Why does it take more than 5 days to get something like this posted?
Something about the mods??
Post by RobertI reply to Saqib Virk Jan 19
Your charaterization of Dashti's work is absurd: he is evidently a
distinguished writer with a deserved international reputation.
Bism Allah, Al-Rahmen, Al-Raheem,
Asalaam Alaikum,
re: "23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad" by 'Ali
Dashti ISBN 1-56859-029-6
Since this book has come up as a topic, and I have read it, I thought,
insha Allah, I'd write my impressions.
I ordered the book sight unseen because I like reading seerah and I
liked the title. Its kind of dramatic.
Dashti appears to have been born Muslim, but according to the
translator's introduction it appears he rejected Islam for
"patriotism" and established a newspaper called "Red Dawn". This was
in the 1920s.
Immediately, it seems safe to assume Dashti was a socialist, most
likely entranced by the Russian revolution in 1917. So, he might have
been an outright atheist. He must have been active in Soviet Socialist
issues because he was invited to Russia to celebrate the 10th
anniversary of the revolution.
Given this, I recall reading that there is a body of literature giving
Marxist-socialist interpretations of Muhammad's life. Dashti's book
appears to be one of these interpretations. Indeed, he compares Lenin
to Muhammad early in the book. (p. 8)
Interestingly, he also compares Muhammad to other social conquerors
and warriors such as Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, Cyrus,
Chengiz Khan and Timor. Now, he says that Muhammad was greater than
they, but only because Muhammad "made his way into history" without
the benefit of a strong armed force and strong public opinion. I found
it odd that one would not compare Muhammad to other religious leaders
such as Buddha, or Jesus, or Moses, or even Lao Tzu. This must give us
pause to question the author's perspective on events. (Especially now
that we know Marxist-Leninism was a bit of a failure.)
He starts in a way that piqued my interest as he objected to the
Muslim tendency "to turn this man into an imaginary superhuman being,
a sort of God in human clothes, and have generally ignored the ample
evidence of his humanity." I could relate to this!
He immediately launches into the issues surrounding the hadith
literature and other Muslim accounts of Muhammad-- the possibility
that some things found in the literature are self-evidently pious
stories, not biographical-historical stories. (Such issues are often
heatedly discussed by today's Muslims.) Dashti mercilessly ridicules,
for instance, the hadith telling of Muhammad's birth and Night
Journey, citing Muslim religious bias as being responsible for
creating what are in essence myths, fantasies and fairy-stories.
He gives an appearance of fairness by indicating that conversely,
Western Christian writers present a negative picture of Muhammad due
to their own religious biases. So, Dashti says that neither group was
"capable of objective study of the facts" due to religious bias. For
instance, a view of Muhammad as "a liar, impostor, adventurer,
power-seeker, and lecher" is not supportable and due to Western
Christian bias.
After some preemptive praise of Muhammad he begins his story.
Right off, given his condemnation of both Muslim and Christian
accounts of Muhammad as not being based upon "objective facts" he
totally does the exact same thing:
"What MOST offended the Meccan chiefs was that this call.... came from
a man of lower status than themselves." (emphasis mine)
This cannot possibly be an objective fact.
To encounter this so soon after his introduction gave me pause. How he
read their minds so well I do not know. While this may have been part
of the Meccan chiefs' rejection of Muhammad's message, to say it is
what MOST offended is a huge stretch, it would seem, and not at all an
objective fact. He does this mind-reading trick quite a bit.
Another example of this is in his dismissal of the story of the Night
Journey. Rather than actually exploring the stories he merely writes:
"it is obvious the Prophet did not say such things and that these
childish fables are figments of the imaginations of simple-minded
people who conceived of the divine order as a replica of the court of
their own king or ruler."
I found this stunningly banal.
First, it is NOT obvious, much less an objective fact, that Muhammad
did not describe the experience of the Night Journey as has been
recorded in the hadith literature.
And indeed, another interpretation might be: "It is obvious the
Prophet had an ineffable experience of The Transcendent-- accounts of
which are found in religious literature-- and described that
experience in a way the people could understand."
This is actually more reasonable than Dashti's statement, because we
know there are people who have recounted ineffable experiences of The
Transcendent. So, even though Dashti wants to reduce the stories down
to psycho-social dynamics, he doesn't really even do such a good job
with that, because he doesn't really seem to be aware of the breadth
of psychological literature on such things as mystic experience, as
well as other topics I'll not outline here.
Second, Dashti WILL use the hadith literature when it suits his
purpose, for instance, in describing Muhammad as shy, or as mending
his own clothes he uses hadith. He uses it for his whole story, of
course! He does not explore why he would reject one hadith and not the
other. One might think he rejects anything that smacks of the
non-ordinary, but he seems to accept the hadith regarding the account
of the beginning of the revelation-- which is certainly as
non-ordinary as the Night Journey. So why he ridicules one and not the
other is not real clear. Though it IS clear he rejects the idea that
anything supernatural is happening.
He also uses the hadith to compare Muhammad to famous conquerors as
mentioned above. For instance, during negotiations with the Medinians
before the hejra, Dashti quotes hadith. Muhammad is asked how
committed he will be to the Medinian tribes over his own, "On the
contrary. Blood, blood, destruction, destruction! I shall be yours and
you shall be mine. I shall be at war with those at war with you and at
peace with those at peace with you." Dashti writes: "The repetition of
the words 'blood' and 'destruction' brings to mind the statement of
the famous French revolutionary Jean Paul Marat, 'I want blood'".
Uh, even I can tell the hadith's exclaimed oath is not at all like
Marat's desire.
So, Dashti did not impress me as a very broadly based writer or
thinker, and he was not going to actually *explore* the issues. As a
Marxist-Leninist thinker he is not aware of the transcendent, and does
not think it is of importance to human life. That is a huge oversight
and deficit when looking at religious texts, behaviors and issues.
His socialist leanings to not serve him well in this endeavor, for the
book comes off as a form of mere-- and transparent-- anti-Muslim
rhetoric. So entranced with "the West" and Marxist thought, Dashti
seems to have unreflectively swallowed and regurgitated anti-Muslim
interpretations of Muhammad which are familiar to many today, and are
recognized as being anti-Muslim misinterpretations of Muslim history.
It would appear that in spite of Dashti's upbringing as a Muslim his
understanding of theology was very elementary. For instance, he is
very confused about Allah's role in guidance or misguidance of the
human, which is tied to the issue of "destiny" or Allah's measuring
out of good and evil. i.e. "If Allah so willed, all would believe."
So, says Dashti, is it God's fault people do NOT believe? And so then
how could punishment be just?
I'm not going to say this is not a subtle theological issue. All I'm
saying is Dashti's amazed confusion over this aspect of tawheed points
to his poor grasp of Muslim thought, in spite of his having been
raised Muslim.
Dashti completely fails to understand the very idea of "a text" and
takes great exception to the Qur'anic challenge to "produce a surah
like it."
First-- and this is amazing to me-- he writes on p. 47-48 "Non-Moslem
scholars have found numerous grounds for questioning the
intelligibility and eloquence of the Qur'an, and Moslem scholars have
concurred in so far as they have found that the Qor'an needs
interpretation."
Uh, EVERY text, and indeed every thing the human experiences, needs
interpretation. Its what the human does-- interpret meaning. With one
sentence, Dashti throws himself to the winds of irrelevance. Indeed,
it is in interpretation that one discovers the infinite
intelligibility and sublime eloquence so strongly attested to by
libraries of Muslim literature--- literature that is just so easily
ignored, it would seem, by Dashti, in favor of a fascination with the
non-Muslim literature which he seems to simply swallow whole.
He cites-- so familiar to us-- the idea that at times the Qur'anic
text is not grammatical, unfamiliar words are used, and other
"aberrations of language." Aside from the fact that he does not
explore the actual Muslim literature on the Qur'anic textual form, he
completely ignores the evidence of the profound impact the language
had on Muhammad's contemporaries-- reflected in the Qur'an itself as
accusations of spellbinding words-- and as attested to by
Arabic-knowing Muslims across time and cultures. What Dashti-- in a
way indicative of a banal lack of imagination-- doesn't recognize is
that the Qur'an is a *new* and *unique* form of language use.
Oddly, he DOES say this "... the Qor'an is indeed unique and
wonderful. There was no precedent for it...." So, he says it, but
doesn't really understand what he is saying!
(This is similar to sri poster Heger's insistence that the Qur'anic
use of language "destroys" [willfully?] old forms of poetry. No. It is
a new and unique form of language use.)
Dashti's poor grasp of Muslim thought, and credulity in light of
"western" and Marxist (and perhaps Enlightenment) thought thus leads
him towards a portrayal of Muhammad not just as human, but as all too
human. That is, as a person who acted out of questionable and
less-than-noble motivations.
Exactly what anti-Muslim literature does.
For instance, he puts forth the idea-- most of us have seen it
before-- that with the power that came from the establishment of the
Medinian State Muhammad's personality makes a drastic change.
Actually, he says that Muhammad's "inner self"-- that is, is *real*
self-- now makes an appearance. Here is how Dashti puts it on page 81:
"With his thoughts fixed on the hereafter, he implored his Meccan
compatriots to revere the Lord of the Universe, and condemned
violence, injustice, hedonism, and neglect of the poor. Like Jesus, he
was full of compassion. After the move to Madina, however, he becomes
a relentless warrior, intent on spreading his religion by the sword,
and a scheming founder of state. ...A man who had lived for more than
twenty years with one wife became inordinately fond of women."
Well, what can I say to that? This is simply a repeat of standard
anti-Muslim bigoted takes on Muslim history. No attempt to place the
events in a full context (as would be needed for a psycho-social
analysis) no sense of broken treaties and genocidal aggression on the
part of the Quraish and their allies. Just the old standby: "religion
of the sword". Sure, its dressed up, but there it is!
It is with some horrid fascination we might recall Dashti's dismissal
of "the west's" religiously biased picture of Muhammad at the
beginning of his book, which I mentioned above. He asserts pretty
much the same thing!
According to Dashti, Muhammad now acts out of revenge for his bruised
ego:
"During his last ten years, which he spent at Madina, he was not the
same man as the Mohammad who for thirteen years had been preaching
humane compassion at Mecca. ...[he] reappeared in the garb of the
Prophet intent on subduing his own tribe and humbling the kinsmen who
for thirteen years had mocked him."
God forgive me, but what Dashti is saying here is that because
Muhammad was mocked, made fun of, called names-- now that he had power
he was going to go humiliate them for hurting his feelings.
Muhammad! The messenger from God! Acting like the kid everyone made
fun of in school, now a success, coming to the reunion for some cheap
revenge jollies.
You gotta be kidding.
I mean, I'm pretty easy, but even I'm completely offended by that. God
love Muhammad!
I am going to assume most readers-- Muslim and non-Muslim-- know that
this is not actually accepted by anyone other than anti-Muslim bigot
types. Muhammad was never aggressive or revengeful, nor did he have
much of an ego. He didn't change in Medina. Circumstances did.
Treaties were broken-- not by the Muslims. Genocidal mania was in the
land-- directed at the Muslims. The Muslims fought back as anyone
would.
Bizarrely, Dashti seems to have no sense here that Qur'anic ayat
always refer back to the historical situation. So, statements of war
are relevant only in light of the Muslims being under attack, while
those related to peace are-- surprise!-- relevant to times when
Muslims are not under attack. He doesn't show awareness of this.
So, a long post, and no more need be written.
Dashti is himself a product-- or should I say victim?-- of his own
times. His country was in upheaval. The socialist fantasy enticed
many. Inordinate exaltation of the Enlightenment ideal of the primacy
of reason seduced, and still seduces, many. Dashti's book exemplifies
both this fantasy and this seduction, such that he could no longer
even dimly apprehend The Transcendent Unity-- Allah Most High, and so
rejected The Truth. Trying to understand and bridge multiple world
views, he failed to truly enter either. Kind of sad.
I have to pray he declared shahada before he died, and his sins of
scholarship be forgiven.
But the book is lousy. Sorry.