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Desecrating the Quran
By Dr. Mohamed Nimer, Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi and Sayed Mostafa Al Qazwini
We the mainstream Muslims would want others to know that our belief in the Qur’an is not so fragile to be shaken by purported offensive behaviour of any individual or group.
The Newsweek story of U.S. soldiers in Guantanamo Bay flushing pages of the Qur’an down the toilet provoked deep emotions and resulted in varied responses. While some Muslims in war-torn Afghanistan rioted and unfortunately died in response, others in Pakistan and the Middle East chose peaceful methods of demonstration to express their outrage. Still, Western Muslims have attempted to inject some hope in an otherwise gloomy story by offering complimentary copies of the Qur’an to any interested members of the public.
In many other parts of the Muslim world, the Qur’an desecration incident took a back seat to the more important challenges in life. Uzbeks for example have mourned 300 citizens after their political uprising was brutally squashed by an unrepentant dictator, unfortunately an all too familiar scene in many Muslim-majority countries. In America, the Council on American-Islamic Relations held an unprecedented conference to discuss the causes and remedies to the twin scourge of Islamophobia and anti-Americanism, as both issues played out once more in the full glare of public scrutiny.
But many media outlets seem fixated on the story of the emotional Afghani rioters, with the all-too-familiar images of the shouting men wearing turbans and long beards. Why is it that the uncontrolled, reactionary activities of the few are deemed more important, or even sensational, than a political crisis that claimed the lives of hundreds and a historic meeting that promoted reflective thinking among Muslims, Christians, Jews, liberals and conservatives?
The Los Angeles Times chose to respond to the riot story by publishing unfortunate remarks (Irshad Manji, “Do Riots Save Islam’s Honor?” May 17, 2005) that not only condemned the riots, but also suggested that Muslims didn’t have a good reason to feel indignant in the first place because their claim to an authentic scripture may be false. This pitiful dismissal of the sacredness of the Qur’an only fuels Islamophobic and anti-American tendencies.
From the very inception of revelation, Muslims engaged in a process of recording the scripture, using tree leaves, animal bones, cloth, and perhaps most importantly human memory. Many companions of the Prophet (Pbuh) committed the Qur’an to memory and reviewed the recorded verses of the Qur’an with the Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) during his lifetime. The Qur’an is unique in its structure, grammar and melody. The words of the Prophet Muhammad, known as Hadith, are distinguishable from Qur’an. Still, Prophet Muhammad did not allow his companions to write down Hadith until much of the Qur’an was revealed, recorded and memorized.
Muslims have always been conscientious about the integrity of the Qur’anic text. Muslims believe that the scripture they have today contains the same divine words that the Prophet Muhammad conveyed to the early Muslim community. We the mainstream Muslims would want others to know that our belief in the Qur’an is not so fragile to be shaken by purported offensive behaviour of any individual or group. We feel offended when our holy book is desecrated, but we believe the right response is education, not violence. We also want others to know that Islam calls us to respect the scriptures of all faith groups.
We are also confident that the American people will uphold our cherished tradition of freedom of religion and urge their members of Congress to support Congressman Conyers’ (D-MI) resolution reaffirming America’s respect for all religious beliefs.
Despite our outrage at the Qur’an desecration incident, we will not want our policy makers to be distracted from the more important tasks of policy reforms, which are at the heart of the outrage and anti-American sentiments sweeping through the Muslim world. For our part, we American Muslims are ready to help in the work of building bridges of understanding between America and the Muslim world.
(Dr. Mohamed Nimer, is the Author, The North American Muslim Resource Guide:
MuslimCommunity Life in the United States and Canada; Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, is Director of Islamic Society of Orange County and Chairman of the Shura Council of Southern California; Sayed Mostafa Al Qazwini, is Imam, Islamic Education Center of Orange County, California).
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