I took on course in Anthropology at university. I got a "B." Therefore I will approach this book as a "B" student should.
I like narratives. Unfortunately this book doesn't have enough of them. It is mostly reflective, and since I don't know all of the terminology that comes with anthropology, then I was sometimes confused.
What I got of narrative, though, I found interesting. I learned that you have to get special permission to go on hajj and then you have to take hajj course ahead of time, so you don't screw up. Any mistake and the hajj doesn't count. Women will even take pills to avoid their periods. Seems kind of silly really. The God in Islam is compassionate and understands that people make mistakes, so I think He would be more forgiving on a slight mistake made on hajj.
My students will say that I cannot really understand the Qu'ran since I don't read the Arabic in it. Of course most of them are failing their Arabic courses, and also cannot read what is in the original, but they still look down on translation. Arabic isn't really one language. The author of this book hails from Morocco, where the language is so different from what is in the Qu'ran or what is spoken in Saudi Arabia. It is really a separate language, but religious pride won't allow for Arabic to become more than one language, like religious pride in Europe didn't allow the growth of native written languages until the Latin finally started collapsing in the late middle ages.
Another thing I learned that was big on the hajj is shopping. I guess I should have seen this one coming, since every religious site I have ever been to has a souvenir shop or is surrounded by a souvenir district. Why should Medina and Mecca be any different? I guess I was just hoping that Islam would be different.
Another the author considered was ethics in society. When talking to his Moroccan friends they say that religion and reality are different. You can lie and cheat and still be religious. I guess I would disagree with this. I always thought that religion was supposed to mold the individual. I guess this why I feel that Islam really is in a dark ages at present. People accept so much wrong in the name of religion, without even questioning what they are doing. I really think a lot of this has to do with literacy. As mentioned before the Qu'ran is only valid in Arabic, and Arabic as written in the Qu'ran is something that most Muslims in the world cannot read. The translations that are allowed tend to come out of Saudi Arabia and they actually add language to their versions that make Christians and Jews look bad. So what the Saudis are doing is taking a non-racist, and quite welcoming religion, and making it one that is full of hate. Unfortunately we are seeing this hatred in the world at present. Let me be clear here, I don't think this hatred is in Islam, just in those narrow minded people who are trying to use it for their own ends.
The last part of the author's narrative was about the sacrifice of Ismael by Ibrahim. As in the Bible, a lamb was sacrificed instead of the young man. But I have always wondered about this passage of scripture (with Biblical or Qu'ranic). Why would a loving God ask a man to kill his child? This summer, I read another book that says that these sacrifices might just be initiations into some secret society. This is an interesting perspective on this, but I still wonder how these texts affect how we view the world. Should we listen to a God that asks us to do something that is clearly immoral? I often wonder if indeed that is the challenge. Shouldn't we stand up to this God and say "no"? Maybe that is what He wants us to do. In the end, we don't go through with the murder, but why are we put in that position to begin with? Why does God need this type of complete surrender? Why doesn't He instead have us surrender in ways that are positive?
So this book made me think a bit but I know I don't like it as much as I do other narratives I have read of the hajj.
Labels: Year of the Rat Reading
