The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

In the most recent controversy about depicting Muhammad, a professor was fired for showing depictions of him in an art history class, despite having told the students in advance she was doing so (so any Muslim in the class who didn’t want to see the images could leave).

The fact that the opposition to depicting him hadn’t been universal across Islamic groups or throughout history and that depictions have occurred in the past is relevant to the subject she was teaching; exposing people to the idea that values and beliefs differ widely and change over time is part of the core purpose of the humanities. The professor was absolutely in the right. That isn’t trolling in the least; it’s doing her job.

An example of a similar problem occurred in Canada. A young Hindu women made a film involving the goddess Kali, with some non-traditional interpretations. Hindu fundamentalists condemned her, and the group airing her movie apologized; then there was outcry, and the position was reversed, as it should have been. It’s one thing to try to show basic respect to people; it’s another thing to deliberately suppress discourse about and within religion in order to cater to the more conservative members of those religions.

We would never fire professors or pull movies from film festivals solely on the basis of them offending Christian fundamentalists. We shouldn’t do the same for other religions either. “Is it strictly necessary” isn’t enough - many people would say nudity in art isn’t ‘necessary’, but we don’t go around putting fig leaves over Michelangelo’s David any more. The question shouldn’t be “is there an overwhelming need to do this” but “is there an overwhelming need to censor it to prevent harm (not to prevent offense)”. In both these cases, the answer is “absolutely not”; there is no case for censorship.

As for hateful depictions used solely for the purpose of causing offense - I think they’re dickish and should be avoided, and there’s no call to go around offending people just to prove we can. But they shouldn’t be illegal, any more than flag-burning should.

Edited by Galadriel on Jun 8th 2023 at 12:51:59 PM

Nobody has at any point argued that Charlie Hebdo’s Islamophobic nonsense was a good thing, and the fact that it’s brought up in almost every single post is bordering on bad faith at this point. Yes, everyone involved has acknowledged that deliberately mocking, punching down at Muslim minorities portrayals of the Prophet Muhammad are a bad thing. Demanding that people constantly repudiate bad actors who hold similar positions in bad faith and implying that everyone who holds those beliefs holds the specific beliefs of the bad actors isn’t valid.

If a Jewish friend was coming over and asked me to make Kosher food for them I absolutely would, but that's the thing. The key word is come over, as in to my house. It's a purely private event between friends.

That is not the same thing as mandating a rule on society as a whole. The scales and thus implication are entirely different. It's the difference between asking one person to only make kosher food for a meal and asking everyone to only make kosher food. The former is a reasonable request to accommodate desires, the latter is an imposition that shows a frankly concerning willingness to demand conformity.

Actions can be reasonable individually but become unreasonable when scaled up. That's why these kinds of analogies fundamentally do not work, the situations are sufficiently different that the implications of the request inherently change.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jun 8th 2023 at 12:51:46 PM

Yes, this.

Look, if we say society should ban depictions of Mohammed for offending you, we can say they should ban Life of Brian for offending me. That’s not the direction I want to go.

Another example: Have you heard of a musical called The Book of Mormon (by the creators of South Park, I think, which should give you an idea)?

Dealing with the fact that people who aren’t members of your religion won’t all treat it with respect, as much as you would like them to, is part of living in a pluralistic society.

Edited by Galadriel on Jun 8th 2023 at 12:56:27 PM

Yes and they’re good examples, the same way 90% of the time you don’t need to say the N-word to deliver the necessary impact and can just say “N-word”.

But I’m seeing a distinct lack willingness to accommodate, compromise or respect people’s believes in the arguments being made here by a number of people. We’ve already gotten pretty close to Shiaphobia with some of the arguments about if their beliefs deserve to be respected equally to the beliefs of Sunnis. Based on the refusal people to engage with Sparten’s example there seems to be an belief that we shouldn’t teach the full extent of art history to consenting adults, does that extend to other elements of history?

To go back to the N-word example, Django Unchained used the word a lot for artistic effect, it used it to emphasise the racism and bigotry of a character that the audience was meant to hate. That impact on the audience wouldn’t have been as strong without the use age of the N-word.

Historical works and documents often show offensive things, we shouldn’t throw them at people without warning btu we also shouldn’t whitewash history and pretend people never said or did things to offend others.

Not only private, but also temporary. You are going to make kosher food for one few day/one meal whatever, not the rest of your life.

Edited by Risa123 on Jun 8th 2023 at 9:55:21 PM

As Macron said:

Freedom of speech is also freedom to blaspheme.

I'm not sure if it is a good idea to bring that guy up.

"In the most recent controversy about depicting Muhammad, a professor was fired for showing depictions of him in an art history class, despite having told the students in advance she was doing so (so any Muslim in the class who didn’t want to see the images could leave)."

Yeah, we already had that conversation over in the Islamaphobia thread (just sayin'). I'll quote myself:

"As an adjunct myself, I probably wouldn't have made the same decision she did. But I come down on the side of "not Islamaphobic.""

It’s not REMOTELY Islamophobic; it’s not even in any way inappropriate. It’s an entirely valid part of her job, performed in a respectful and thoughtful and considerate manner, and it should never have even been treated as an ISSUE, much less a firing offense. That it was, indicates a real problem.

Yes, that is something I've noticed.

A lot of the arguments I've seen are "well, many of the uses (that I can think of) were about demeaning a famous religion, so that means any desire to argue for the use of it clearly means you're out to demean a religion, and demeaning a religion is necessarily wrong"

which is, of course, is two separate arguments, neither very strong. One is "Any desire to argue for the use means you're probably planning to demean a religion later". This (I should hope) is obviously a weak argument. Citation needed.

The second argument is "demeaning a religion is necessarily and inherently wrong.", which there's a slightly more compelling argument for, though not one I even remotely agree with.

Again, it comes down to intent, and whether nor not there is a larger point being made. Some offensive statements are justified, others are not.

This is certainly correct but it's not especially pertinent to the topic, people are arguing whether or not violating Islamic prescripts is acceptable even if it offends some Muslims.

That offense can be caused/sought for bad reasons is true but not relevant.

I am arguing that violating Islamic prescripts (ie, one form of "causing offense") is acceptable when the intent is in service of a larger pro-social point.

Fair enough, I must've misunderstood you then.

S' ok, I tend to be overly pendantic.

When I arranged my home larium, I asked myself, if I would included Christian God(s). Many of my friends are christians, and it would be wrong not included their holy patron, protector and savior. Wrong, rude and unpolite. But on the other hand, it is against concept of christianity, stey Him next oto other my gods.

It was honestly difficult, but... The best way to show respect to my gods, my religious and me is seet my Holy Matrone next to your gods. No one of my Christian friends do it, of course. And I dont feel insult, because I understend, that it was they way to show respect to me in values of their paradigma. So, I use a way to show respect in values of my paradigma and seart Christian God(s) to my larium.

And about important humans, I saw it really similar. I dont want to other people show respect to my hero by my way. If they use their own way, it is great. And I will show respect by my way. If someone want to I show respect by their way, I want to they show their respect by my way.

If I would for example create a paint of a hundred most important people in history, I of course included Mohamed. If some Muslim want to I use one of trick like "golden siluette" I do it, if he bow to my gods. Becouse it is teoretically insult for me dont do it.

I know, that many of yours dont agree with this my view, but... It is honestly reason, why I wrote it. It can give next angle of problem.

Since we've already brought up the visual iconography of Muhammad in Shi'ism (which is usually displayed alongside those of Ali, Hassan, Hussein and Fatima), I think it's also worth mentioning that a large part of Shi'a tradition is the fierce denigration of founding caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman, whom mainstream Sunnis revere but Shi'as revile as usurpers who conspired to keep the descendants of Muhammad out of the line of succession.

Like, a lot of the stuff that Shi'a clerics regularly utter about some of Muhammad's companions would unambiguously count as hate speech if they were directed towards the core figures of another religion. But even if adherents of Shi'ism weren't drawing Charlie Hebdo-style cartoons of the companions, there's no getting around the fact that a core part of their tradition is offensive and blasphemous towards mainstream Sunnis.

We know that there's space to depict the events of Muhammad's life in a way that doesn't depict him visually (e.g. The Message). So what happens when a piece of media grounded in the Shi'a narrative of the companions goes mainstream? Reza Aslan's non-fiction intro to Islamic history No God but God, for example, portrays the first three caliphs being "elected" in sketchy closed councils and downplaying the scriptural primacy of Muhammad's lineage for Realpolitik purposes, which drew condemnation from conservative scholars from Sunni backgrounds.

I mean, I don't think there's any great demand for non-Muslim Western filmmakers to, say, visually depict Muhammad as part of an MCU-style mid-credit gag or something (which is probably the kind of depiction we're more likely to think of on this site). It's going to take a long time to untangle the treatment of Islam in Western-facing media from a couple centuries' worth of colonialism; I don't think the Hamline case would've been nearly as academically justifiable if the lecturer had, say, shown the South Park depiction of Muhammad.

But I think there's space for informed portrayals in-between, and I think that space should be protected, even if the resulting portrayals don't strictly conform to the orthodoxy. Here's a softball example (CW for depiction of Muhammad with the face obscured): a 14th century Iranian painting of Muhammad riding the buraq on the nighttime voyage of Isra' and Mi'raj.

Do you see why some adherents of the faith would like to depict a grandiose religious scene like this in visual art? Can you imagine, I don't know, a filmmaker turning this piece into an animated scene in a documentary on Persianate art? Because both of these cases would be deeply offensive to a lot of Muslims: one big reason for the widespread taboo on depicting Muhammad is the fear of icons becoming objects of idolatry (which obviously isn't an issue for Shi'a Muslims). There's even a long-standing school of scriptural interpretation that viewed the visual depiction of any living thing as blasphemous, as it entails man laying claim on the divine power of creation. So I just think that we ought to be careful not to let the progressive pushback against Islamophobia get co-opted into enforcing sectarian disputes and shutting down heterodox commentaries on the faith.

To be fair, the Shi'a were cruelly persecuted by the Umayyad and the Abbasid, so there is a historical bad blood so to speak.

Even now, the Shi'a still consider the tenth day of Muharram, a day of mourning, because it is the day Husayn ibn Ali and some of his family memebers were massacred in Karbala in the year 61 of the Islamic calendar (680 AD)

Incidentally, that same day is a holiday in the Sunnis countries, usually people fast and buy new cloths and toys for their children, (though that is not related to the massacre of Karbala, but because the same day is claimed to be the date of Moses leaving Egypt) 

Today, the Sunni people are sympathetic to Husayn and Ali and treat them with reverence, however they object to -as you said-the Shi'a habit of insulting the three first  Rashidun caliph, the prophet companions and his wife Aicha.

These is a problem because many of the Hadith believed by the Sunni, is firmly against that.

Example 1:  لا تسبوا أصحابي فو الذي نفسي بيده لو أن أحدكم أنفق مثل أحد ذهباً ما أدرك مد أحدهم ولا نصيفه.

Example 2:  لا تسبوا أصحابي لعن الله من سب أصحابي

Example 3:  من سب أصحابي فعليه لعنة الله و الملائكة والناس أجمعين

And others with the same meaning, that if you insult the prophet companions, you will bring the wrath of God and his angels, and will be cursed.

Even when those companions fought against each other after Othman's death, Sunnis still won't criticize any of them, arguing that it is God who will judge them, and that we should talk about them with respect.

Maybe worth mentioning that Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa against insulting Aicha in 2010.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwa_of_Ali_Khamenei_against_insulting_revered_Sunni_figures

You’re going to want to tell me those examples of the “N-Word” being used “carefully and for specific socially beneficial purposes”. Because that sounds curious and eyebrow-raising enough that I want details because it raises my skepticism hackles, no offense to you.

To follow the "teaching" theme from the news article, kids reading Huckleberry Finn in class. Or any Civil War-era media, if it doesn't have the N-word, it's probably whitewashing. Or teaching about the N-word's modern reclaimed usage among black people in a class about linguistic evolution.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 9th 2023 at 1:46:21 AM

The latest Assassin's Creed is using "alhamdulillah" as a greeting, and I was wondering, is this word still used? Is it the right usage?

it means 'praise be to God' or rather 'thank god'

I dont know if its meant to be used as an all purpose greeting though

الحمد لله is not a greeting, no.

It used to express gratitude to God, more commonly when you finish eating.

Another use is: if someone asked you, "how are you doing?" or "are you ok?" you can answer with that.

Greeting in Islam is simply: السلام عليكم (al-salam alikoom). 

The more formal version is:  السلام عليكم ورحمة الله تعالي وبركاته (Peace upon you, with the mercy and blessing of God, the exalted)

Some young modern people may just say "Salam" especially in Internet.

Edited by jawal on Jun 12th 2023 at 10:13:25 AM

I found this tweet by right winger fascist really hilarious:

...As someone who actually read The Iliad and The Odyssey from cover to back (Richimond Lattimore and Robert Fagles translations, respectively - hey, don't judge me), uh, I wouldn't want young men to act like Odysseus. Just saying.

Edited by dRoy on Jun 15th 2023 at 10:08:37 PM

@Eagle

Yeah, one thing that was missing in this discussion was WHY depictions of the Prophet are banned in the first place. I guess the idea is that the message is what is important as opposed to the messenger.