans like Maher just want to talk about the Muslim Brotherhood? It’s like Americans saying “Yes, maybe it’s nice to have democracy, but we need to make sure there’s no possibility of anything we don’t like happening (Islam now, Communism before), otherwise we won’t give our consent.” When they should be joining with the Egyptian people and any other people coming together for democracy against oligarchy. It’s like in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Iran Mossadeq, they say: We absolutely love democracy and freedom, but, unfortunately, we have to guard the world against the domino effect, so we’re putting in noble leaders immune to dangerous desires of the people.
You were so full of spirit and beauty, how could they not be moved and keep you one for the rest of the show? Instead they’re talking about petty political analysis that implies no real action. I moved back here from living in China several years, and I’ve noticed how much more trusting Americans are, in our amorphous and somewhat illusory democracy, than Chinese people, who have less pretense about their rulers.
May the revolution ïn Egypt continue to succeed, and may all of us be so strong as to come together and get rid of the oligarchies that claim our support!
February 5th, 2011, 12:18 pm
Arnold said:
Mona, i wish u had a chance to get a chance on cnn atDershowitz, but he has been spending too much time in kennybunkport with all the haters
February 5th, 2011, 7:19 pm
Mostafa Marzouk said:
Mr Abramowitz,
I grew up as a muslem and I have the principles of islam in my heart which very much you will find in almost every other relegion (it all revolves around the ten commandments in my opinion) but like you, I can not call my self a muslem because I do not believe in the existance of a God.
I only heard the term ” won in a war” when I came to the US. As far as I know, every where else it is called “occupation” and that is illegal under international laws.
and no, Israel is not the only country that is being asked to return lands that it occupied. Iraq was forced to return the land it occupied in Kuwait just few years ago.
February 5th, 2011, 8:18 pm
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