Azar Nafisi: Reading Lolita in Tehran

[abecedarian]

Have any of you read this? What did you think? I finished it last night, and find myself wanting to thrust this one into the hands of nearly everyone I know. I know I tend to take my personal freedoms for granted, and after reading Reading Lolita, I'm feeling much more appreciative of those freedoms.

 

[StillILearn]

The book had the same effect on me, abc. I was surprised to learn that the women of Iran enjoyed many of the same civil rights that we western women take for granted before the Ayatollah Khomeini and his cohorts came into power. (I found it to be timely in the extreme.)

I imagine that having Reading Lolita beneath your belt will make your own face-to-face reading group much more enjoyable for you.

 

[Peder]

For me it was a startling window into the customs and culture of a country about which I had previously known nothing, except that the name appeared in news headlines. It really showed the huge differences that followed upon the shift in power there and it provides a precursor to understanding the recent election. I was also interested in the brief discussions of the different western authors, again because I was so unaware and unappreciative of their works beforehand.
An altogether fascinating book,
Peder

 

[abecedarian]

It was a learning experience for me too. I was marginally aware of current events during the Iranian hostage situation and the Iran/Iraq war. I watched Nightline now and then, and glanced through the newspaper, but had no knowledge of Iranian life and the consequences of the Revolution.

 

[Peder]

ABC
As a strictly non-literary comment, it looks like the reformists over there were not as strong as they thought they were, around the time of the book's writing.
Peder

 

[abecedarian]

ABC
As a strictly non-literary comment, it looks like the reformists over there were not as strong as they thought they were, around the time of the book's writing.
Peder

I saw that too. The house of cards was crumbling even as the author was making her plans to leave. I still don't think I want to travel to Tehran anytime soon...and certainly not without my scarf and robe

 

[pontalba]

I've read only the first part pertaining to the actual Lolita, and enjoyed it throughly. The rest is on my TBR list. The way the government back pedaled with womens rights, putting women back into the 15th century just made my blood boil. All I can say is that those men must be extremely afraid of women if they feel they have to yoke women so tightly.

One of the most heartbreaking sections for me was the small gate that was to be used by women to enter the University, and the indignities they had to endure just to enter.... and even

And frankly ABC, I wouldn't go even with a scarf and hood or burka or whatever, as I cannot hide my feelings, and my eyes tell the story, even if I try for them not to.

 

[abecedarian]

I've read only the first part pertaining to the actual Lolita, and enjoyed it throughly. The rest is on my TBR list. The way the government back pedaled with womens rights, putting women back into the 15th century just made my blood boil. All I can say is that those men must be extremely afraid of women if they feel they have to yoke women so tightly.

One of the most heartbreaking sections for me was the small gate that was to be used by women to enter the University, and the indignities they had to endure just to enter.... and even

And frankly ABC, I wouldn't go even with a scarf and hood or burka or whatever, as I cannot hide my feelings, and my eyes tell the story, even if I try for them not to.

You didn't get to the part where they were yanking girls off the street for the crime of being too pretty.. those got imprisioned, raped, then shot..

 

[Sitaram]

I have read both Azar Nafisi's book and also "Bookseller of Kabul." My daily Internet pen pal is a 28 yr old woman medical student in Tehran, Iran. She had someone smuggle the book into Iran, since it is banned (for obvious reasons).

One part that really struck me was how, when the girls read "Daisy Miller", they were flabbergasted by the chutzpah and moxie of women characters in the story. I had to read "Daisy Miller" by Henry James, as a Sophomore in high school, and my own mother was such a hell-raising, aggressive, post-menopausal juggernaut that she made the characters in Daisy Miller look to me like shy, agoraphobic wall-flowers with self-esteem issues. It is funny what impresses people in one culture, which might go unnoticed in another.

Apparently, the University in Tehran goes to great lengths to figure out how to read something like Hemingway’s “Moveable Feast” and omit all references to alcoholic beverages and romance. That gave me a chuckle.

Azar Nafisi takes up one phrase from Nabokov's "Pale Fire" as her mission statement: "Curiosity is the highest form of insubordination." Nafisi states that her government does the same thing to its people that Humbert does to Lolita, namely use them as a means to an end. We were meant to love people and use things, not love things and use people. Kant said somewhere that whenever we treat a person or persons as a means to some end rather than ends in themselves, then we become unethical.

There is a delightful passage where Nafisi speaks of having glasses of wine and little ham sandwiches (both of which are haram or forbidden under Islam.) By the way, haram, the word for forbidden in Arabic, is where we get the word harem, which means more than four wives.

She also tells of some college girls who are harassed by the 'morality police' for "eating apples sensuously." But then, we wouldn't know anything about morality police in this forum, would we?

I should return and post some of the wonderful things that have come up in conversations with my "pen-pal" in Tehran. I have nicked-named her "Lady Bug" and she calls me "Uncle Wiggly". But the, posting such anecdotes would be off-topic I suppose, and quite haram, and I would find the morality police posting at my doorstep.

Sometimes, free speech comes at a high price.

 

[Sitaram]

Suddenly, I am remembering so many other interesting things about conversations with Ladybug, and also with a male engineer in Tehran that I knew on the Internet 5 years ago.

The engineer was interested in Hinduism, and regularly visited Yoga centers in Tehran. Yoga is treated as a form of exercise, and not a religion, but once you go into the yoga center, then you are free to secretly practice things which are of a more religious nature, which would be forbidden by the government. Ladybug confirmed these facts for me.

I have long been fascinated by the fact that the Ayatollah lowered the marriage age for girls from 15 to age nine, which is appropriate in Islam because the Prophet Mohammed married Ayesha at age six, and consummated the marriage when she was nine (as recorded in Hadith, which is the redaction of oral tradition surrounding the Qu'ran). When I first learned about this change in the marriage law, I was dumbfounded, and for weeks I would take notice of many nine-year-old girls, and puzzle over the the feasibility of such a young bride. I asked young mothers in there teens, who still had a vivid memory of being nine, and they also had difficulty comprehending such a practice.


I carefully questioned my Engineer friend five years ago. He said that in the cities you will see fifteen year old girls married, but you will only find nine year old wives among the nomadic tribes in areas closer to Arabia.

I also questioned Ladybug this past year on these matters. She has many school friends who are married at 15 and 13. She then told me of an autistic woman in her neighborhood, who was given as a wife to an eighty year old man. She bore him several children, and then he passed away. Now she is a widow and unable to care for herself or her children. Ladybug expressed to me her outrage at this situation.

Similar things are mentioned in passing by Azar Nafisi in her book "Reading Lolita in Tehran."

 

[KristoCat]

I too thought this book was amazing, and it affected me deeply. One thing I will say is that it helps to read Nabokov, Steinbeck, Miller, and the other authors/works before reading this book, because you will appreciate it more fully that way.

 

[Sitaram]

It helps me, in understanding Nafisi's book, and Iran, to have a daily long conversations with a young woman in Tehran, Ladybug.

She is so brilliant. Of course she speaks Farsi, but she is also totally fluent in French and English.

I mentioned something rather obscure about Staretz Zossima in Doestoevsky's Brother's Karamazov, regarding the Eastern Orthodox religious practice of expecting a pleasant fragrence from the body of a dead monk, as a divine sign of sanctity or sainthood. She chimed right in with how Alyosha felt about Zossima, and the absence of that sign.

She approached me the other day about Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, with many questions. Mind you, she does all this WHILE she is taking comprehensive medical exams.

I feel that knowing a brillian woman like this helps to poignantly illustrate various issues raised in Nafisi's book.

She is so hungry for Western knowledge! She describes things as more liberal now than in Nafisi's day.

I must run and do some errands, but I will try to post a few more thoughts.

 

[abecedarian]

One thing that impressed me was the way the people kept on living as normally as they did. Having parties and classes in the midst of a war zone and despite various laws and rules.

Sitaram: your mom sounds like a wonderful person to know! So does your Iranian friend. I hope to hear more about her experiences.

 

[Sitaram]

If my mom were Azar Nafisi, I could post here and not be off-topic, but since she was not Azar Nafisi, I shall direct you to this short story, "The Noonday Siren" which is a very literal account of my life with her when I was age 4 and 5

http://forums.thebookforum.com/showthread.php?t=7478

I shall post some other recollections as replies to that story.

And I shall also try to post in a different thread some of my discussions with Ladybug of Tehran.

 

[abecedarian]

If my mom were Azar Nafisi, I could post here and not be off-topic, but since she was not Azar Nafisi, I shall direct you to this short story, "The Noonday Siren" which is a very literal account of my life with her when I was age 4 and 5

http://forums.thebookforum.com/showthread.php?t=7478

I shall post some other recollections as replies to that story.

And I shall also try to post in a different thread some of my discussions with Ladybug of Tehran.

A thread in chat for The Ladybug of Tehran? Why not!

 

[Sitaram]

Dialogue with Ladybug - Part 1

I mentioned in this thread that I would post some things about my Internet “pen pal” Ladybug, who is a medical student in Tehran.

She is currently reading a copy of Azar Nafisis “Reading Lolita In Tehran” which was smuggled into the country for her by a friend, since the sale of that book is banned by the government for obvious reasons.

I just now finished having a long chat with Ladybug between 4am and 5am east coast USA time. In Tehran it was approaching lunch time.

Azar Nafisis book is about many things, in my opinion. It is about women with powerful minds who hunger of all sorts of learning, but who are restricted and repressed and made to be second class citizens by a reactionary patriarchal society which seeks in part to return culture and values to those of 7th century Mecca and Medina. Nafisi’s book is about censorship and free speech and freedom of peaceful assembly. The topics of Nafisi’s book RLIT (Reading Lolita in Tehran). Nafis’s book is also about propaganda in a sense. Islamic societies see Western literature as a propaganda which had an agenda to undermine Islamic society. In turn, both Islamic and Communist societies will use novels such as “The Great Gatsby” as a form of propaganda to illustrate the great shaitan-satan of the infidel society, or the corruption of the capitalist society.


I realize that the TBF forum forbids the discussion of religion and politics, EXCEPT in so far as such topics are germane to the discussion of a book which deals with such topics.

I feel it is important to share my side of this conversation to illustrate various things. I do not post this with the intention of starting a religious or political discussion per se. Rather, I wish do demonstrate the lack of information or the misinformation in the education of a young woman like Ladybug and how the life and writing of someone like Professor Nafisi affects and changes the lives of such young women. I want to illustrate is the tremendous force and power of the Internet to allow someone like Ladybug to speak with someone like me about such topics. I have had similar conversations with people in Pakistan and Malaysia, which are Islamic governed societies. If anything can change the world and diminish the differences which cause such tensions and conflict and mistrust, then I believe it shall be such forces as the Internet, and writers like Nafisi, and the writers which they study, and the power of the Internet.

Also, I want to demonstrate what I feel is a close relationship between schools and styles of literary analysis and the long history of interpretation of religious scriptures. Several years ago, I wrote at some length about what I see as a process of analysis started by the early Christians, an analysis of the Old Testament, to help gain acceptance and respectability for their new and strange religion. I feel that these techniques of interpretation and deconstruction influenced future generations of writers and critics, until one has something like “East of Eden” or “Finnegans Wake” or “Gravities Rainbow”.

It is my belief that centuries of literary analysis and deconstruction of scriptures collectively contribute to secular societies which foster freedom of speech, whereas literal traditions which discourage analysis and deconstruction and fiction lead to societies which are theocratic rather than secular and which suppress and censure free speech.

I have worked with several students from Islamic cultures who have the greatest difficulty understanding something like Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” because Catholic doctrine and practice is unfamiliar. Readers of Brothers Karamazov who lack any knowledge of Eastern Orthodox monastic tradition and the Philokalia are at some disadvantage. I happen to be immersed in a knowledge of Hinduism and Islam, so for me, the appreciation of Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” is far more meaningful that it is for someone who is totally unaware of the life in syncretistic India. I have had Muslims and Christians from India tell me little stories about their religions which sound like something from the Mahabharat, and are unknown outside of India. I say this to stress the importance of discussing various religions for the sake of understanding certain literary works.

Though I am discussing with Ladybug certain topics in the Judaeo-Christian Bible, and comparing it to the Qu’ran, I am discussing these topics from the point of view of literary interpretation and deconstruction. I am personally Hindu and Buddhist in my thinking, and Ladybug knows this, so she does not suspect that I am trying to convert her to Christianity.

The Western novels which Nafisi studied with her mostly female class are analyzed to show a different way of life, a different point of view, a different culture.

 

[Sitaram]

Dialogue with Ladybug - Part 2

Ladybug and I began by discussing the stereotypes and jokes about lawyers, and how Ernie the Attorney seems like such a wonderful person who does not fit the lawyer stereotype.

We then begin to discuss the stereotypes of doctors in Iran and USA, since she is becoming a doctor.

Some of my language is geared to suit a Farsi speaker who is not familiar with Judaeo-Christian traditions.

In what follows, I paraphrase various texts quickly from my memory, which is slightly failing these days, so my apologies for any errors or omissions. Please correct me.

=================== Summary of my side of the discussion with Ladybug

You seem to be referring to the "nerd" stereotype, of scientist, computer genius, etc...
but that is not applied to doctors, here.

There is certainly the stereotype of the eccentric, absent minded professor, physicist.... sometimes sketched to resemble Einstein with the wild hair.

The Yoda character in the Star Wars movie was designed to have some of Einstein’s appearance

Einstein was offered the position of Prime Minister of Israel, when the state of Israel was first formed, around 1948 I suppose... but he declined, saying that he was better suited to physics than politics.

I guess the Israelis thought they are choosing a King David, all over again when they tried to choose Einstein.

You probably do not know the Biblical stories of how the prophet Samuel is sent to the house of Jesse to select a king from among Jesse's many sons.

This is of interest to women: the mother of Prophet Samuel, whose name is Hanna, is sad because she cannot have a child.

She is walking by the Temple in Jerusalem, mumbling her prayers for a son.


As she was mumbling her prayers, the high priest, Eli, saw her from a distance, and saw her lips moving ever so slightly and he thought she was drunk, so he rebuked her for drinking during the daylight hours near the temple

In Hanna’s prayer, she calls God "Lord of Hosts"

One never sees that phrase “Lord of Hosts” prior to the book of First Samuel, in Old Testament bible

But, AFTER 1st Samuel, one sees it all the time

So, a woman (female) has the honor of being the first with the term "Lord of Hosts"

But, you see, in a much later Prophet, I think it is Ezekiel, Ch. 2, there is a vision of the highest angels in heaven, the cherubim and seraphim, continually shouting, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts" (Hanna’s phrase. Note: some translations substitute Almighty for Hosts)

Hanna promises God that if she may have a child, she will consecrate him as a prophet to God...
so, Samuel is born...


Now... God was unhappy with King Saul...
It even says that, when God made Saul King, God "gave Saul a new heart"
but still, Saul messed up...

The 51st Psalm of King David also mentions, "Create, O Lord, a NEW HEART within me"

When Samuel is a teenager, he spends a night in the sanctuary of the temple with the high priest Eli, who is now so old that it mentions his eyesight is failing (his poor eyesight in old age is very significant)


When Eli is young, with keen eyesight, to see the lips of Hanna mumbling prayers from a distance.... he does not have correct discernment
Eli MISJUDGES Hanna and incorrectly accuses her of drunkenness, not recognizing it as prayer


This follow a very long motif through-out the old and new testaments, of good and righteous people being unfairly accused, going back to Joseph, who was sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt


NOW Eli is an old man with POOR VISION...

During the night, as Samuel the boy, and Eli the old priest are on watch in the Temple.

Samuel hears a voice call his name.... and assumes it is Eli calling him.... so he comes to Eli and says "Did you call me?"

Eli says "NO

But, in a little while, Samuel hears his name called for a SECOND time, so again he goes to Eli and asks "Did you call me"

Eli again says, "No....I did not call you" but Eli begins to realize that something might be happening

Eli says to Samuel, "IF you hear your name called a third time, then you are to answer 'Yes, Lord here I am"

Indeed, Samuel hears the voice a third time, and does as Eli instructs, saying “Here I am Lord”... and it IS God, who then proceeds to give Samuel some instructions

Here is the important point, and it may be something that I am the first to notice and comment upon.

In this Biblical story, In point of fact, the SONS of Eli, who are also priests, are corrupt...
and God has raised up a Prophet, Samuel, to rebuke them and reform the temple worship...

So, here is Eli, with poor physical eyesight of old age, and also, a family of corrupt priests as sons....
BUT. ... the spiritual direction of Eli is necessary, even for the young prophet, to learn how to successfully communicate with God

This reflects something which Apostle Paul said in the Epistles of the New Testament... namely "God places his treasures of gold in pots or vessels of clay"
The human being is flawed, with faults, sins....

And yet, the human being can be a container, a vessel, for an oral tradition which his holy, which contains truth

Now, the YOUNG Eli, with keen physical vision, keen enough to see Hanna’s lips slightly moving... is not able to JUDGE his neighbor, Hanna....

But, even as an old man, almost blind in his PHYSICAL eyesight,... yet has keen spiritual vision BECAUSE he is the vessel, the repository of oral tradition... of how to discern the presence of God

And, even though God has raised up Samuel to punish the sons of Eli,... yet it is Eli who is the legitimate vessel, repository of that divine oral tradition, in spite of his physical and moral defects.


On the THIRD call, Samuel responds, armed with the teaching of Eli, as to what to say...

When Samuel is a bit older.... God is unhappy with King Saul,...and tells Samuel to go to the house of Jesse , who has many sons, and choose one of the sons of Jesse to be a new king to replace Saul

but, God gives Samuel special instructions...

God says.... "Do not choose that son which most impresses YOU, with his appearance and demeanor.... but wait until I THE LORD tell you which son is to be chosen"

and God goes on to say, "Human beings judge by external things... BUT
God is the ONLY KNOWER OF THE HEART....

Here is another motif throughout the Bible... of God as the only knower of the heart... and of the wickedness of the human heart/imagination, which is wicked above all things

 

[Sitaram]

Dialogue with Ladybug - Part 3

There is yet another important motif we can see in the Samuel stories... namely,... HUMAN COOPERATION.. with the divine will.... that in the Bible, God always calls first, beckons, but that it is ESSENTIAL for the human to consent with free will and cooperate

God cannot just bonk the human on the head and say "I am God, so you do THIS"

We see this with Moses, who was tending his sheep flocks... when suddenly from the corner of his eye he notices a bush which is ON FIRE and yet is never consumed

God does not force Moses to come to the bush. Moses comes of his free will, out of curiosity. It is only when Moses is already near the bush that God speaks. And God even allows Moses to sin by stepping on holy ground with his shoes. For God tells Moses, “Take off your shoes for the ground on which you stand is holy.” Now, God acts with forbearance. God does not strike Moses from a distance with a bolt of lightning, to knock off his shoes, before he reaches the holy ground. God is patient with Moses’ flawed and ignorant nature.

Samuel DOES listen to God... and does follow instructions

Jesse shows Samuel each of his many sons



ELI, teaches Samuel that he must first answer "YES LORD HERE I AM"
WHICH is the free will consent on the part of Samuel.

Just like Moses, who sees the burning bush at a distance....
and he is CURIOUS


If free will were NOT necessary then God would just send Gabriel or some angel to snatch up Moses and Samuel and squeeze the daylights out of them, and command "DO THIS"
and like dolls or puppets, their eyeballs would bulge out, and they would fall into a trance and squeak "Yes master" like those characters in the Frankenstein movies


in the Judaeo Christian Bible... every time there is an encounter between angel and human, the humans are scared at first
and the angel calms them down and says "be of good cheer"...
and then tells them some message
But, in the account of Muhammed and Gabreel in the cave, it is totally different....
It is a scary encounter, and it violates Muhammed’s free will because, it says Gabreel snatches him up THREE TIMES and squeezes the life out of him and shouts PROCLAIM






Even many Westerners misunderstand or miss the point of free will consent in the bible...for example

When Gabriel comes to Mary, to announce the birth of Christ.... people assume that gabriel is telling her that SHE IS ALREADY WITH CHILD, pregnant... but... that is not the case.
Gabriel tells Mary that "it is the will of god that you should conceive.... and bear a child... etc"

but.. get this,... it is ONLY WHEN MARY BOWS HER HEAD AND gives her FREE WILL CONSENT saying "Let it be unto his handmaiden as He wills"

only THEN, does the power of the most high overshadow her, and there is the conception of an embryo

You see... in the BIBLE, one can follow a long tradition, a motif, of free will consent...

The free will cooperation of the human is essential
even in the book of Esther...
who is Jewish, but is married to a powerful King...
and there is this wicked man who is like Hitler, named Haman

and Haaman is plotting a genocide, to have all Jews executed
So, Mordecai, the uncle of Esther, comes to her and essentially asks for her free will consent saying “IF YOU CHOOSE, you can help your people. If you choose not to help, then God will arrange for help to come from elsewhere, by some other means, but you shall not share in the reward.”

(Ladybug objects that Muhammed and the Qur’an is not as I describe with regard to freewill)

Don’t you see,... you CANNOT understand these things because you have been raised in a religion and culture which IGNORES human free will

That is why the word ISLAM itself means surrender...

You shall perhaps never be able to understand the vast difference between Qu’ran and Bible...


Even the theology of Islam says that Allah FOREKNOWES and predestines each and every soul to be either a saved believing soul, or a damned kafir soul

The individual free will of the soul plays no role in things...

Even one of our most important Islamic scholars in the USA, http://www.nasrfoundation.org/bios.html
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who teaches at George Washington University in Washington DC, and is on television, explained these matters on educational television.

Anyway, back to Samuel,... Jesse shows Samuel each and every son, and each one, god whispers to Samuel, "no not this one"
Finally, there seem to be no more sons...
So Samuel asks Jesse, "What ... you have no more sons?"

and Jesse and his brothers say...."oh...well,... we have one more, who is out in the fields with the flocks, but he is the youngest and the smallest
smallest... so you would not even want to see him

but Samuel says, "bring him to me"
and they bring David...and god says "yes, David is the one"

so we see here another motif of the smallest and weakest and ugliest being chosen to be the first

you see,... Jacob loves beautiful Rachael... but the father Laban tricks Isaac at the wedding... and puts the older sister, the ugly one, under the veil

after wedding, Jacob takes off veil, and sees he has married the UGLY one, Leah, and not Rachael
and the father Laban says,.... "Well, the older sister must get married first... but work another 7 years and you may have also the young beautiful sister that you desire




Leah is the ugly one... BUT... it is through LEAHS offspring lineage... that David is born... and it is through the descendents of David that Christ is born
so... there is long long motif of the inferior being chosen as the first...

even Jacob and Esau.... Esau is first born, but Jacob receives blessing

also.. in prophet Isaiah,... there is a passage which predicts Christ, and describes him as plain and homely...

and... in gospels... when John the baptist is baptizing and preaching.... he says to the crowd "There stands in your midst one whom you know not, who you cannot recognize, because he is plain and ordinary, and not fancy movie star"
I put it in my own words

but that is the force and meaning of what John the Baptist is saying...
so, Christ is the one who is rejected and scorned... and is humble....

and, Christ tells all his disciples... "Blessed are you when men shall curse you and revile you and falsely accuse of you all sorts of bad things, and label you as the scum of the earth (off-scouring).. for in heaven your reward shall be great...
So.. the entire Bible motif is one who is plain, ordinary, rejected, falsely accused, who in the end triumphs over all
like Joseph...
like Isaac...
like David...

but, Mohammed does not fit into that humble pattern: because.... he is accepted by all, very popular, powerful (after conquest of Mecca)
had worldly power.. lead armies...

 

[Sitaram]

Dialogue with Ladybug - Part 4 (final)

An analysis of the Arabic language of the Qu’ran reveals many foreign borrowed words from other languages, and abnormalities of grammar, which casts doubts that Arabic is the language which a God chooses as a vehicle for divine revelation.

and... you see.... all of Islamic scholarship FLATLY REFUSES to even look at the bible, claiming that it is totally corrupted by the wickedness of Christians and Jews...

I have seen Islamic scholars on television say that very thing

AND YET,... the Qu’ran praises the psalms in five different verses....
but yet, those psalms which Muhammad knew were the same ones we have today...

and no psalm is repeated in Qu’ran... even though Qu’ran says that even the birds sing the psalms...

but... i am not going to beat you over the head with these matters.. but it is important that you at least hear about these contrasts which others, outside of Islam, see


My rhetoric is designed to raise questions regarding the Qu’ran more than to defend and promote the Judao-Christian bible

and to discredit Muhammad

(Ladybug says that she sees all religions as the same now)

That is not what Quran says, in the Surah to the Kafir

one of the final, shortest surahs of the Qu’ran, “The Surah for the Unbeliever”.. "say therefore unto the unbeliever... the god that you worship is not the god that we worship

I shop in a big grocery store run my Egyptian Muslims...
(they have to sell beer and pork in the store, poor things)

Today, a woman (non muslim) passed by the owner, and said "Salaam Alehoum" to the Egyptian owner, but he just smiled and said nothing..


The woman thinks she is being friendly... BUT, strict Islamic tradition FORBIDS a Muslim to reply to a non muslim such a greeting

In "The Saying of Muhammed"... it is recorded....

"Reply to the unbeliever, no Oualehoume Saalam,.... but say "the same to you", since the blessing of the kafir is a curse...

So, when you say "the same to you" you reflect that curse back upon them...

years ago.. i passed by a big masjid, and saw a very stern strick bin laden type muslim man...
so... i said to him "Salaam alehoume"... and he just glared at me in anger and said nothing...

I have a paperback of "The Sayings of Muhammed" which is part of the hadith tradition, oral tradition... and it is published by Islamic scholars
and it explains the business about greetings from the kaphir

even in 5th Surah, verse 52... it says "Do not be friends with Christians and Jews.. they have each other to be friends with,... and he who is friends with them is one of them... and Allah does not help evil doers"


Each religion has defects, and internal conflicts

I just want you to understand and hear the western point of view, regarding Bible... to help you understand the viewpoints of others

Jews and Christians have divided into many sects just like Muslims into Shia, Sufi, Sunni, Kurd etc
and so many sects in history.. the Muttakalimum...

ladybug says: “ I live in such Islamic society and suffer because of the wrong interpretation of religon they have”

well... the vers 48 in surah 5, just before the one that says "do not be friends with Christians and Jews"... says "I have created the differences in religions for my own purpose.. so if you must compete with each other, then compete in doing good works, and when you return to me I shall explain to you the reason for the differences

and that verse is pointed to as the most ecumenical interfaith verse in Qu’ran

BUT, it is western scholars who see it that way.. and when you tell this to Muslim scholars... they become angry and say that this is a misunderstanding....

and I once went to a big Islamic bookstore... with many different English translations of Qu’ran... and looked up that passage, AND IT WAS MISSING

Ladybug says: I haven’t seen that verse either”

Sitaram: That is because certain fanatical Muslims do not want there to be a verse in Qu’ran which suggests that other religions are ok...


Well,... what do you think... do you really imagine that the Iran govt. would allow versions of quran that say such things

I tell you what you should get... i should email to you the zipped text of Muhammed Marmaduke Picthalls translatiion of quran into english... done in 1940s
and it includes parallel verses by translators Yusufali... and Shakir

In english, Pickthall, Shakir and Yusufali are three top translators... and they are very accurate... with no hidden agenda



I think King James is a VERY ACCURATE translation.... much better than NIV and Douay, and Jerusalem, and many other translations for certain verses, and a reference to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance on Greek and Hebrew will bear this out in many passages.

(end of summary) =====================

 

[abecedarian]

< I say this to stress the importance of discussing various religions for the sake of understanding certain literary works.>

Exactly what I've thought throughout the whole 'should we discuss religion debate." In order to intelligently discuss many of the wonderful works we've read, we need to be able to discuss religion(s) to some degree, if for no other reason than to understand the author and book in question.
In this case, it is imperative to understand the setting of Reading Lolita in Tehran. Thanks for taking this step Sitatram.
I printed out your posts this morning so I can read them after church. Lots to think about and no time this morning..