The hajj

This week we're talking about the hajj, or pilgrimage. Sardar's writing about 2:196-203, and his remarks are a useful reminder that monotheists aren't always savage and cruel. Sometimes they're just banal.

It seems to me that in the hajj one of the great enduring philosophical disputes - the supposed contradiction between the collective and the individual that has divided societies and been responsible for some of the greatest atrocities of history - is dissolved or rather resolved as an illusory distinction. All people are individual and unique but necessarily and inevitably must live within communities, in human groupings among and with other people. We are faced not with a contradiction but with realities that must be balanced, and in being conscious of God, the creator and judge of all, we find the understanding and guidance to effect this balance. It is not just the mass of humanity gathered together that makes the hajj such a moving, humbling and inspiring experience. It is the profundity of the way of thinking about our relationship to God, to other people and ourselves it teaches.

So his religious contemplation has revealed to him, and he's revealed to us, that society is a balance between the needs of the many and the needs of the individual. Has he made plans to make this vital insight into human affairs better known? Will there be a press conference?

There's a bit at the end of the post which may come as a surprise to some people. During this second stay in Muna, the pilgrims sacrifice an animal. Say what? It's a remarkable thing, that such a seemingly pagan act should survive in the rituals of the most anti-pagan religion in the world.

A Muslim colleague once told me that children are also required to give animals up for sacrifice. Apparently they are encouraged to build up a relationship with a lamb, visiting it and feeding it, and the lamb is then slaughtered in front of them. This is supposed to teach the child about the importance of giving things up for God, and is associated with the story of Abraham being prepared to sacrifice his son. It still amazes me that there are British children out there who are occasionally required to put down their Gameboys and go and watch a pet being killed.

There's nothing else here of note, so it gives me the opportunity to talk about an exchange in last week's comments.

It came up in the discussion of jihad. I didn't post, I was having a week off, but I did put in a comment. It was about one of my personal bete noires, the way that religious people talk about their religion's official version of events as if it was confirmed history. Sardar does this all the time, but this post was an adventurous foray into the world of the unverifiable even by his standards. I said this.

I ask again - is there any independent historical confirmation that any of these events even took place?

If not, you're judging these events based purely on victors' history. It's like trying to understand the Russian revolution when the only accounts you have are the ones written by Lenin and Trotsky.

So far so unremarkable, you might have thought, but it earned this reply from Rosalinda, which I think gives us a useful insight into the moderate religious mind.

Independent sources for history? You mean like any sources which bashed Muhammed and Islam from beginning to end? So if there are none then it means the entire Islamic history is a huge lie because it was written by the "victors"? In that case Muhammed and Muslims deserve unbounded admiration for managing this exploit that noone in history managed to do no matter how powerful and mighty they grew to become. What about the sources which bash Muhammed and Islam, why should they be more trusted? They could have been motivated by simple hatred, jalousy and meanness. History, like holy books, can be interpreted in anyway the reader feels "right" or suits their own subjective opinion. In any case, Muslims believe in the authenticity of their history and they have reliable sources they trust. If none of these sources can be singled out as giving them plenty of excuse for illegitimate violence (and that is a fact), then I don't see what the fuss non-Muslims are making is about.

I responded with this.

By independent sources, I mean any non-Muslim sources. It's a perfectly standard historical question. It doesn't mean that Muslim sources would be excluded, just that their bias (as well as the bias of other sources) would be taken into account.

I can imagine a communist asking me the same question about the Russian Revolution. "Oh, you mean sources attacking us, why would we listen to them?"

We listen to them because without a plurality of historical accounts, history cannot be considered firm. On any other subject than religion, the common sense of this would be obvious. No-one would interpret the English Civil War based purely on the accounts of Oliver Cromwell's official recorders, for instance.

In the field of religious history in particular, one of the main reasons why intellectual Christians have had to move away from a literalist interpretation of the Bible is that other historical data conflicts with it. The Christians may have made a tactical error in locating their source events in the middle of the Roman Empire, rather than an obscure desert backwater.

With religions like Mormonism and the south Pacific cargo cults, we can track the inglorious development of an actual real world religion in recent times. Extrapolating from this observation to history, we can see that religious belief in itself offers no guarantee of historical authenticity.

I've yet to receive a reply, but due to moderation my second comment only appeared this morning, and the discussion has moved on to today's post anyway. This is a problem with the structure of the blog, where the snappy discussion common to Internet debates is made impossible by the interval between comments being added and their appearing. This one went up inside 24 hours, but sometimes it's days.

The reason why I think the exchange is interesting is that it shows the contradictory relationship religious moderates have with the concept of evidence. On the one hand, Rosalinda criticises the (non-existent) alternative sources on the grounds of their bias against Islam, in other words their (hypothetical) failure to consider the facts objectively. She even says that History, like holy books, can be interpreted in any way the reader feels "right" or suits their own subjective opinion.

For religious moderates have taken on board a form of cultural relativism. Rosalinda identifies a problem with history, which is that it's hard to reach precise conclusions given that every historian approaches a problem with their own preconceptions, and uses that to undermine the very idea of secular historical scholarship.

But then she says In any case, Muslims believe in the authenticity of their history and they have reliable sources they trust. This is a direct contradiction of her previous sentence.

Having used relativism for the purpose she requires of it, she abandons it when it comes to analysing her own beliefs. The fact that Muslims believe, for her, is apparently enough to make a source reliable. As usual, belief becomes evidence for itself.

So this approach is contradictory, but it's also plain wrong. History isn't just about perspective. We know that Winston Churchill existed because we've got film of him. We know that Henry VII existed, because we've got a wide variety of sources that refer to him, written by friends and enemies. We can even claim to understand the broad historical facts regarding his divorce with Katherine of Aragon, again because they are commonly agreed by all factions.

We don't know that Mohammed existed, because we don't have that body of evidence. He could just as easily be a composite of various figures, united in one man by the famous posthumous committee. We certainly don't know anything about the actual historical relationship between the Muslims and the people around them, because we don't have external confirmation of any of it, and without a plurality of sources we can't assert reliable historical truth.

Not that historical truth seems to be a crucial issue for her. If none of these sources can be singled out as giving them plenty of excuse for illegitimate violence (and that is a fact), then I don't see what the fuss non-Muslims are making is about, she says.

This reminds me of abugaafar's remarks last week, enthusiastically picked up by his allies, including Sardar. I said my piece on that last week, but this is part of the same argument. History, like Qur'anic exegesis, isn't about propping up or undermining beliefs. It's about finding out the truth. To the extent that it's being done with the goal of proving a position, it's being done badly. If a historical account or a scriptural analysis is problematic, then those problems should be aired, and the question of motives shouldn't come into it.

For light relief, we turn to ummmahmed. Most of the Wars that Islam fought were for Defensive purposes and nver wars of Aggression, he says.

That's some defending, that is. Just think, they started in Arabia, they fought a series of defensive battles and by the end of it they had an empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Gobi desert. A thousand years later, the Ottomans were still fending off aggressors outside the gates of Vienna.

I just wish we'd had more Muslims at Dunkirk. We'd have defended our way to Berlin before the autumn.