Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World (29 page)

1.
Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-General as of December 31, 1987
(New York: United Nations, 1988), pp. 162-63.

2.
See
Human Rights: Status of International Instruments
(New York: United Nations, 1987).

3.
See Nouredine Saadi,
Femmes et loi en Algèrie
(Casablanca: Editions le Fennec, 1991); Chèrif Chamari Alya,
Femmes et loi en Tunisie
(Casablanca: Editions le Fennec, 1991); Abderrazak Moulay Rachid,
Femmes et loi au Maroc
(Casablanca: Editions le Fennec, 1991).

4.
All figures on radio and television programs are taken from the
UNESCO Statistical Yearbook
for 1985 and 1987.

5.
See, for example,
Amnesty International Report,
1989.

6.
It is always wonderful to run into Arab intellectuals in Paris and London and to be able to buy their banned books there.

7.
See, for example, the brochures of the Arab Human Rights Organization, which are beginning to circulate in Cairo and the whole Arab world. Published during the 1980s, they include results of various human rights investigations and translations of basic United Nations documents.

8.
On the occasion of the publication of his book
Le onzieme commandement,
Glucksmann remarked: “Although Muslim fundamentalism is contained today (not without crises, Kuwait-style) by a dissuasive equilibrium, it can be destroyed only from within by the Muslim peoples themselves. It is up to them to understand that it is not a question of smashing that provocative Western window that is Israel, but rather of their assenting to the comfort, and so to the difficulties, of a modern state"; interview in
L’Express,
September 19, 1991, p. 118.

9.
For information on the occurrences of words in the Koran I rely mainly on Muhammad Fuad
^c
Abd al-Baqi,
Al-mu
^c
jam al-mufahras li alfaz al-qur
an al- karim
(Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1981).

1.
Imam Ibn Kathir,
Tafsir al-qur
an al-azim
(Beirut: Dar al-Ma
^c
rifa, 1987), vol. 1, p. 8.

2.
The standard reference is Ibn Hisham,
Al-sira al-nabawiyya
(Beirut: Dar Ihya
al-Tharwa al-
^c
Arabi, n.d.). Ibn Hisham died in year 216 of the Hejira. Personally I prefer the
sir a
(biography) of Ibn Sa
^c
d, who was born 167 years after the Prophet and whose work is extraordinarily subtle in its details: Ibn Sa
^c
d,
Al- tabaqat al-kubra
(Beirut: Dar al-Fakr, 1985). Other historians reproduce more or less verbatim the account of Ibn Hisham.

3.
Ibn Hisham,
Sira;
Ibn Sa
^c
d,
Tabaqat;
al-Mas
^c
udi,
Muruj,
vol. 2, p. 282.

4.
There are differing opinions about the length of the period of revelation; some say twenty years, others twenty-three, and still others twenty-five. On this subject see Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti,
Asrar tartib al-qur
an
(N.p.: Dar al- Ttisam, 1978, pp. 26ff; Abi al-Hasan
^c
Ali al-Nisaburi,
Asbab al-nuzul
(Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-
^c
Ilmiya, 1986), p. 2. Al-Suyuti died in year 911 of the Hejira (the sixteenth century), al-Nisaburi in year 468 (the eleventh century).

5.
Al-Nisaburi,
Asbab al-nuzul,
p. 7.

6.
Tabari,
Tafsir jami
al-bayan
^c
an ta’wil ayi al-qur
an
(Cairo: Dar al-Ma
^c
arif, n.d.), vol. 2, p. 254.

7.
Al-Suyuti,
Asrar,
p. 71.

8.
Ibn Kathir,
Tafsir al-qur
an,
vol. 1, p. 8.

9.
Ibn Sa
^c
d,
Tabaqat,
vol. 2, pp. 355ff.

10.
Introduction to al-Suyuti,
Asrar,
p. 44.

11.
Shahrastani,
Al-milal wa al-nihal,
vol. 1, pp. 128ff.

12.
Ibid., pp. 114ff.

13.
One of the most recent and most pertinent analyses of the education of children as the key factor in determining class structure in Morocco is Aicha Belarbi,
Enfance au quotidien
(Casablanca: Editions le Fennec, 1991).

14.
Philippe Aziz, “Les financiers de l’lslam,”
Le Point,
May 27-June 2, 1991, p. 21.

1.
Lisan al-
^c
Arab,
entry for the root
s-l-m.

2.
Ibn Sa
^c
d,
Tabaqat,
vol. 2, p. 136.

3.
Ibn al-Kalbi,
Kitab al-asnam
(Book of Idols) (Cairo: Matba
^c
at Dar al-Kutub al- Misriyya, 1924), p. 33.

4.
^c
Abd al-Baqi,
Al-mu
^c
jam,
p. 379.

5. Tabari,
Tafsir,
vol. 7, p. 208;
Lisan al-Arab.

6.
Lisan al-Arab.

7.
Tabari,
Tafsir,
vol. 7, p. 208.

8.
^c
Aql
(reason) in this sense has a strict meaning, that of identifying with the group’s laws.
^c
Aql,
“reasonable behavior,” is the capacity of the individual to restrict behavior and curb individual desire,
hawa,
in accordance with the rules of the
umma.
In this context,
^c
aql
as the group’s laws is in complete conflict with the concept of reason as personal opinion in the meaning of
muHazila.
A Muslim author has devoted an entire book to this fundamental conflict in Islam between
hawa
and
^c
aql;
see Fatna A. Sabbah,
Woman in the Muslim Unconscious
(New York: Pergamon, 1984).

9.
^c
Abd al-Baqi,
Al-mu
^c
jam.

10.
F. Rosenthal, the article “Hurriyya,” in
Encyclopedia of Islam,
2nd ed. I do not agree with Rosenthal about the Sufis. Submission was part of their doctrine, but there was also glorification of the individual as the seat of the divine. It is a point of view that many contemporary authors are advancing, especially those who translate Arabic into a Western language. Notable among them is the Tunisian Abdelwahed Meddeb, whose magnificent voice can be heard in French behind those of the Sufis he has presented to us.

11.
The
shawush
holds one of the most fascinating offices of modern Moroccan bureaucracy. In principle he is a sort of concierge for a government minister. In fact he is one of the most powerful men in the Moroccan government because although ministers change, he remains, and he knows everything that goes on, both official and confidential.

12.
I am talking about the city of Fez in northern Morocco. When I was studying at the Universite Mohammed V in Rabat in the 1960s, boys from other parts of the country would tease me by asking if I came from the city of donkeys. The people of Fez, who are decried for their arrogance, are often insulted as being from city where donkeys are the majority of the population. It wasn’t until I was forty years old that I managed to control my anger at this.

13.
Al-Bukhari,
Al-Sahih
(Beirut: Dar al-Ma
^c
rifa, 1978), vol. 4, p. 44.

14.
Ibn al-Kalbi,
Kitah al-asnam,
p. 8.

15.
Lisan al-
^c
Arab,
entries for the roots
k-l-q, b-d-.

16.
Ibid., entry for
zindiq.

17.
Ibn Kathir,
Tafsir al-qu
an,
vol. 1, p. 49.

18.
Tabari,
Tafsir,
vol. 23, p. 125.

19.
Ibn al-Kalbi,
Kitab al-asnam,
p. 53.

20.
Toufiq Fahd,
Le pantheon de VArable Centrale a la veille de i'hegire
(Paris: Geuthner, 1968), p. 29.

21.
Tabari,
Tafsir,
vol. 23, p. 127.

22.
Ibid.

23.
Lisan al-
^c
Arab,
entries for
hizb, shi
^c
a.
See also Mernissi,
The Forgotten Queens of Islam,
chap. 7.

24.
Is this one of the reasons that even after thirty years’ residence, North African immigrants in Europe still talk about “returning"? We shouldn’t assign too much importance to the influence of sacred symbology, but a triumphant return “back home” remains a strong idea in the collective unconscious. Only rarely can one accept being defeated for good, making it necessary to seek one’s fortune by putting down roots elsewhere.