You Can't Make Mistakes

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This is a paper that I gave at the 12th annual International Conference on Evil and Human Wickedness, 17-19 March 2011 in Prague. It was published in a volume of papers selected from the proceedings of that conference.

Abstract:

The Arabic term hisba is defined classically within Islamic juridical and theological writing as being the divine or prophetic directive for all Muslims to commanding the right and forbid the wrong [al-amr bi-l-ma’rūf wa-l-nāhy ‘an al-munkar]. The Qur’anic directive which is the origin of this principle is and has been interpreted variously throughout Islamic history: ‘[Believers], you are the best community singled out for people: you order what is right, forbid what is wrong, and believe in God.’ Many of the classical theories of hisba and its proper application were developed as a means for a government to control economic and commercial practices by applying an Islamic orthopraxy to market environments. This official enforcement was the duty of the muhtasib [‘market inspector’]. This is the basis for the discussion of hisba in the works of al-Mawardi in his Ahkam al-Sultaniyya [‘The Ordinances of Government’] and Ibn Taymiyya in his major work on the topic, named simply, Al-Hisbah. This paper analyzes several literary historical anecdotes and modern reports of the application of hisba.

To download the e-book/paper, click the link below.

Live Evil: Of Magic and Men, edited by Sophia Vivienne Kottmayer

Citation (Chicago/Turabian):

Martin III, John D. “Primum Non Nocere: Gray Area in Commanding the Right and Forbidding the Wrong.” In Live Evil: Of Magic and Men, edited by Sophia Vivienne Kottmayer, 79-86. Oxford, UK: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2011. https://www.interdisciplinarypress.net/online-store/ebooks/evil-monsters-horror/live-evil-of-magic-and-men [accessed May 20, 2012].

This is a paper which I submitted to Prof. Amina Elbendary’s seminar on “Protest, Rebellion and Revolt in the Pre-modern Middle-East” in the Fall semester 2010 at AUC.

Abstract:

The concept of deviance in early Islamic mystic piety developed as an aspect of the same social and intellectual processes which defined Sufism as a normative or orthodox mode. The mysticism which developed in and around Baghdad and in Khurāsān was varied in its outward forms for the first several centuries. Asceticism was common, but it was not homogeneous in its expression. The process of systematizing and normalizing Islamic mystic doctrine and practice was concurrent with a similar systematization in legal and theological contexts. In this process of systematization some previous forms were marginalized and some were subsumed into what would become the normative Ṣūfī practice. Other forms were continued and taken up by Ṣūfī movements which would eventually be regarded as heterodox. One label that stands out as representing a heterodox mode is that of the Malāmatiyya — those who followed the “path of Blame.” This paper will explore the development of that term and its usage as first a descriptive and then a derogatory term over the course of several centuries and explore how that change reflected concurrent Khurāsānian societal changes.

To view the paper click the link below. Enjoy.

View as PDF

Citation (Chicago/Turabian):

Martin III, John D. “The Conceptual Development of Deviance among Islamic Mystics: The Malāmatiyya.” Unpublished. If You Don’t Know What You’re Doing, You Can’t Make Mistakes. http://johndmart.in/2011/06/15/the-conceptual-development-of-deviance-among-islamic-mystics-the-malamatiyya/ [accessed May 20, 2012].

So we have fled the country temporarily. We are currently refugees in Istanbul (not Constantinople) which offers all of the typical trappings of a refugee environment: stunning views, great food, a local beer, Ottoman history everywhere. The usual.

For the time being we are safe and sound. Depending on how the situation in Cairo progresses this week, we will either return to Egypt next week or set up camp in an undisclosed location until further notice (not the United States). The American University in Cairo plans to reopen next week and begin a new session the week after.

I would like to thank all of our friends and family for their concern and support (which we may yet need). Special thanks to Katie “Tater” Hunsdon Zieders, Dick and Heather Click, Bob and Laura George, Deborah and Dan Martin, Abby Berg-Hammond, Kai Bronowski, Bruce and Sherry Wardwell, Mamoon Yusaf and Erika Paravisini, Moe Zakzouk, et al. You have all helped us out with news, making reservations, airline tickets and moral support. We’ll see some of you sooner than later. We love you all.

I will keep everyone posted regarding our whereabouts.

(This post made from my Nokia N900)

I took a bunch of my friend Peter Waters‘ mates mosque-walking around Fatimid Cairo the other day. We walked from the north gate to the south gate of the old city—Bāb al-Futūḥ to Bāb Zuwayla and then into the Qasaba. We then continued on from there and wound up near Sayyida Zeinab Mosque, but only the first part of our walk is documented here.

These are some snaps that I took with my new camera. I’m trying to get the hang of geotagging and recording walking maps with the pictures in, so this is still a little disjointed. I marked all of the spots on the map that appear in the photos. You can zoom to see the route better if you like and click on the little blue markers for the names of individual places.

Bab to Bab

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This is a recent paper I wrote for a seminar on Islamic Political Thought with Dr. Huda Lutfi at the American University in Cairo. I will post a few others that I am writing and have written recently in the coming weeks.

It isn’t that I haven’t been writing in the last two months of blog hiatus, it is that I have been writing this sort of thing. So, rather than not posting at all, when I have tortured my ever avid fans (?) by never posting, I will further torture you by making you read my academic work. More importantly, I am working on a few conference papers and journal submissions and any feedback—on content or style—is very helpful. Thanks in advance for your kind patience.

To view the paper click one of the links below. Enjoy.

View as PDF

View Online

Citation (Chicago/Turabian):

Martin III, John D. “Agency and Authority: Considering Free-Will in the Discursive Narrative on Caliphal Authority.” If You Don’t Know What You’re Doing, You Can’t Make Mistakes. http://johndmart.in/2009/12/17/agency-and-authority/ [accessed May 20, 2012].

A Mosque on Every Corner.

While Nigel and Johnny were in from Taiwan, Megan and I decided to take them Mosque-walking from the Sayyida Zeinab Mosque to very near the Citadel in Islamic Cairo. We swiftly coined the term “Mosqueing” to refer to this activity. Check Webster’s in a few years, it will be there.

There are unfortunately no photos of Sayyida Zeinab in this collection. They wouldn’t let Megan in at all and the doorman was everything but friendly. I will try to go back soon and grab a few snaps of the outside at the very least.

The walk then proceeded down ‘Abd al-Magīd al-Libān St. and turned onto Ṣulayba St. near Ibn Tulūn Mosque. It was a fun afternoon and we got some decent snaps out of it. We ended up catching a cab—quite thirsty and exhausted—from in front of the Sultan Hassan Mosque to Falaki Square near Bab el-Louq. Those of you in the know know that this is also the location of everyone’s favorite dive/watering-hole Horreya. Cold Stella actually tastes good after a long hot walk through the dusty backstreets.

Enjoy the photos.

Liberation Theology for the 21st Century

I caught this article from the Christian Science monitor this morning on the trepidation of Arab states over reacting to the current situation in Iran. They cited the “voice of a disenfranchised [Iranian] people” as the mechanism for the current political and social unrest and that this is the biggest political crisis facing Iran since the 1979 revolution.*

I have been reading a great deal of late about the 1979 Iranian revolution and have begun to understand that the socially and economically disenfranchised in 1970s Iran were not actually active participants in the revolution, nor did they derive any particular benefit from it. Neither the poor nor the merchant class were particularly involved in the rise of the Khomeini movement. It was a revolution apparently driven by an increasingly religiously motivated middle-class and the urban intellectual class which drove the development of an opposition to the Shah. That there was little involvement on the part of the rural poor is quite surprising considering that the themes employed in the revolutionary rhetoric on the part of Khomeini and his supporters was seemingly socialism wrapped up in Islamic topoi or terminology.

In other words, the revolutionaries of 1970s Iran employed a specifically crafted rhetorical framework based on sort of liberation theology in order to galvanize certain parts of the population and pulled support from the most unlikely sectors of Iranian society, all the while setting the stage for continuing the disenfranchisement of the already disenfranchised. Many of the secular intellectual socialists and Marxists went up against the wall when Khomeini’s revolutionaries seized control, many succumbed to the pressure being exerted around them and conformed to the newly political and religiously-mapped social environment around them.

It would seem that all of the seeds of disenfranchisement sewn by the 1979 revolution are now coming to fruition. The intellectual class is no longer happy to be subjugated, the poor are fighting back, not in line with the religious elite who are waiving the liberation-theology around—still, and again—but against them. In 1979 it was that same—then very young—urban middle class who were becoming more religious who built the revolutionary movement. They made Kohmeini into a a figurehead, and he tacitly accepted the role allowing them to drive the revolution forward.

The funny—or maybe “horrifying” is a better word—thing about revolutions, and revolutionaries, is that they cease to function as a revolution the moment they are no longer the opposition. That is unless there is a political mechanism established at the same time for limiting the authority of the revolutionary leaders. This was never the case in Iran. Indeed the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had to die before his position as the leader of the revolution—and therefore the Iranian government after the revolution—would be questioned. After his death he was replaced by another revolutionary leader who had become entrenched in the “new” political system in Iran in the 1980s.

Now that “revolution” is being called into question, mostly because it is no longer a revolution. Just as Castro’s revolution lost its meaning the moment that he took power in Cuba and Che Guevarra—the real revolutionary—went on his way, as is the preferred role of the true revolutionary. How to ensure then that the revolutionaries live up to the ideals of the revolution and not their own desires for power? How to keep the bitterness of their previous disenfranchisement from their policy and administration and marginalizing those that they once sought to free from disenfranchisement?

I am loathe to cite the American political system as a standard for post-revolutionary political development—and indeed it has its problems, not least of which is the unabashed power-squabbles of our present party-system—but it worked. When the first Americans called for the revolutionary leaders to retain their power, they stepped aside and had an election. The established a set of rules, the interpretation of which has changed over time, but which are still the rules, nonetheless. Those rules, for better or for worse, continue to keep the political system as fair as we can make it. There is still power-grabbing.

There is still lying, cheating, and stealing. Indeed, more than a few of us have been concerned that the administrative regime of President Bush and his cronies would have a deep effect on the way business was done after they left office. It seems, though, that this is not the case. We shall see, but it seems that we are moving back to normal after years of opacity and circumvention of the Constitution to protect the interests of the few at all possible costs.

Perhaps another revolution in Iran is what is called for. Perhaps not. Perhaps the present regime is learning something from the political strife that is now boiling throughout Iran. Likely not. If there is another revolution, it cannot continue as normal. It has to live up to the ideals which galvanize and excite it in the first place rather than simply serving the interests of those who do the exciting.

Khomeini’s liberation theology still applies in Iran, possibly now more than it did before. The present regime had better hope that the people never get their hands on copies of his book, Islamic Government as they would find themselves out the door in very short order. The principles which are outlined therein are a far sight more fair and reasonable than those under which the present regime operates.

For more information about the Iranian political system and the 1979 revolution, I suggest the following:

• Islam and Revolution: Writing and Declarations of Imam Khomeini by Hamid Algar.
• Khomenism: Essays on the Islamic Republic by Evrand Abrahamian.
• The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran by Said Amir Ajromand.
• Persepolis: the Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi. Or for the more visually inclined, the film version.

———

* In solidarity with that voice, the background of this blog is now a picture of Naqsh-e Jahan Square in breathtaking Isfahan.

I got an e-mail containing this link today:

On Being a Better Muslim

It still costs the same

I had the best haircut experience of my life today.

See, the air in Cairo is astoundingly dirty. I never feel clean: especially my face. It also doesn’t help that the water is so heavily chlorinated that it bleaches your skin (Eat that “Fair and Lovely“) by stripping off the top few layers of it. So, my skin is always dry and dirty feeling.

Not today, my friends, not today.

I went for a haircut at my usual place. After the usual stuff—wash hair, cut hair—my man Waleed asked me if I wanted something that I didn’t understand. Per my normal policy, I said yes to whatever it is that I didn’t understand in order that I may learn what it was. Sometimes this leads to misery and hours of backtracking.

Not today.

Today it led to a full facial after my haircut, the likes of which I have never seen in a regular, hole-in-the-wall barber shop in the States. I sometimes like to find an old-timey barber in the States and go for a shave. All foam, straight, razors and hot towels. This was a singular experience.

After the initial moisturizing and steaming of my face—a half an hour of this—there was the face, scalp, and neck massage, then a shave. This was followed by a mud mask, steamed towels, more hair tonic massaged into my scalp, a cup of tea, and one final moisturizing mask, cold towels and some aftershave.

It was tremendous. I feel like I have a new face. My skin has been feeling especially dodgy lately since I took a weekend on the North Coast recently and remembered what fresh air is really like. Coming back to Cairo after that was rough, especially for my face.

I had often wondered about this sort of thing. I sometimes see guys in the barber shop going through what appears to be a very extensive facial, and I always wondered if it was something that was deemed wholly necessary or was just considered an utter luxury. Waleed gave me some insight into this today as I asked him about all of this. He told me that first, unlike in America, where the air is very clean—he said it, not me— the air in Cairo is disgusting, and so you need to take special care of your skin or your face will fall off (that is a rough translation). Secondly, as he went on to tell me, there are Prophetic traditions—hadith—regarding the cleaning of ones face. He told me these of course, I followed mostly, but when I looked confused, he said “Basically, the Prophet—sallah Allah alayhi wa sallam—would want you to have a facial.” Brilliant.

That is how I like it. Everyday values for everyday folks. So, go out and have yourself a facial. You have it on very good authority that it is recommended.