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Menstruation
The Conference
A whisper. Look around you. Look all around you, at the teeming
crowd around you. Everybody is here. Everybody. Salwa and her husband, Lama and her
Husband, your sister Raw’ah and her husband, your brother’s sister Daniyah and
her husband, not to mention of course, Mahmud, Batul, Wisam, yourself, and your most
beautiful fiancée and soon to be your lawfully wedded wife, Fatin.
Everybody is here, here in the Club, here in
the place of miracles whose call you have ignored for such a long time. Isn’t it
strange? Isn’t it interesting? Isn’t it marvelous? Oh yes, it is, oh yes, it is.
And everybody is here for the same reason
that you are here, to listen to Nadim and Kindah, to talk to them, to share some thoughts
with them, some of which may not be so good, some of which may indeed be vile. Yet,
thoughts do not kill, words do not kill, there will be no death here today, there will be
no blood shed, although one cannot rule out an occasional outburst of anger, hate and
fear, can one?
A thought. My nose hasn’t gotten clogged up yet, nowadays
my nose is not in the habit of getting clogged up too easily; my nose has finally matured
it seems, it doesn’t take everything at the same time, it rather takes its time to
analyze and process things all too cautiously, all too carefully, and that’s suits me
rather well. Oh yes it does. Oh yes it does. My nose has changed. Yes, my nose has
changed. I have changed.
Yes, I have changed. Just a short while ago,
I was so willing to classify all people on the basis of their different smells. Just a
short while ago, I was so busy conjuring yet another ideology of differentiation of sorts
just because I happen to possess a certain ability no one else seems to have, just because
I have a better nose. Oh God, the folly of it all. The stupidity. The infamy. The shame.
The shame. I need to cleanse my soul of shame and guilt.
I hope Fatin could help me do so. I hope her
love could help me, for love indeed conquers all. There is no more need for me to make
endless lists of my newfound principles, it is sufficient for me to say that I follow the
Religion of Love, no matter how dreamy this might sound to some. I follow the
Religion of Love. I follow the Religion of Love. I follow the Religion of Love.
A whisper. So dear girl, life has changed dramatically for you.
Life has changed you. And to the better I may add, to the better. Not so long ago, you
used to be some traditional man’s daunted little wife, but now you are the showy,
modern, sure of herself, unveiled divorcee. Oh what a difference a certain short spate of
time makes. Oh what a difference having a goal makes.
So you plan to continue your schooling now,
hmm? Jolly good. Yes, jolly good. That is indeed what you should do, that is indeed what
you need to do. That is how you can become your own woman eventually. That is how you can
weather out all of life’s little trials, that is how you can ready yourself for its
big ones. Education is necessary for someone who wants to change, particularly a woman in
an Eastern society. Don’t you doubt it girl, don’t you dare doubt it. Take this
as a new certainty in your soul, you need new certainties. You know do. There is nothing
wrong with that. Nothing at all. Nothing at all.
A sentiment. I am
happy now. My problems have most assuredly doubled in the last few months, still I am
happy now. I am free now. Free to be happy. Free to be sad, all on my own terms. I am free
now. I am happy.
Not too long ago, I used to be a disgusting
mess of a woman. But these days have gone now, they have gone for good. I have seen to
that. I have seen to that. There will be no more lies in my life now, no more inherited,
unscrutinied truths. From now on, I shall determine my own faith, my own destiny.
That’s for sure. That’s for sure.
Comment. Hasan did have a brief encounter with Salwa before
the beginning of the conference. Fatin was with him at the time of course, and he
introduced her to Salwa with all the confidence and pride in the world as he proceeded to
outline to Salwa some of the recent
developments in his life. There was no need for him to outline everything for her of
course, there was no need for him to empty his soul out to anyone anymore, anyone but
Fatin that is, and only when there was a real need. Birth was not the kind of process he
wanted to toy around with. He would go through it only when unquestionably undeniably
necessary. For only then could it have any real meaning. Don’t you think?
A necessary interjection. The reader should bear in mind that some
editorializing proved unavoidable in presenting the following materials, this
editorializing, however, did not lead, I assure you, to any alterations in meaning. Well,
you have to take my word for it I guess, what other choice do you really have? After all,
you are not the omnipotent God of this world. Oh no you are not. Oh no you are not - I am.
This comes in compliance with the avowed
educational, democratic and secular principles of the Club. Indeed, my husband and I have
always been willing to accept the Club’s invitations realizing the need for us to
maintain an open and direct channel of communication with all interested people,
regardless of their beliefs on the one hand, and their particular impressions of us on the
other.
From our point of view, that is from the
point of view of Nadim and yours truly, such get-togethers, meetings, or conferences,
however you choose to call them, represent yet another opportunity for us to continue to
propagate our ideas, share our opinions with the world,
and help establish a much-needed tradition of free speech in our society. Perhaps
you are here for the same reason. Perhaps you have your own very different reasons. We
shall soon find out.
As you see, and this is a note made in
particular to those who are attending the conference for the very first time, we are not
very fond of long inaugural ceremonies here, and prefer to get straight to business,
that’s why we did not have an introductory word by Mr. Darweesh the Director of the
Club, and that’s why we do not have a moderator. There are a lot of security people
though, but as you know, this is only to insure your safety and ours, and not to harass or
intimidate any of you. So please speak freely, your freedom of speech is guaranteed in
this Club. Thank you for coming. Nadim and I are ready to field your questions.
Daniyah. In one of your early articles Mr. Nadim, namely the
article titled “On the Necessity of Heresy for the Advancement of Human
Civilization,” you struck a comparison between your very position today, in terms of
the opposition you are facing and the death threats, and that of the Prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, himself in terms of the opposition and the threat to his life that was
posed by the leadership of his tribe Quraysh. Should we understand from such a comparison
that you are proclaiming yourself a modern day prophet of sorts on par with the Holy
Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him? Do you consider your writings to be on par with the
Qur’an?
Nadim. In the article you have mentioned, I dealt with the
same major themes that ran through my first book, “Voices of Opposition in Islamic
History,” but I did so in a more personal manner. I simply added my name to the list
containing the names of all those who had something different to say, something that runs
contrary to popular wisdom, beliefs and practices, political considerations aside for the
moment.
Indeed, I did strike a comparison between my
position today and that of Muhammad fourteen hundred years ago, but I only compared
between the positions, our respective positions, I did not compare between his personality
and mine, his views and mine, or his tactics and mine, in fact, I would consider such a
comparison to be offensive to me, seeing that my views on Muhammad, from an ethical point
of view, are very unflattering to say the least.
Now, as far as my personal ambitions are
concerned, well, I am definitely, most definitely, not proclaiming myself some sort of a
prophet or a messiah, and I wouldn’t dream of doing so, ever. I think the world has
had enough with such figures. For I believe in self-redemption and I don’t really
think that anyone has the ability to redeem others, no matter how good he/she is, or how
hard he/she tries. I believe that every person who still possesses a living kicking
conscience inside of himself can be, and indeed should be, his own, or her own,
prophet-messiah-redeemer.
Still, I cannot really deny or ignore the
fact that there will always be people who, having developed for one reason or another a
feeling of low self-esteem, would look beyond
themselves for salvation. Indeed, for such
people I might appear as a prophet or a messiah, my writings might be viewed as somehow
holy, but this is really not something that I am seeking, this is not what I want. The
same goes for Kindah.
Daniyah. In other words then, people like you and your wife,
who would change their religion and make their new faith or ideas public, are bound to
start a chain reaction of sorts, whether they like it, want it, or not. So why can’t
you see then that the Islamic Law forbidding apostasy on pains of death is correct, that
it is merely trying to maintain social stability?
Nadim. The real question here as far as I am concerned is
why would you, and people like you, think that the rejection of Islam by some Muslims, whether they end up adopting a
different faith or becoming atheists like me and Kindah as well as many others… why
would you consider such an act as one that would threaten and endanger social stability? I
mean, as long as these people are not calling for any violent act against the state, or
against any particular law-abiding group within the state, why would you, the Islamic Law,
God, whatever, consider them as a threat against the stability of the society?
Now, these people might indeed be trying to
propagate their ideas, but as long as they are doing so peacefully, that is through
arguments and acts of charity and goodwill, what sort of danger to society could their
presence and activities constitute?
No, no. I can’t think of such people, I
can’t conceive myself and my likes as constituting a danger against social stability.
It is, rather, those people who are calling for our execution who are clearly undermining
social stability. You don’t see secularists committing acts of terror out there in
our societies, do you? You don’t see atheists doing so. You don’t see apostates.
What you do see, and we all do see, are Islamic terrorists in action, and we all do see
the results of their actions, and their dire impact upon society.
Throughout Islamic history, the danger
to social stability, to the government itself, to the empire, was never posed by the few
atheists and apostates who appeared, but by the various Islamic groups that emerged, each
claiming to be the only saved group and denouncing all others as heretical and worthy only
of the sword.
In fact, secularism and democracy are being
advocated today so that the various Muslim societies can finally be rid off of such a
state of affairs, and become for the first time in their long histories stable, truly
stable. Or so they could at least develop the potential for stability, for there are after
all other reasons for social instability independent of faith, economic and political
reasons and what have you.
Finally, and if history shows anything in
this regard, it shows that the numbers of atheists will always be limited somehow; still,
if you are indeed afraid that some sort of mass conversion out of Islam will occur should
apostasy be accepted as a right for the individual Muslim, should people be given the
right to speak freely, then ask yourself this question first: why would people be tempted
to convert, on a mass scale, to a different religion to begin with?
Now, the reasons for such a phenomenon are
very complex and I have already dealt them in several of my works, be they analytical in
nature or works of fiction, and so did Kindah by the way, and again so did we together in
some of our collaborative works, among many other scholars and novelists. Still, the
conclusion that we come up with from a close and objective analysis of this phenomenon is
that a strong and stable society has no reason to anticipate the occurrence of such a
phenomenon.
Should you, however, say that our societies
are not strong and stable today, so we cannot, therefore, afford to grant anyone the right
of apostasy, if you say that, I will say to you in return that apostasy has nothing to do
with the weakness of our societies today, and these societies will not become strong
simply by cracking down and executing people who can be defined as possessing or
propagating heretic ideas.
For what is heresy? And what is apostasy?
Different Muslims define the two terms differently, so whose definition should we accept?
Indeed, tell me, can Muslims ever agree on such matters? There are Muslims who believe
that a woman has the right to reject the veil, or demanding an equal share of the
inheritance without jeopardizing her status as a pious Muslim woman; some, on the other
hand, consider such a rejection as an act of apostasy. The same division in opinion occurs
when considering issues such as banking interests, the rights of religious minorities in
Muslim societies, and so on.
At any rate, in matters of religion,
differences cannot be resolved, not by force nor through the powers of persuasion; once a
religious difference emerges it will stay with us as long as the issues involved remain
important to the people and relevant to their lives. That is why the Christians are
Christians, and the Muslims Muslims, and the Jews Jews, and that is why the Sunnis are
Sunnis, the Shiites Shiites, the Druze Druze, the ‘Alawis ‘Alawis, the Hanbalis
Hanbalis, the Shafi’is Shafi’is, and so on.
Secular societies offer a way for all people
to disagree among themselves in matters of religion without destabilizing the society, and
whenever a certain issue should develop political, social and economic ramifications, or
be political, social or economic in nature to begin with, this matter should then be
resolved by voting. Once you accept secular rule, you have to accept the supremacy of
voting in such matters.
Anyway, and before I conclude this rather
long answer, I have to remind you of something, a very important thing. The crackdown, the
wave of terror conducted in certain Muslim societies against so-called heretics, is
actually alienating the intellectuals in our societies, the cultured people, those who
bring new ideas and new hopes, the only people who can help carry us out of this quagmire
we found ourselves in today as Arabs, Muslims and Christians alike, they are being pushed
outside into exile in America or Europe, or they are being pushed into hiding and silence.
Who does benefit from this situation? And
does all Muslims in these societies agree that indeed those of them who are getting
terrorized and killed, do they agree that such people are indeed apostates and heretics,
and hence deserve persecution? I don’t think so. There is someone out there, some
group or groups with their own particular mentality, their own particular way of thought,
their own particular fears, that are dictating their choices upon us all, without any
regards whatsoever to our thoughts and wishes. They are the enemy I think, not
people like me.
Besides, when you advocate the use of
terror, or resort to the use of terror against people who are simply saying things you
don’t agree with, who are making choices you happened not to agree with, personal
choices, who are propagating ideas that are contrary to yours, but through peaceful
means… when you advocate the use of terror against such people, when you resort to
the use of terror against such people, isn’t this very fact a testimony to your own
intellectual bankruptcy, not to mention your moral one, to your own inability to justify
through peaceful means your own faith?
Aren’t you in doing do so undermining
your own faith, the strength of ideas that are part of your faith? Aren’t you in
effect saying that Islam cannot argue back, that it so intellectually bankrupt that it
could only defend itself by means of violence and bloodshed? In persecuting someone like
me, someone like Kindah, aren’t you in effect saying that our ideas are stronger than
yours? Aren’t you advertising our ideas in a way and giving them more credibility
than they might have earned for themselves? Aren’t you bestowing upon us a position
of moral superiority vis-à-vis your own? Aren’t you? do you really want us to become
some sort of martyrs for the cause of secular
democracy in the Muslim World? We don’t mind becoming martyrs, you know, we really don’t. even liberal causes like ours can benefit from such developments you know.
A
necessary interjection.
I shall
leave it to the reader to try and imagine the wave of applause generated by Nadim’s
last remark. I will also leave it to the reader to imagine Daniyah’s reaction, her internal
reaction.
A member from the audience. In all of your works almost, especially the fictional
ones, I heard that, and note that I said I heard, because I haven’t read any of your
works yet, and I don’t think I’ll ever will really…anyway, I heard that you
always concentrate on sex, even more than western authors do, you describe the sexual acts
of the Prophet himself, peace be upon him, well, some do indeed say that in your own
autobiographies, you describe your own sexual acts with no shame whatsoever.
You even accuse such noble and chaste
figures, such as ‘Aishah herself the Mother of the Faithful, among others of adultery
and you describe it in nauseating details. Why? Why is there so much emphasis on sex and
sexuality in your books? Are you calling for sexual liberation? Is that it? Are you
telling our children that it is right to behave like animals and follow their instincts in
such matters without any shame whatever, and even if it means incest and homosexuality and
other such degrading practices? Is it? Is it?
Kindah. Well, I think I am probably more suited to answer
this question than Nadim, besides it’s my turn really, isn’t it?
Still, and being the obedient wife that I
am, I will follow my husband lead and shall reverse the table on you sir, I shall ask you
a question: why you are so antagonized by the issue of sexual freedom? What do you have
against it? You don’t have to answer that, for again following the lead of my
trend-setting husband, I shall answer these questions myself, for the answer is not that
difficult to figure out, is it?
You, sir, are afraid for decency, isn’t
it? But more so, you are afraid of social instability, why with all those diseased people,
all those bastard children that no one really wants, all those sick people so fond of
weird sexual practices, all those men paying money to get sex, and all those woman
prostituting themselves, well, with all those sorts of people around, what sort of society
can you have? A decadent one definitely, isn’t it?
Well, that really depends on how you define
decadence I guess. At the time of Harun al-Rashid for instance, long considered as the
Golden Age of the Islamic Empire, would you say that the society was decadent sir? You
wouldn’t, would you? You would rather say that it was a most virtuous time,
wouldn’t you? But when you proceed to examine the whole available historical record,
and not just bits and pieces of it as it is the want of the fundamentalists and
traditionalists to do, you will find that even by your traditionalist standards, in fact,
especially by your traditionalist standards, you will find that the era of Harun al-Rashid
was far, very far from being virtuous.
And how could it not be so when activities
such as concubinage, pedophilia, homosexuality were widely practiced and at all levels of
society. Taverns and whorehouses were as widespread in that society as mosques and
churches, and though they were mostly run by Christians and Jews, their presence was
considered legal by the state, the Islamic State, and they were mostly frequented by
Muslims. The truth is that from the point of view of sexual overindulgence if you will,
Islamic societies have been the worst in all of history, even by today’s standards.
After all, no other society has practiced paedophilia in the open manner you find in
Islamic societies.
Even when we delve deeper into Islamic
history back to the Golden Beginning of Islam itself, the picture we get does not get any
better. For even then, concubinage was known, indeed, Muhammad himself is said to have had
a few concubines with which he established a full conjugal relationship, Maria the Copt
and Rayhana the Jewish for instance.
Prostitution as well was known, and many
companions of the Prophet were known to have availed themselves of the services of the
local whores before embracing Islam, and again after embracing Islam. There was nothing
Muhammad could do to stop this practice, so he used to legalize it, every now and then,
under the tenuous cover of temporary marriage, a practice which allowed a man to marry the
whore for an hour or two, or day or two, or until such time he had enough of her, all for
a fee of course.
And as far as concubinage is concerned,
please, let’s not forget, let’s never forget that it involves rape really, or do
you think a woman would really appreciate being made a concubine? A woman who had known at
one point in her life the taste of freedom, do you think that she would enjoy being a
concubine? That she would voluntarily and wholeheartedly surrender herself to her captor
and self-appointed master? Do you?
It is clear then that Islamic societies have
never managed to be chaste, to be truly and practically puritan about sex as they have
always claimed to be, and urged themselves to be, or were urged to be, in theory. Yet,
that has never prevented them from becoming powerful. The rise and fall of the various
Islamic states and empires throughout history had nothing to do with the sexual morals of
the Muslims. Sexual decadence, no matter how one defines it, does not destroy nations.
Here is the West, sexually decadent by the
standards of Abrahamic fundamentalists, that is the Muslim, Christian and Jewish
fundamentalists, not mention the fundamentalist groups from other religious backgrounds,
yet very much powerful and in control of human destiny as we all know. Sex then has
nothing to do with the rise and fall nations, yet, you can never guess that listening to
the speeches and reading the pamphlets and books and sermons made by the fundamentalists
and traditionalists today, be they Christian, Jewish or Muslim.
To them sex seems to be the key to
everything decadent, they focus on it, they emphasize it, they are most assuredly
fascinated by it, they make a big deal out of it; that’s why people like and Nadim
and many many others, make a big deal out of it too, but in a much different way as you
all know. The fundamentalists and traditionalists use sex as an instrument of control, we
use it as an instrument of freedom, they create an ambiance of frustration, we try to let
in some fresh air.
Now when Nadim and I deal in our writings
with issues such as incest and homosexuality and paedophilia and bestiality, not to
mention pre-marital or extra-marital sex be it heterosexual or otherwise, this
doesn’t mean that we are encouraging or condoning these activities, we are simply
dealing with our history and our society as they are, with reality as it is, we refuse to
ignore it just because it offends the taste of some puritans.
Incest, homosexuality,
pedophilia and
bestiality, exist in all types of society, and they can flourish in all types of society,
but it is in our societies that they seem to flourish most, in our societies. Should we
want to reduce the frequency of their occurrence, then we should perhaps give young people
the freedom to choose whether they want to adopt a sexually active lifestyle, we should
teach them about the changes that happens to them as a certain age, its meaning and
significance, about the nature of the sexual act itself and the consequences it could
have, other than pleasure that is, we teach them then we let them choose, and with this we
would be doing our part, the choice is up to them.
And before anyone even suggest it, let me
straight out tell you that the choice offered should not include, naturally enough, the
choice to commit incest, bestiality or pedophilia, many people in the audience know very
well that my husband and I have been involved for many years in supporting, financially
and otherwise, shelters for abused children, children, boys and girls of different age
groups who are the victims of domestic or street violence, including rape, rape which is
often committed by someone they know, someone from their family, their neighborhood, their
immediate circle of friends and family friends.
Nadim and I definitely then, do not believe
in incest, pedophilia and bestiality, but as far as homosexuality is concerned, if the
people involved are adults, why should we interfere? It’s their life, their
responsibility, not ours.
These are in simple words the views of
myself and my husband concerning sex, they are very different than the traditional ones
definitely. The fact that not once throughout the long history of humanity, did people
manage to establish an enduring society based on the Abrahamic concept of chastity,
justify our call today for people to be given the freedom of choice in matters of sex.
Now, as far as my and my husband’s
views concerning the sexual life of certain historical figures such as the Prophet himself
and his wife ‘Aishah among others, well, in matters of literary writings,
people…authors have the right to alter certain fact, or to invent facts, in order to
emphasis or underline a certain historical theme, or point of view. In my novel about
‘Aishah’s life for instance, I simply wanted to show how difficult it must have
been for ‘Aishah to lead a compulsory celibate lifestyle after Muhammad’s death
and because of a decision he had made out of jealousy.
For Muhammad at one point in his life had
heard Talha, who was ‘Aishah’s cousin saying that he would marry ‘Aishah
one day after Muhammad’s death, and he had felt jealous by his own admission which we
find in early books about his life, and as a result he came up with a Qur’anic
injunction declaring his wives as Mothers of the Faithful and thus forbidding them from
getting married after his death.
Now ‘Aishah was Muhammad’s
youngest wife, and Muhammad had been the only man in her life, she had been betrothed to
him at the age of six, and had become his wife at the age of nine; she had been the only
virgin to become a wife of Muhammad’s. This decision of his therefore, and as far as
I can tell as a woman, must have hit her in particular much harder than all his other
wives, it deprived her from becoming a mother, a real mother and not just a metaphorical
one, and it deprived her from ever experiencing a single new moment of intimacy again. It
is to underline the severity of this deprivation that I imagined a relationship between
her and Talha in my fictional biography of her. As a novelist, I have this right.
Nadim.
If
I may interject something of interest here. Muhammad himself in the Qur’an had given
himself the same liberty by the way, namely, the liberty of altering historical facts, or
what he had thought to be historical facts, in order to underscore certain notions that he
was trying to advocate. For instance, all the
stories we find in the Qur’an concerning the lives and times of the various Judaic
prophets, all these stories are really different in many aspects from those we find in the
Bible. Now, as to why he did this, why he changed facts and altered stories, this is a
matter which I have dealt with extensively in my book “The Literate Prophet,”
you may refer to it, if you are literate, truly literate yourself.
Lama. In spite of the veil that I am wearing, I am actually
a very liberal minded woman, and am married to an equally liberal minded man, and we both
are great admirer of both of you, Nadim and Kindah, of your scholarship and of your
humanitarian activities which do not receive as much notice in the press unfortunately.
Still, there is something that comes across very clearly in your works, those that I have
read so far that is, something that baffles me really, and my husband, a tendency on your
part to vilify the character of the Prophet Muhammad, a man whose principles are
definitely no less humanitarian than yours,
if not more so, why is it so? What is the reason behind such an attitude of yours?
Nadim. I’ll give one reason and I think it should
suffice. Do you know of the massacre of the Jewish tribe of Bani Qurayzah? You do,
don’t you? Well, knowing that the Prophet had supervised and blessed this
cold-blooded, though politically, and psychologically,
justifiable massacre, how can we still think of him as a humanitarian leader? How
can anyone? Humanitarian leaders just don’t commit or sanction the commission of
massacres.
Now, we all know the details of this
massacre, we all know that close to eight hundred men in all were killed, and by men here
we mean all adult males, and by adults we mean all males who have even a tiny bit of hair
around their penises, which means that the men in consideration here were as young as
twelve years old if not younger. So it was a very heinous massacre indeed, and the boys
had to be checked thoroughly to determine whether they should be killed or not.
As far as the Jewish women were concerned,
they were all enslaved, and the Prophet himself immediately proceeded to pick the most
beautiful women of them to make her his concubine. So, and inspite all the methodical
bloodshed going on all around him, Muhammad could only think of his lust at the time.
Muhammad was a politician, more than
anything else, he was a politician, a great politician, a genius of a politician, but a
politician nonetheless, not a humanitarian. It is about time we faced the truth about him,
it is about time we stopped confusing between political leadership one the one hand, and
moral and ethical leadership on the other. Moral and ethical leaders are never power
hungry.
Moral and ethical leaders lead by example,
and they often stay outside the system, the governmental system, the political system, and
definitely the established religious hierarchy, and they never seek entry into the system,
and they never seek to rival that system by building their own. They build communities
mostly, but never nations. Nation-building is dirty business, moral and ethical leaders
can never be at ease with it.
When nations are being built, it is the job
of the moral and ethical leaders to try to ease the suffering brought about by the
process, it is their job to monitor the process and try to contain its excesses, it is
their duty to oppose the nation-builders whenever those nation-builders begin to show
signs of losing their orientation, of getting too immersed in the trappings of power, of
losing control over their actions and the actions of their followers, of beginning to
destroy much more than they build, and so on.
Moral and ethical leaders are the conscience
of their nations, that’s why they can never compromise in matters of basic
principles, no matter what. Muhammad was definitely not such a man, Muhammad was a
nation-builder, an intelligent nation-builder, no more no less.
A voice from the audience. And how
about the Qur’an and its ethical teachings?
Nadim. The ethical teachings of the Qur’an are not
original, these teachings have been around for centuries if not millennia, Muhammad simply
expressed those teachings in a very extraordinary and
appealing literary style. The Qur’an represents Muhammad literary genius, as well as
portions of his political genius and his social reforms, there is no ethical genius
embedded in the text of the Qur’an.
A voice from the audience. And how about you and Kindah, are you the living
conscience of our nation?
Nadim. Oh boy, you know, such questions can only be
answered by the passage of time, by history. People cannot claim such honors for
themselves, especially if they are honest, not to mention intelligent.
…
A conclusion. The conference went on for more than three hours
after this last answer by Nadim, there were plenty more interesting questions that got
posed, and plenty more interesting and genial questions that got offered. Still, and as
Hasan watched that brief and somber TV report on the fatal airline crash which took place
one week after the end of the conference, and whose victims did indeed include one called
Nadim Qanawati and his wife Kindah Kayali, authors by profession, who were on their way to
the United States for a meeting with their publishers, they were these last words of Nadim
that came to Hasan’s mind and kept on ringing there for many, many years to come.
And with this, dear reader, we come to the
end of our little tour in this most fascinating cranny of our most diverse world, you may
wipe the blood off your face now, you may try to purge your mind and soul of it, we have
menstruated enough, you and I. Quite enough. Quite enough.
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lust for salvation, Brother, as though it were a woman, and I - a man.
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