Read Online Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World by Fatima Mernissi, Mary Jo Lakeland - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Fatima Mernissi, Mary Jo Lakeland
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confound
Their puzzled ignorance. ... 1
When the thirty birds, dazzled and baffled, asked the Simorgh to explain this strange reality to them, he talked to them of a mirror that could reflect the whole planet, with all its differences and its individualities. They asked him to reveal the great secret, to explain the mystery of why “ ‘we’ is not distinguished here from ‘you’?” 2 The Simorgh explained to them what is still not understood eight centuries later by our leaders: that the community, indeed the whole world, can be a mirror of individualities, and that its strength will then only be greater:
“I am a mirror set before your eyes,
And all who come before my splendour see
Themselves, their own unique reality;
You came as thirty birds and therefore saw
These selfsame thirty birds, not less nor more;
If you had come as forty, fifty—here
An answering forty, fifty would appear; . . .
And since you came as thirty birds, you see
These thirty birds when you discover Me,
The Simorgh, Truth’s last flawless jewel, the light
In which you will be lost to mortal sight,
Dispersed to nothingness until once more
You find in Me the selves you were before.” 3
Since that time, the Simorgh, banned in the Orient of the palaces, has haunted women’s tales and children’s dreams. Today the cry for pluralism no longer has to hide behind metaphysical allegories. We can bring a new world into being through all the scientific advances that allow us to communicate, to engage in unlimited dialogue, to create that global mirror in which all cultures can shine in their uniqueness. Nothing makes me more exuberant than the vision of this new world, and the fact that we must go forward toward it without any barriers no longer frightens me. How are we to learn to stride into the abyss and be like the wind? How are we to be defenseless like the forest? How can we have uncertainty as our country? It is surely the poets who will be our guides among these new galaxies.
Index
Abbasids
Abraham
Abu Talib
Abu Zahra
c adala (justice)
c adil (just)
Adonis
ahl al-hadith
ahl al-kitab
c ajam (non-Arabs)
c Ajradi sect
Algeria
c Ali Ibn Abi Talib
Almoravids
c Amara, Muhammad
American films
Amin, Ahmad
Amnesty International
c aql (reason)
Arab Human Rights Organization
Arabian Nights
Arabsat
Arms imports
Armstrong, Neil
asala (authenticity)
c Ashmawi, Qadi
al-Assad, Hafiz
Attali, Jacques
Attar, Farid al-Din
c azma (crisis)
Badr, Liana
Baghdad
Bakr, Salwa
al-ba c th (resurrection)
batil (error)
al-Battani
Berlin Wall
Bourguiba, Habib
Buddhism
al-Bukhari
Bush, George
Cairo
Calendar
Caliph
Campbell, Joseph
Ceaucescu, Nicolae and Elena
Charlemagne
el-Cheikh, Hanane
Christianity
CNN
Colonial governments
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
Coordinated Universal Time
Corm, George
dar al-islam (land of Islam)
dayth (waste)
Democracy
al-din (religion)
Djait, Hichem
Egypt
Enlightenment philosophy
falsifa (philosophers)
al-Farabi
al-Fasi, Muhammad
fitna (disorder)
France
Fundamentalism
Galileo
Germany
al-gharb (the West)
gharib (strange/foreign)
Glucksman, Andre
Goddesses
Greek philosophy
Gulf War
al-Hadi
Hadith
Haguza
al-Hakim bi c Amri Allah
Hallaj
al-haqq (the right)
Harem
Harun al-Rashid
hawa (desire)
Hejira
hijab (veil)
hisn (citadel)
hizb (party)
hudud (boundaries)
Humanism
Hunter, James Davison
al-hurriyya (freedom)
Husayn, Taha
Hussein, Saddam
ibda c (creation)
Ibn al-Haytham
Ibn Hazm
Ibn Hisham
Ibn Ishaq, Hunayn
Ibn al-Kalbi
Ibn Kathir
Ibn Manzur
Ibn Muljam
ihdath (innovation)
ijtihad (private initiative)
Imam
India
Iran
Iraq
Israel
Italy
i c tiqad (belief)
al-Jabiri, Muhammad
jahiliyya (pre-Islamic era)
Japan
Jordan
Judaism
al-jumhuriyya (republic)
al-Jundi, Anwar
Ka c ba
kafir (infidel)
Kahhala, c Umar
Kawkabta
Kepler
Kharijites
khayal
Their puzzled ignorance. ... 1
When the thirty birds, dazzled and baffled, asked the Simorgh to explain this strange reality to them, he talked to them of a mirror that could reflect the whole planet, with all its differences and its individualities. They asked him to reveal the great secret, to explain the mystery of why “ ‘we’ is not distinguished here from ‘you’?” 2 The Simorgh explained to them what is still not understood eight centuries later by our leaders: that the community, indeed the whole world, can be a mirror of individualities, and that its strength will then only be greater:
“I am a mirror set before your eyes,
And all who come before my splendour see
Themselves, their own unique reality;
You came as thirty birds and therefore saw
These selfsame thirty birds, not less nor more;
If you had come as forty, fifty—here
An answering forty, fifty would appear; . . .
And since you came as thirty birds, you see
These thirty birds when you discover Me,
The Simorgh, Truth’s last flawless jewel, the light
In which you will be lost to mortal sight,
Dispersed to nothingness until once more
You find in Me the selves you were before.” 3
Since that time, the Simorgh, banned in the Orient of the palaces, has haunted women’s tales and children’s dreams. Today the cry for pluralism no longer has to hide behind metaphysical allegories. We can bring a new world into being through all the scientific advances that allow us to communicate, to engage in unlimited dialogue, to create that global mirror in which all cultures can shine in their uniqueness. Nothing makes me more exuberant than the vision of this new world, and the fact that we must go forward toward it without any barriers no longer frightens me. How are we to learn to stride into the abyss and be like the wind? How are we to be defenseless like the forest? How can we have uncertainty as our country? It is surely the poets who will be our guides among these new galaxies.
Index
Abbasids
Abraham
Abu Talib
Abu Zahra
c adala (justice)
c adil (just)
Adonis
ahl al-hadith
ahl al-kitab
c ajam (non-Arabs)
c Ajradi sect
Algeria
c Ali Ibn Abi Talib
Almoravids
c Amara, Muhammad
American films
Amin, Ahmad
Amnesty International
c aql (reason)
Arab Human Rights Organization
Arabian Nights
Arabsat
Arms imports
Armstrong, Neil
asala (authenticity)
c Ashmawi, Qadi
al-Assad, Hafiz
Attali, Jacques
Attar, Farid al-Din
c azma (crisis)
Badr, Liana
Baghdad
Bakr, Salwa
al-ba c th (resurrection)
batil (error)
al-Battani
Berlin Wall
Bourguiba, Habib
Buddhism
al-Bukhari
Bush, George
Cairo
Calendar
Caliph
Campbell, Joseph
Ceaucescu, Nicolae and Elena
Charlemagne
el-Cheikh, Hanane
Christianity
CNN
Colonial governments
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
Coordinated Universal Time
Corm, George
dar al-islam (land of Islam)
dayth (waste)
Democracy
al-din (religion)
Djait, Hichem
Egypt
Enlightenment philosophy
falsifa (philosophers)
al-Farabi
al-Fasi, Muhammad
fitna (disorder)
France
Fundamentalism
Galileo
Germany
al-gharb (the West)
gharib (strange/foreign)
Glucksman, Andre
Goddesses
Greek philosophy
Gulf War
al-Hadi
Hadith
Haguza
al-Hakim bi c Amri Allah
Hallaj
al-haqq (the right)
Harem
Harun al-Rashid
hawa (desire)
Hejira
hijab (veil)
hisn (citadel)
hizb (party)
hudud (boundaries)
Humanism
Hunter, James Davison
al-hurriyya (freedom)
Husayn, Taha
Hussein, Saddam
ibda c (creation)
Ibn al-Haytham
Ibn Hazm
Ibn Hisham
Ibn Ishaq, Hunayn
Ibn al-Kalbi
Ibn Kathir
Ibn Manzur
Ibn Muljam
ihdath (innovation)
ijtihad (private initiative)
Imam
India
Iran
Iraq
Israel
Italy
i c tiqad (belief)
al-Jabiri, Muhammad
jahiliyya (pre-Islamic era)
Japan
Jordan
Judaism
al-jumhuriyya (republic)
al-Jundi, Anwar
Ka c ba
kafir (infidel)
Kahhala, c Umar
Kawkabta
Kepler
Kharijites
khayal
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