I recently read a fascinating and disturbing article in The New Yorker, by Jon Lee Anderson, on the rise and defeat of Islamists in Mali. I was struck by two particular descriptions of the Islamists’ behavior:
“In the central square, Idrissa had witnessed the beating of one of the jihadis’ own men, who had been accused by his comrades of raping a young girl. The spectators loudly criticized the jihadis for a double standard. “Everyone was angry because they didn’t kill him,” Idrissa said. Afterward, the jihadis had gone on the local radio station and warned that anyone who spoke badly about their men would be killed.”
The other:
“Then, on day two, the Islamists came,” he recalled. He had asked the leader what he wanted. Naming the northern towns of Mali, he had said, “Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal are Muslim towns, and we want to make Sharia in them. We are not asking. We are saying what we are doing, and we’re here to make Sharia.”
What I found so troubling was not only “the usual” Al Qaeda-related atrocities, but even more so the Islamist’s clearly voiced goal of destroying an existing social system through violence, devastation of cultural heritage (vandalizing local temples and libraries). This was tied together with the idea of creating a different social order based on sexual control, and the replacement of any traces of modern knowledge by radical interpretations of old religious texts. The irony is that these readings are just as contemporary as the lifestyle the Islamists try to erase.
In my opinion, these two quotes illustrate the power of violence combined with unquestionable certainty, able to undermine an entire civilization—its customs, morals, social order, and authorities. They fall apart in the presence of arrogant brutality. The people are too “civilized,” too cultured to defend themselves. The Islamists reject a civilization they claim is morally corrupt, and instead attempt to replace it with a modern essentialist take on an imagined Golden Age of religious purity.
The case of Islamists in Mali is an extremely . . .
Read more: Reflections on Al Qaeda in Mali, and Other Radicals at the Gates
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, January 7th, 2013 
During my sabbatical, I have had the luxury of reading in a leisurely fashion, without courses and writing projects in mind, going where my interests take me. It has been a pleasure and, as it happens, a fruitful practice. Without intention, it has led me to a new project, as I have already reported: an exploration of the unresolvable dilemmas built into the social fabric, the study of the social condition. Today, another example, the tensions between religion and politics in modern society: I returned to this problem reading Nachman Ben Yehuda’s latest book, Theocratic Democracy: The Social Construction of Religious and Secular Extremism.
Ben Yehuda, my old friend and colleague, is studying in his book Jewish extremism in the Jewish state. He investigates deviance in the religious community as a way to analyze the conflict between the religious and secular in Israel. Central religious and political commitments in Israel as a matter of the identity of the national community pose serious problems. Not only has the recognition of Israel as a Jewish Democratic state become a key demand and obstacle in negotiations with the Palestinians: it has become a problematic challenge to the relationship among Israeli Jews. Nachman, an occasional Deliberately Considered contributor explores this. His central findings are presented in part 2 of Theocratic Democracy, on the deviance and the non-conformity of the ultra orthodox, and part 3 on cultural conflict in the media.
In part 2, a selection of “illustrative events and affairs” is presented, among many others: a 1958 affair surrounding the building of a swimming pool for mixed, male and female, bathing, in ultra-orthodox rendering the “abomination pool,” and the 1981 ultra-orthodox attack on an archaeological dig of the City of David, near the old city of Jerusalem, leading to a series of conflicts, ultimately resulting in the fine tuning of the law of archaeology. During 1985-6, there were Haredi attacks on advertising posters. Further, there were attacks on movie theaters open on the Saturday Sabbath, . . .
Read more: The Social Condition, Religion and Politics in Israel
By Alexander Nachman, November 13th, 2012 
When analyzing politics and society in the Arab and Islamic world, it is admirable and important to break away from a Western-centered analysis. This move is not sufficient though. There is a temptation to continue to fall back on theories and rhetoric that have emanated from the west and have informed exactly that from which one attempts to break away. Furthermore, when discussing public discourse in the Arab world, it is imperative that one addresses the importance of Islam and its continuing vital role in Arab and Middle Eastern politics, despite Western scholarship’s tendency to suggest a historical end that involves the marginalization of religion. I appreciate Professor Challand’s posts in Deliberately Considered and the admirable move of breaking away from Western-centered analysis, but I think his posts suffer from theoretical temptation and an insufficient appreciation of the role of Islam.
It is true that civil-society is more than “NGOs and the developmental approach which imagines that the key to progress is when donors, the UN or rich countries, give aid to boost non-state actors, in particular NGOs, in the ‘developing south’” as Professor Challand asserts in his post “The Counter-Power of Civil Society in the Middle East.” I believe, though, that one must also conceive of civil-society and democratic institutions as more than a source for “collective autonomy” using other than secular slogans in the tradition of Tocqueville and Hegel.
Writing a history of democracy would have to include analysis such as de Tocqueville’s, but we should also remember that de Tocqueville wrote:
Muhammad brought down from heaven and put into the Quran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories. The Gospels, on the other hand, deal only with the general relations between man and God and between man and man. Beyond that, they teach nothing and do not oblige people to believe anything. That alone, among a thousand reasons, is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power . . .
Read more: Beyond the West: A Critical Response to Professor Challand’s Approach to the Arab Transformations
By Michael Weinman, March 9th, 2012 
These days, as I reflect on the explosive aftereffects of the incineration of copies of the Quran in a US military base in Afghanistan, I find myself re-reading chapters 1-11 of Book Two of Aristotle’s Rhetoric, where he offers his treatment of the passions (the Greek is pathē, from which we get all those “path” terms, like sympathy, empathy, apathy, pathetic, and so on). This “theory of moral sentiments” comes in the context of “a theory of rhetoric”: a reasoned discourse offering analysis and advice concerning the political use of composed speech in situations where persuasion is based on something other than “purely” rational conviction. Central to what Aristotle has to say is that human beings experience anger on those occasions when they: (1) believe that they themselves or something that they hold dear (or, especially, most dear) has been belittled and (2) cherish a wish for revenge. The paradigmatic example is Achilles, who believing himself to have been robbed of his honor (which is what was most dear to him at that time) by Agamemnon, displays his anger precisely by predicting and praying for (and then enlisting the gods’ support for his predictive prayer) the devastation of the Greek army as a punishment to Agamemnon. This is especially exemplary in that, among other things, it shows why what we euphemistically call “collateral damage” is so endemic to “the work of anger.”
The terrible events that have followed the burning of the Qurans by insufficiently sensitive and ill trained personnel, sadly, were entirely predictable in terms of Aristotle’s account. The anger, with its destructive thirst for revenge, that a believer feels in seeing the testament burned unceremoniously as refuse is immediately understandable for someone who has taken the slightest moment to conceive of how a Muslim relates to the sacred word, and how it differs from the way in which a Christian relates to the sacred word. With just the smallest degree of education—precisely the kind of education Aristotle is trying to provide in his Rhetoric—one could see at an instant . . .
Read more: On Anger, “Judeo-Christian” Values and the Quran Burning Controversy
By Ahmad Sadri, March 10th, 2011 
Ahmad Sadri is Professor Sociology and James P. Gorter Chair of Islamic World Studies at Lake Forest College. Today he offers his reflections on the approaches to religion in Iran as the revolutions in the Arab world proceed. -Jeff
Iran’s religious tyranny is not the result of blind subservience to religious tradition. On the contrary, it was born of a bold innovation by the late Ayatollah Khomeini that reversed the quietist bent of the Shiite political philosophy. Khomeini claimed that in absence of the Mahdi (the occulted savior) Shiites must work to create a righteous state. After he was firmly established at the helm of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini went even further and argued that the qualified Islamic jurist is the all powerful Muslim Leviathan who can suspend even the principal beliefs and practices of Islam (including praying, fasting, going to Mecca and even monotheism) in the name of raison d’etat
Thirty years later a decisive majority of Iranians want out of that secret garden of medieval religious despotism, and they showed their collective will in the uprisings of the summer of 2009. The “Arab Spring” that is blossoming in the Middle East might have been inspired by that uprising, the “Green Movement,” but Iranians have not been able to emulate the Arab model by overthrowing their robed potentates. The Iranian religious autocrats possess both the means and the will to mow down potential crowds of protesters in the name of Khomeini’s powerful imperative to preserve the Islamic State.
As a result, the critique of religious government is slowly turning into the kind of radical anti-religious sentiment one could only find among eighteenth-century enlightenment philosophers, nineteenth-century Latin American positivists and twentieth-century Marxist Leninist countries. I fear a narrow minded secularism is replacing a narrow minded “religionism.”
Abdolkarim Soroush © Hessam M.Armandehi | Wikimedia Commons
Consider what happened last month. Abdolkarim Soroush, a renowned Islamic reformer who lives in exile, . . .
Read more: Religion, Tyranny and its Alternatives in Iran
By Gary Alan Fine, March 9th, 2011 
Last week Pope Benedict XVI brought delightful news for the Jews. In his new book the pope personally exonerated Jews for being responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, denying that Jews shared collective guilt for the death of Their Lord. In this, he reiterated the repudiation of collective guilt by the Vatican, nearly fifty years ago, in 1965. On this matter, at least, there is to be no retreat.
Those of us who can remember the earlier repudiation will also remember the brilliant conniptions of Lenny Bruce. As Bruce admitted, “Alright, I’ll clear the air once and for all, and confess. Yes, we did it. I did it, my family. I found a note in my basement. It said: “We killed him, signed, Morty.” Tonight Morty can rest serenely.
The debate over Jewish complicity in the death of Christ, in contrast to the complicity of certain Jews, is a matter of no small significance, even if, as Bruce slyly commented the statute of limitations should be running out. Ultimately the issue is not about Jews and Jesus, but about the assignment of blame for creating a climate of violence.
When I teach freshmen, I begin my seminar on Scandal and Reputation by explaining to these students that sociology is the most dangerous of disciplines. We are the academic subject that through its very birthright trades in stereotypes. Our lineage demands that we discuss race, class, and gender. We do not – or do not only – talk about one black barber, a wealthy stockbroker, a woman of ill-repute, or some malevolent rebbe. Our call is to talk about people, and not persons. Social psychologists push the discipline to gather data from persons, but we analyze what we gathered as if it came from people.
This means that when Jared Lee Loughner went on a shooting rampage, we asked how he got that way. And when Jesus was nailed, we ask who is responsible for a climate of crucifixion. As a sociologist, . . .
Read more: Jesus, King, and Collective Guilt
By Nachman Ben Yehuda, January 6th, 2011
When I first found out about the Rabbinical letter banning the sale or rental of property to Arabs, I noticed that my old friend and colleague, Nachman Ben – Yehuda, was quoted condemning it in the Toronto Globe and Mail. I then wrote to him asking for more extended reflections for DC. I received this post from him over the holiday weekend. He took his time, he explains, hoping for consequential official response. He offers his sober deliberate considerations. -Jeff
There are times and places where people like to stick together with their own flock, in defined, sometimes confined, geographical locations. In these locations, they live their own life style, with their own dress codes and eat their own foods. The Amish in Pennsylvania and the Jewish ultra-orthodox in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem are two examples. People outside of these communities and non-members may find it difficult to move and live in such social habitats. Moreover, in the case of ultra-orthodox communities, strangers who live in their neighborhoods and practice a non-religious life style may find themselves facing aggression and violence. I am writing about this to contrast it with the call of some rabbis in Israel not to rent apartments to Arabs in Israeli cities.
Israeli Arabs are just that – citizens with full and equal legal rights, and Israeli cities are not confined communities with a uniform worldview and way of life. Israeli cities, like most other cities of the world, are centers of diversity, including the religious and the secular, Jews, Christians and Muslims, old and young, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, etc. These cities are open. Renting an apartment is basically an economic issue. Making and publicizing a general call not to rent apartments to Arabs (or to any other culturally defined group) is quite simply racism.
The rabbinical pamphlet received very critical comments from some Israeli politicians and others, but this did not prevent activists from the Israeli right and religious right to stage a large demonstration on Thursday, December 23, 2010 . . .
Read more: Problematic Rabbinical Ruling Continued
By Iddo Tavory, December 19th, 2010
Today we post the controversial Rabbinical open letter in Israel prohibiting as a matter of religious obligation the renting or selling of property to non-Jews, translated and with reflections on its meaning by Iddo Tavory. It has caused great controversy in Israel and beyond (link and link), including at DC as it challenges the meaning of Israel as a democratic and Jewish state. -Jeff
The Translation:
In response to the query of many, we respond that is forbidden, by Torah-law, to sell a house or a field in the land of Israel to a non-Jew. As Maimonedes wrote: “as it is written (Deuteronomy 7:2) ‘thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them’ which means you shall give them no title to land. For if you do not give them title, their staying shall be temporary.” (laws: 77; 10, 4). And on that topic, the Torah warned in numerous places, that it causes evil and make the many sin in intermarriage, as it is said “For they will turn your sons away from following Me” (Deuteronomy 7:4), which is blasphemy (Maimonedes, 12:6). And it also causes the many to otherwise transgress, as the Torah has warned: “They shall not live in your land, because they will make you sin against Me” (Exodus 23: 33). And the sin of he who sells, and he who profits from it, is upon the heads of those who sell, God shall have mercy.
And evil upon evil, that he who sells or lets them rent an apartment in an area in which Jews are living, causes great damage to his neighbors, and for them it is said “and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.” (Numbers 33: 55). For their way of life is different from that of Jews, and some of them harass us and make our life hard, to the point of danger to our very lives, as has become well known on several occasions. And even outside of Israel they have forbidden to sell them in Jewish neighborhoods for this very reason, and all the more so in the land of Israel, as it is elucidated in the [Jewish book of law] Shulhan . . .
Read more: The Israeli Rabbis’ Letter: a Translation
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 16th, 2010
As has been discussed in DC already, the notion of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state presents serious problems. (Roadblocks to Peace and Two-Sided Response) While recognition of the Jewish State has been used as a condition for peace talks, the enactment of the Jewish character of the state (something that implies much more than Israel as a Jewish homeland) has challenged the democratic rights of the twenty per cent of Israel’s population that is of Palestinian origin.
 A religious edict forbidding Jews from renting or selling property to Arabs and other non-Jews is a most recent example that has caused great controversy. My Israeli friend and DC contributor, Nachman Ben Yehuda, was quoted about the Rabbis edict in The Globe and Mail of Toronto: “Their ultimate goal is a theocratic state….In the meantime, they want to enforce division between the ultra-Orthodox and everyone else.”
But things look even more critical from the Palestinian point of view which became apparent to me when I came across an email note from Amal Eqeiq, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship who is studying in Seattle. We worked together planning a research project on the politics of small things in Israel-Palestine. In her note, she makes clear that the democratic legitimacy of Israel is at stake. I present her message today, unedited, hoping it provokes serious deliberations.
So, 50 Rabbis signed up a religious call- Psak Halacha – asking Jews to NOT rent for Arabs. Yes, I understand that they don’t represent everybody, and that they are taking advantage of religion for political gains, and that there are different opinions, and that it is not legally binding, and that some lefties will protest in the name of human rights and for keeping face, and, and, and…”Amal, don’t take it personally,” BUT, WHAT THE FUCK?
Here is my observation about the (always guilty) Israeli media.
Haaretz says the letter is addressed for non-Jews (link) …they don’t say Arabs only…and I ask “really Haaretz?! 3anjad!! Thank you for watering down apartheid rhetoric. As a non-Jew, I feel much better now.
And of course, there is Yediot Ahronot with . . .
Read more: Israel: Jewish and Democratic?
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 28th, 2010 
 Nachman Ben Yehuda is an old friend. We were graduate students together at the University of Chicago. He, his wife Etti, my wife Naomi and I have been friends ever since. He is now a professor of sociology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the author of books that explore the worlds of deviance and the unsteadiness of memory about things political. Jewish assassins, the “Masada myth,” betrayal and treason, and as he puts it talking about his most recent book Theocratic Democracy, “pious perverts” are the subjects of Nachman’s sociological curiosity. On their recent visit to New York, we got together for a visit to the Museum of Modern Art, to see the exciting Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–1917 exhibit. While walking through the museum, I asked Nachman about the Park 51, about Cordoba House. Nachman is now back in Jerusalem, but emailed me his recollection of our discussion, which I thought would be good to share here.
A Conversation Remembered
He recalled our conversation:
The mosque. If I remember correctly our conversation, my argument was that officially and legally, there is no doubt that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the initiative to build the mosque where planned and that President Obama as defender of the American constitution did the right thing when he made his speech and supported it. My concern was as a hopeless symbologist and on the symbolic level. Hence, having said that legally Muslims are within their constitutional rights, I was concerned whether it was absolutely necessary or wise to have a Muslim mosque so close to where radical Muslims massacred thousands of innocent Americans. You put my concern there to rest.
In our discussion, I essentially made the argument I have been making in posts here, most crucially my first one considering the raw facts , but also my more recent post The tragedy of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. My key point, which convinced Nachman, was that the Cordoba House was actually a respectful initiative, made by people of good will, who sought respectful dialogue between Muslims and their fellow Americans. Yet, Nachman still . . .
Read more: Talking about Cordoba
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