The Handy Islam Answer Book. John Renard
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a stunningly ironic example of the enormous power of such holy places.
Has this dynamic ever worked in reverse, with rulers trying to undermine popular devotion to a major religious figure?
When Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (d. 1938) officially proclaimed the secular Turkish Republic on October 29, 1923, he suppressed the Sufi orders because they represented too great a potential force for disruption in his experiment in governing a Muslim nation. Members of the Mevlevi tariqa were officially disbanded and no longer allowed to gather publicly. But the Turkish Ministry of Culture continues to subsidize Rumi’s tomb as a “museum,” and pilgrims continue to visit it as a shrine. A striking tribute to the enduring spirit of Rumi (and indirectly of scores of other holy persons) appears on a 5,000 Turkish lire currency note in use until inflation rendered it virtually worthless: one side depicts a sternly serious Ataturk in profile; the other, a benignly smiling Rumi next to the fluted green dome beneath which three dervishes whirl. On balance, political rulers throughout history and in many cultural and religious contexts have run a broad gamut of modes of expressing, cultivating, and, of course, manipulating religious beliefs for their own purposes.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (d. 1938) founded the secular Turkish Republic after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi ruled Iran from 1941 until the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The Pahlavi shahs were considered by many Muslims to have been heavily influenced by the West and Russia.
Has Iran always been ruled by radical Shi’ite “clerics” like Khomeini and his successor, Khamenei?
Iran has been “officially” a Shi’i nation since around 1501—a relatively small portion of the Persian people’s very long history, dating back as far as 2800 B.C.E. In the early sixteenth century, a Turkic dynasty with Sufi background, called the Safavids, came to power and declared Twelver Shi’ism the “state creed.” For some 480 years, the religious establishment of scholars and specialists in Sharia functioned as a kind of loyal opposition in relation to the royal authorities. The Safavids were sandwiched between the two other “gunpowder empires”—the Ottomans and the Mughals, both Sunni dynasties. They engaged militarily with the Ottomans over several centuries, and some argue that by distracting the Ottomans in contests over territory the Safavids may well have prevented the Turks from conquering more of Europe. The Safavid dynasty weakened toward the end of the seventeenth century and suffered from an Afghan inter-regnum after a Pashtun invasion in 1722. After several decades of political instability, Iran was again stabilized by another Turkic dynasty, the Qajar, in 1794. From their new capital in Tehran, the Qajars ruled until overthrown by the Pahlavi family, an indigenous and short-lived Iranian dynasty.
How did Iran undergo such radical change after the mid-twentieth century?
Under the two Pahlavi shahs, Iran’s foreign relations were marked by increasing influence by outsiders, especially Russia, Britain, and the United States. One notorious example of foreign interference was the CIA overthrow of Musaddiq’s interruption in Pahlavi rule in 1953—an event that still colors Iran views of “the West.” In 1963, an ayatollah named Ruhollah Khomeini spearheaded a popular attempt to overthrow the second Pahlavi shah and was exiled to Iraq. An inveterate firebrand, Khomeini continued to annoy Iraq’s Baath rulers until Saddam Hussein banished him to France in the early 1970s, where he continued to agitate for the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. His Iranian Revolution succeeded in early 1979. The timing was powerfully symbolic, marking the very start of the Islamic lunar year 1400, and redolent of the ancient tradition that God would raise up a “renewer” at the outset of every (Islamic) century. Khomeini implemented what was a totally new political theology for modern Iran, centered as it was on the “Oversight of Religious Lawgiver,” and seeking to foster a rare example of contemporary theocratic regime.
The destruction of the sixteenth-century Bridge of Mostar in 1993 by Croatian forces was a symbol of major divisions between Serbs and Croats.
What, if any, is the religious connection with the late-twentieth-century strife among Muslims and Serbs and Croats in the former Yugoslavia?
Islam began to develop a significant presence in the Balkans with the Ottoman conquest of 1463. Christianity had already been deeply rooted among the Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs for many centuries. Conversion to Islam, while generally not coerced by the Ottomans, was definitely associated with foreign domination. Although the Croats and Serbs have by no means always been peaceful neighbors, there have been periods of still greater hostility between the Christians, who consider themselves the inheritors of the land, and the Muslims, who are often regarded as invaders. For many non-Muslim Bosnians, all things even remotely identifiable as Turkish represent the remnants of a historic scourge whose vestiges they would like to eliminate. Bosnian Serbs, with the urging of the government of Serbia in Belgrade, have been engaged in the systematic eradication of virtually every visible reminder of the Ottoman presence that they associate with Islam. Scores of historic mosques, libraries, bridges, and other architectural treasures have been destroyed, all in an attempt to eradicate the identity of the Muslim people of Bosnia.
What has all the talk about “ethnic” cleansing got to do with religion?
The peoples of the Balkans are generally of Western Slavic stock, so the term “ethnic cleansing” is an inaccurate description of recent events in the republics of the former Yugoslavia. All of the inhabitants of the region given the national designation of Bosnia (comprised of an eastern section called Bosnia and a western called Hercegovina) speak a Slavic language often called Serbo-Croatian. While there are some differences in the ways Bosnian Croats, Serbs, and Muslims speak, the differences are analogous to those that distinguish British English from American English. Recent events in the Balkans have resulted largely from political decisions that have sought to aggravate divisions among people of various religious communities who had been learning to live together peacefully. As such, the religious distinctions are decidedly secondary, but a handy tool for demagogues whose success depends on their ability to promote divisiveness and hatred.
What is one example of a Christian power declaring war on Muslims for religious reasons?
In 1989, on the six hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic launched his campaign for a Greater Serbia with a blood-curdling speech on the site of that historic conflict. He spoke of how Prince Lazar, who had died a glorious martyr’s death defending his homeland against the Turks in 1389, was a Christ-figure and the Muslims were the Christ-killers. Milosevic then hinted that he was the new Prince Lazar whose mission was to reverse the score, and he soon launched a savage onslaught against the Muslims of Bosnia-Hercegovina, tearing apart a society in which Croatian Catholics, Serbian Orthodox, and Bosnian Muslims had lived in peace for many years. Even now, few careful observers of the Balkan conflict would identify religion as the true instigating factor, let alone claim that Christianity is inherently and irredeemably violent.
CONCERNS OF TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY MUSLIMS
Is there an “Islamic economics”?
Beginning with the Quran, Islamic tradition has had specific concerns about economic transactions in relation to economic justice. Muhammad himself had been a businessman, working with the caravan trade owned by his first wife, Khadija. As in so many other matters, Muslims find an exemplar in the Medinan society of the Prophet’s day. One issue the Quran addresses at least indirectly is that of considering money as “product” rather than as a simple means of exchange. In effect the Quran regards money as a measure of goods and services, not itself a basis for making more money.
Given the realities of contemporary economic life, can “Islamic economics” actually be workable these days?
Global banking and market systems are built on the concept that one