A Dialogue with a Saudi Muslim (4)

• Part One, which has a brief Introduction
• Part Two
• Part Three

By way of reminder, Soliman al-Buthe (or al-Buthi) wrote an Open Letter to Congress in 2005. Then he initiated a dialogue with me, so we decided on this sequence.

1. In 2005, I commented and asked questions about the Open Letter (in blue).

2. In that same year, months later, Mr. al-Buthe answered my questions and challenged me on various issues (in green). He sought the advice of Saudi scholars, as well.

3. Finally, in 2006, I reply to his challenges and questions (in black). Sometimes I embed this part in our 2005 dialogue. I too receive help from colleagues.

2005 Open Letter to Congress (continued):

Compatibility with Modernity

Like all developing nations, Saudi Arabia faces many challenges. We have social, economic, and political issues that need to be addressed. Our religious teachings, however, are not against modernity, progress, or development. Rather, this religious movement has led to a general renaissance in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic world as a whole. In just 70 years, Saudi Arabia has developed a nationwide education system consisting of eight universities, 100 colleges, and 26,000 schools that provide free education to over 5,000,000 students. The teacher-student ratio of 1:12.5 is among the lowest in the world, with over one quarter of the annual state budget allocated to education. There are currently 320 hospitals in the Kingdom consisting of 46,048 beds. In the face of these facts it is difficult to understand how our religious beliefs could possibly be inherently anti-progress and anti-modernity. Although we have much to improve, the achievements of the Kingdom thus far demonstrate that a modern society can be built upon core teachings and that progress is not hindered by an adherence to Islamic law.

JA: The reason I ask about the percentage of students who choose Islamic Studies or other religious majors is the high unemployment and crime rates in your country. John R. Bradbury worked as a journalist in Saudi Arabia for more than two years, writing for various western publications. In his book, Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis, he provides statistics for the rise. He writes:

Thus, the crime rate increases, despite the harsh punishments your legal system regularly metes out, such as chopping off heads. Bradbury recounts some episodes of public beheadings. In 2003, for example, more than 50 took place for everyone to see (p. 144). Academic programs covering economics and the social sciences may help the problem of crime. I read, above, and elsewhere that you have such programs, so this is good.

We have invited a friend and colleague, originally from Saudi Arabia, to review my response. He adds this to our dialogue:

The point that this Saudi is making, I believe, is that his nation closes the door on an even exchange of ideas, to help solve his nations problems. America and other free societies invite and give permission to hundreds of thousands of students from all countries, cultures and religions to come and study in their universities, often even providing grants and scholarships for them. It allows fair partnership in businesses with foreigners. Why is Saudi Arabia closing itself off from the free and even exchange of ideas and partnership in business?

As for the Madrassas and violence, please click on this report, which balances out your positive link.

JA: I am confused about something. You say in your Open Letter, which you initiated to the American Congress, that Saudi Arabia is compatible with modernity (your word). Then, when I bring up the word "modernity," you talk about "cultural prejudice" and the "wholesale adoption of Western modernity as it relates to a promiscuous freedom." No one said anything about adopting the extremes or the vices in the West. I agree that the West has gone too far in that regard. But can you not see that Saudi Arabia has let the pendulum swing too far to the other extremeto the far side of repression, such as executing or flogging or imprisoning sexual sinners (read about this excess here and here)?

JA: You report that the reason for prohibiting women from driving cars is to separate the sexes because they may commit sexual sin and be severely punished. In Part Two I have already noted that homosexuality takes place in your country, so how does one fix that problem? By forbidding men from driving? I am not being facetious. It seems that the reason offered by the religious scholars for prohibiting women does not work entirely. It is a sad fact that humans will commit sexual sin, no matter how much they are smothered by rules and religious police.

Bradbury reports in his book (cited above) that the separation of the sexes creates the (unintended) backlash of men seeking comfort and sexual gratification from other men, and women from other women.

Additionally, Bradbury reports that gay websites have exploded:

He goes on to report that lesbians also seek their own encounters and can easily do so because of the segregation of the sexes (pp. 162-65).

To return to the specific issue of driving, why do women have to be restricted from this privilege completely? Why not permit the women who want to drive to enjoy this privilege at least one day a week? There is a middle ground somewhere.

Next, it may be true that "few Saudi women even want to drive." But here are the few. This news report by Faiza Saleh Ambah offers these few a voice. Did Karen Hughes meet with them?

The report continues by saying that most Saudi women view driving as an imitation of the decadent West. Again, this opinion lets the pendulum swing too far to the other extreme of suppression.

Here is a very short excerpt from an interview with a member of the Saudi Shura Council Muhammad Aal Zulfa, which aired on Al-'Arabiya TV on June 8, 2005. He would let his wife and daughter drive.

To wrap up this part of my reply, humans of both sexes need freedom. This article says that Bahrain, an island and independent state that is connected to Saudi Arabia by a bridge, provides a "breathing lung" for Saudis because this Islamic island allows people to do as they want. The words "breathing lung" mean that Saudi Arabia suffocates people. On the weekends an average of 40,000 cars line up to cross the bridge.

Surely there is a middle path between decadence and repression of freedom.

JA: My comment here is brief, coming in three parts.

First, I am encouraged about your statement that there is nothing in Islam which "allows men but not women to vote." But I am unclear about the "infrastructure that would be required." I hope it gets ready for the next elections.

Second, it is true that for many decades America did not allow women to vote, but we have corrected the problem at the beginning of the twentieth century, passing the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919, which opened the door to this basic right. Our nation was one of the first. France did not open the voting booth to women until after the Second World War.

Third, it is true, sadly, that black Americans were disenfranchised. But we have corrected the problem with the Voting Rights Act in 1965. The world awaits Saudi Arabia to correct its own problems. This is why, as noted in my first point in this section, that I am encouraged by your words: "Many believe that this restriction will be lifted in the future, and perhaps in the very near future." I hope such freedom happens soon, in the near future.

I believe, from a simple study of history, that it is impossible to smother freedom in the human heart. Eventually freedom will break out of any cage. Therefore, it is better, dont you think, to go with the flow of freedom without adopting the extreme of promiscuity and licentiousness?

JA: My comments come in three numbered points. I omit a discussion of your third reply, though I allude to it in my point no. two and my discussion of Christianity today.

(1) For your first point you say:

This is a common belief in the Muslim world, and even some Westerners perpetuate it. But it needs to be balanced out.

Alvin J. Schmidt, in The Great Divide (Regina Orthodox Press, 2004), pp. 200-01, summarizes his findings in Chapter 8, which covers science. He corrects two popular misconceptions: the West is heavily indebted to Islam; and the church always stood in the way of scientific advancement.

Starting off, he concedes that some noteworthy natural philosophers (pre-scientists) lived in the Islamic empire. But they stand on the shoulders of Greeks, who were not completely wrong about some things.

Then Schmidt points out that the science we know today began in the thirteenth century, long after science stalled under Islam. Also, it was the church that was a major patron of scientific learning.

Schmidt ends with a short list of groundbreaking western discoveries fostered by Christianity, and bypassing Islam that seems to have bogged down in an exclusive search for religious truth and that seems largely to have ignored scientific truth. Western science was not built on the basis of Islamic "science," a misnomer in the first place, because, as noted, science did not really begin until the thirteenth century. Before then, it may be called a "proto-science," which is built on Greek "proto-science."

Finally, the next scholar, after quoting Westerners who put down their own western intellectual history and who exalt Islamic intellectual history to high heaven, clarifies matters. He says that Muslims translated insignificant ancient texts and that Christendom already had the important ones. He says in the fourth paragraph, below, that Islam was caught up in Neoplatonism, a poor reflection of Plato, and what philosophy did exist in Islam rose higher than the Quran. So Islamic philosophers Avicenna and Averroes believed.

(2) In your second point you write:

I have not read Sheikh Ibn Bazs article, but this is an excerpt taken from Sandra Mackey, The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom, updated edition (Norton, 2002), p. 98. Her book is generally sympathetic of your country.

This quotation does discuss the sun orbiting. It also says that the earth is fixed, so it is difficult to understand how your explanation of the sun and its system moving in the galaxy works, unless the moving solar system leaves the stationary earth behind.

Perhaps the Sheikh was referring to a revelation in the Quran that says that the sun sets in a muddy spring. One of Gods servants of long ago actually witnessed this, says the Islamic holy book. Sura (Chapter) 18:86 says:

This researcher quotes the hadiths and commentators:

Thus, this revelation in Sura 18:86 does not describe a one-time miracle (cf. Joshua 10:12-15). It seems to be treated as a scientific fact, as if the sun settles in slimy mud every day, which can be witnessed with our own eyes, after we walk to where the sun sets. Also, this goes far out and beyond your and your colleagues explanation that the solar system moves around in our galaxy.

Still under your point two, you write:

Specifically, you write that Ibn Baz "did not even think about trying to start an inquisition against many who differed with him." If I understand this comment, you may be implying that the popes started inquisitions, and this is worse than Ibn Bazs beliefs. In reply, this is a common and mistaken strategy chosen by Muslim missionaries. They frequently reference misguided and violent events hundreds of years ago, and even a thousand years ago, that the church committed. However, Christians today do not engage in any inquisitions. Christians today do not see this entire era of church history as authoritative, as if we should bring forward all of its policies and practices in such matters. The church has reformed. That is, no Protestant pastor or Catholic priest today says we should attack Christians or atheists for holding views contrary to the Bible or church teachings, particularly not in scientific disputes. However, Islam persecutes and harasses nonconformist scholars often enough, today, not only a thousand or more years ago. Thus, no one demands, as you say in your last sentence in the excerpt, that Muslims should have prevented the Sheikh, highly positioned at an accredited university, from expressing his conservative views among many strict Quran-believing Muslims or anyone else.

In any case, I am pleased to read your reply that says Saudi universities disagree with the Sheikh, who was highly positioned at an accredited and reputable university, and call his view erroneous. But the real problem lies with the Quran itself.

Your final comment in your second point says:

I confess that your comment here disappoints me. This is one subject on which Christians and Muslims could work together. In any case, you call Intelligent Design "a poor cousin of creationism." Does this imply that creationism is the privileged first-born son? Do you prefer strict creationism? It seems that Intelligent Design can only help Islamic theology in the world of modern science, unless you hold to a literal six-day creation.

Next, maybe a few Christian scholars want creationism taught in public schools, but most such scholars prefer that Intelligent Design should be taught alongside evolution, both as theories. This Jewish scholar, for example, who rejects Intelligent Design, says that it should still be taught in our schools:

Personally, I do not worry about the issue of teaching Intelligent Design in the public schools, one way or the other.

For more challenges to science in the Quran, please go to this webpage. I especially recommend this scholar. The Saudi Christian adds: "It should be mentioned that all of the so-called scientific evidence in the Quran is based on visible evidence we can see with our own eyes, not on divine knowledge." This lengthy review of a debate between the scholar previously linked and a well-known Muslim speaker brings out this fact in more detail.

(3) Finally, your fourth point says:

In reply, it may be true that these two Muslim scholars knew that the earth is spherical, but this was widely known, long before Islam came on the scene.

In fact, at least one Greek natural philosopher understood that the sun is the center of the cosmos.

As noted in my (long) first reply in this section, the Medieval church followed Aristotle too closely as he envisioned a geocentric universe. But other Greeks knew better, and eventually Copernicus in the sixteenth century broke away from the received tradition and supported a solar-centered universe.

Also, there is a difference between George Washington and Sheikh Ibn Baz. The former was a general and the first President, who lived in the eighteenth century. The latter was an Islamic scholar, highly placed at a university and the religious hierarchy, who lived in the twentieth century and who had access to reports (if only auditory) about humans landing on the moon. He benefited from advances in astronomy and rocket science in a way that President Washington could notassuming that he really did believe that the earth was flat.

Finally, you link to information about the Flat Earth Society. We live in a free country, so people may put up any website or form any society that they want, without fear of harassment. But this society is not part of an accredited university or college or research lab recognized by anyone of reputation, nor is it a member of any respectable scientific community or organization. On the other hand, Sheikh Ibn Baz, as noted, was deeply entrenched in the religious establishment and in an accredited university in Saudi Arabia.

See this quick biography about Ibn Baz, and this short entry on Salafi / Wahhabi literalism.

Summary

Mr. al-Buthi, I again quote two paragraphs from Bradburys book, cited above.

This one describes the astronomical rise in crimes in the land of the Two Holy Mosques, where Islamic punishments are carried out physically and swiftly:

The next quotation describes how segregating the sexes leads to increased homosexual encounters:

What about the US?

As for crime, this line graph on a short page at the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that violent crimes (e.g. homicide, rape, assaults, robbery) in America have decreased dramatically since 1994 to 2003. Next, this line graph, also found at the BJS, depicts a dramatic drop in property crime (burglary, theft, and car theft) from 1994, though the rate has leveled off since 2002.

But what is the point of placing these two line graphs here? To boast that America has reached sinless perfection and has no room for improvement? No. Maybe the crime rate will increase (God forbid) in the next decade (or go down). The point is this: though many factors contribute to a drop in crime rates (or their rise), it is possible to see such a decrease without Islamic law. Other, less brutal, methods can be applied in order to lower crime and enhance the quality of life.

As for the homosexual agenda, it is true that it is strong and vocal. But we have a political system that permits them to express themselves. They enjoy the right to form coalitions. How has repression stopped gays in Saudi Arabia? The authorities may have silenced their political voice (so far), but their practice? Repression has not stopped this, and never will.

I frequently read Muslim missionary outreach websites that assert that Islam cures societys ills and is much better than freedom in the West. We need Islamic law for our own good, even if we do not realize this or even if sharia is harsh and brutal. But this quick comparison of crime and of sexual preferences in Saudi Arabia and the US demonstrates that Islamic law is not necessarily superior. It does not solve problems as much as the outreach websites claimnot even close.

Mr. Al-Buthi, if you believe that I am picking on your country and bringing up issues that are none of my business, then please note that you say that your country is compatible with modernity. Also, you initiated the dialogue, so you opened the door.

To repeat, I am not saying that America has reached moral perfection. Instead, I am challenging the widespread belief that Islamic countries, even Saudi Arabia, are pure.

Continue with Part Five.

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