by Wafa Sultan
As long as he prays, fasts, and reads the Koran, a Muslim feels that he has done his duty, as his sense of responsibility does not extend beyond the performance of these specified commandments. The rulers of all Muslim countries lie to their subjects and plunder, murder, and torture them. But on Fridays and religious holidays they never fail to go to the mosque and pray. No Muslim clergyman will utter a word of criticism of the behavior of these leaders—unless, of course, the leader happens to belong to a different religious denomination. Saddam Hussein murdered hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shiites, but the only Muslims we have heard protesting against his crimes have been Shiites.
Anyone who browses through the pages of Muslim history from the day Muhammad first declared his new religion until the present day will see at once how bloody it has been. Muslims themselves have spilled more of one another’s blood than anyone else. As young schoolchildren we would recount the stories of fighting and killing we had learned from our history books and books of Muslim teachings with the same enthusiasm that we played hide and seek. We took as much delight in repeating the phrase “then he drew his sword and cut off his head” as an American child does in a bar of chocolate, but we experienced no sense of fear as we did so, nor did we question the legitimacy of all that killing.
We became familiar with the language of murder and terrorism and grew addicted to it. We were as proficient in it as a surgeon is at opening a patient’s chest to remove a growth. An ordinary person does not split open another’s person chest unless he is either a criminal totally lacking in human conscience or a surgeon whose medical knowledge and scientific expertise guide him as he carries out his humane mission. We no longer condemn the language of killing and terrorism, which has become a way of life for us. It has become a skill that we practice with the same delight that the surgeon takes in his work.
Just imagine an American child standing in class and saying to his teacher: “I’ll cut my enemy’s head off with this sword.” How would the teacher and the other pupils react? All aspects of life in our Islamic culture are a reflection of this philosophy of death. In 2005 I paid a visit to Syria. In Damascus, while I was sitting in the bus waiting to leave for a neighboring town, I watched a small boy of no more than eight get on carrying a bundle of newspapers to sell to the passengers. “Forty American soldiers reported killed in a heroic suicide bombing in Baghdad!” he shouted, in an attempt to arouse their interest. I quickly took a paper and scanned it keenly while the boy jumped off the bus and vanished into the crowd.
I went through the paper from beginning to end but found no mention of the death of any American soldiers. In the midst of my astonishment I overheard another passenger say, “The little bastard duped us!” Even a boy as young as eight fully understands the psychology of his people and knows precisely how to play upon their emotions. The death of forty American soldiers in Baghdad is hot news that Syrians will pay the price of a loaf of bread to read about in the paper.
The average Syrian today cares about nothing beyond making a living. He exists in a state of appalling mental lethargy, is uninvolved in world events, and appears to be unconcerned by them. Nonetheless, the death of forty American soldiers is a hot topic that can penetrate even his apathy. Children in Syria are an important source of family income. From a very early age they are aware of market forces and fully understand which issues kindle the interest of their fellow countrymen. It is very sad that even children as young as eight are so profoundly affected by the prevailing mental disintegration that they make up news in order to sell papers! Men in the Arab world lack responsibility for the moral growth of their children.
A high-ranking officer in the Syrian army ran over my six-year-old niece as he drove his car at an insane speed through a busy part of town. Once, by chance, I heard him speak about the accident. He laid the blame on the little girl, who, he said, had crossed the road on her way to school without checking to ensure that the way was clear. He also tried to discredit the family by claiming that her parents had been negligent and had failed to teach her how to cross the road properly.
I can still remember the lack of respect with which some members of our emergency room medical staff used to treat the crushed bodies of road-accident victims. I recall how, on one occasion that I shall never forget as long as I live, a ten-year-old girl was brought into the emergency room where I worked as a doctor. She was a servant in a private home, and her master had sent her out to buy a pack of cigarettes from the nearby shop. As she crossed the road a garbage truck ran her down and cut off one of her legs. The little girl died on the operating table, and her family took possession of her body. A couple of hours later, as I was throwing away some soiled bandages, I was hor-rorstruck to see the girl’s leg in the trash can. Investigation revealed that the orderly responsible for taking patients to the operating theater had, without any pangs of conscience, thrown the leg away as, he said, there was no point taking it into the operating theater with her as the doctors could not reattach it.
Never in my life have I heard or read of a Muslim man’s expressing feelings of guilt about something he has done, even in fiction. People feel guilt only when they feel a sense of responsibility and acknowledge that they have made a mistake. But Muslims are infallible: The mere fact that they are Muslim makes their every error pardonable. A man’s adherence to Islam is defined not by his actions and responsibilities, but only by the profession of faith he recites: “I testify that there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is the messenger of God.” As long as he continues to repeat this profession of faith he will continue to be a Muslim, and no crime he may commit against others can diminish this. Saddam Hussein was one of the great tyrants of history, but most Sunni Muslims consider him a martyr. At his funeral they chanted: “To paradise, oh beloved of God.”
The first moral lesson a person learns is the difference between the concepts “yes” and “no”—in other words, the ability to decide what to accept and what to reject. Human beings learn this lesson in the first year of their lives, and it is considered to be the foundation that will subsequently support the entire structure of their morality. The solidity of this foundation is what determines the soundness of the entire edifice and its ability to withstand life’s challenges.
A Muslim lives his whole life and dies without ever having learned this lesson. Islamic culture has no clear concept of “yes” and “no.” The two opposites are confused in a way that makes Muslims’ behavior incomprehensible to others who interact with them. Muslim culture replaces these two concepts with a third, which combines and mixes the two and blurs the distinction between them as mutually exclusive opposites. This third concept is expressed by the formula inshallah (God willing). If you ask a Muslim a question that requires the answer yes or no, he will reply inshallah. Inshallah does not necessarily mean either yes or no. It means that the answer lies with God, and God will decide. The expression inshallah allows Muslims to avoid taking responsibility. They cannot be held responsible for any decision they may make, as God has made it for them, and its outcome, whether good or bad, is the will of God. If you ask a Muslim, “Would you like to join us for lunch tomorrow?” he will answer inshallah. Of course, he is not necessarily saying “Yes, I’ll come” or “No, I won’t come.” If he does come to lunch, it will be because God has enabled him to come, and if he does not come, that, too, will be the result of divine predestination, and no one has any right to protest!
On my last visit to Syria, I was spending an evening with my brother’s family when my nine-year-old niece Sarah surprised me with a barrage of questions about America in general and Hollywood in particular.
“Do you know Whitney Houston? Have you heard her latest song? I like Nicole Kidman, but her marriage to Tom Cruise hasn’t worked out very well!”
“Which Britney Spears song do you like best?”
In the end I was asking the questions and she was supplying the answers, as she turned out to know Hollywood a great deal better than I kno
w my own home or the dishes in my own kitchen.
I asked her, “Why don’t you come and visit me in the United States so that you can go to Hollywood?”
She gasped and her eyes glowed like stars on a dark night. “Can I?”
“Of course,” I said. “It would be my pleasure and I’ll foot the bill for your trip.”
Sarah ran to her mother and asked her, “Mommy, can I visit my aunt in America?” Then, without giving her mother time to reply, she continued, “And please don’t say inshallah!”
Everyone burst out laughing, but, as for me, I wept! Sarah submitted an application for a visa to the American Embassy in Damascus, and was turned down. She called me, sobbing, and told me, “Auntie, I’m unhappy. God doesn’t want me to come and see you in America!” This is the first time that God has been blamed for an offense committed by America, rather than the other way round!
My niece, despite her tender years at the time, was perfectly aware that inshallah meant neither yes nor no. She begged her mother not to use the expression, which, as far as she was concerned, expressed only a vagueness that her young mind could not accept. She would have preferred her mother to say no rather than inshallah.
A nod and a smile may or may not signify assent. When an Arab revokes his agreement he justifies himself by insisting that he had never agreed in the first place, as he had not said yes, but had merely smiled and nodded his head. This ambiguity means that Muslims’ relationships with others are capricious and uncertain, and this has made it hard for people to trust them. People who cannot differentiate between yes and no and can express neither unambiguously have a confused notion of concepts in general. Their moral infrastructure becomes brittle and is liable to collapse under the pressure of any question that has to be answered by yes or no. This moral fragility afflicts Muslims today, and they find it hard to interact with the modern world, which constantly confronts them with questions that require them to accept or decline—to respond either “yes” or “no”—clearly and unambiguously.
The second time I was interviewed by Al Jazeera after I appeared on the show dealing with the clash of civilizations, the interviewer asked me, “Do you mean that this is a clash between the backwardness of the Muslims and modern civilization as exemplified by the West?” I answered without hesitation, “Yes, that’s what I mean.” This reply generated enough reactions from the Arab world to fill a book.
One of the most curious responses was an e-mail from an Egyptian lawyer, who wrote: “When I heard the question I didn’t think for a moment you’d say anything but, ‘No, that’s not what I meant, you misunderstood me,’ and then I expected you to beat about the bush, as Muslims don’t go in for direct answers! But when I heard your reply I lost my mind and danced around the room like a madman shouting, ‘What a disaster, what a disaster!’ “ You cannot ask a man in the Muslim world a question whose response requires the assumption of any kind of responsibility and expect to get an unequivocal “yes” or “no” in reply.
Many years ago, before I came to live in America, I heard a Western journalist ask President Hafez al-Assad in the course of an interview she was conducting with him, “If you reach a peace agreement with Israel, will your country establish diplomatic relations with it?” Assad began to equivocate and did not give a clear answer. The journalist asked him again, “Mr. President, can you reply with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’?” But he continued to beat about the bush until finally, with a certain display of irritation, she gave up and moved on to the next question. When people cannot clearly distinguish between “yes” or “no,” they lose their credibility. As a result they cannot sustain healthy and successful relationships with other people. People are tied to their promises by their tongues, not their anklebones.
Relationships in Muslim societies are governed by interest and necessity, rather than by any sincerity on the part of the people conducting them. Such relationships are as ambiguous as the expression inshallah, which we’ve already discussed and which you will hear constantly wherever you go in the Muslim world. All aspects of life in these societies reflect the lack of sincerity that governs interpersonal relationships within them. When people fail to keep their promises they put the blame on God, saying it was not his will, and justify this by adding, “You misunderstood me. When I said inshallah I didn’t mean I would do such-and-such.”
On my most recent visit to Syria two years ago I realized the truth of the French proverb: “A fish cannot see the water it swims in.” I swam in the Syrian sea for thirty-three years of my life, and was apparently unable to see the water I was swimming in. When I returned to it after fifteen years of living in America, however, I saw it clearly for what it was. Although, of course, it was my dissatisfaction with life there that made me want to emigrate, I did not at the time fully understand the nature and causes of my discontent. It was my experiences in the United States that allowed me, after fifteen years’ absence, to see the true nature of the waters I once swam in.
I plunged deep into these waters and used my ability to put things under a microscope to analyze its constituents in detail. What I saw was not very different from a colony of bacteria such as we used to observe under a microscope in the microbiology lab when I was at medical school. Though people may disapprove of this comparison, it is apt nonetheless. A society that is not governed by the rule of law, but by the law of the jungle: the strong devour the weak, and both justify the status quo as inevitable divine decree.
I met up with a woman who had been a close friend before I left Syria. At the time, she, like me, was in unenviable financial circumstances. When we met once more I was surprised to find that she had attained a high position in the Syrian government and that gold and silver had rained down upon her ever since. Rumor had it that she had been appointed to the post because of a suspect relationship with an influential man, despite the fact that she was married and the mother of children.
I visited her at her home, where she made me very welcome. Never in my life had I seen such luxury as I saw there, and I was amazed at the magnificence of the building and its appointments. She began to tell me of her adventures in Europe and showed me the jewels she had bought on her travels. I had intended to bring up the subject of the tragic situation of the Syrian people, and asked her unhesitatingly, “Samira, is it right that you should live such a fabulous life while nine out of ten Syrians are suffering?” She answered with no sign of shame, “But that’s God’s destiny, Wafa. Only he knows why.”
I asked, “What has God got to do with it?”
“Do you refuse to acknowledge God’s will, Wafa? You must have become Americanized.” Then she tried to change the subject by asking, “Which perfume do you like best? I’ve got lots of different kinds and I’d like to give you some of them.”
I replied jokingly, “Yes, I have become Americanized, and in America, Samira, people don’t wear perfume but eat and drink by the sweat of their brow!”
The Islamic nations suffered the consequences of this stagnation, as Muslims were reduced to programmed automatons unfit for either their time or place. This situation posed no problems for the rest of the world until the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. At the start of the two final decades of the last century, the new technologies that facilitated travel and communications shrank the world, until, by the beginning of the present century, it had been reduced to the dimensions of a small village. As our global home contracted, Muslims found themselves in face-to-face encounters with outsiders to whom Islamic law and teachings were utterly foreign, and have shown themselves unable to adjust to this new reality.
About thirty years ago the Syrian authorities constructed a railroad network that linked the country’s eastern provinces to Aleppo Province in the north. As it plied this route, the train traveled for vast distances through the Syrian Desert, which is inhabited by Bedouin herders and their livestock. As a result, a strange phenomenon occurred: These Bedouin took to stoning the train as it passed throu
gh their villages, breaking car windows and attacking the passengers. They would continue to pursue the train and pelt it with rocks until it had passed, when they would flee and vanish among their tents.
This state of affairs continued for years, and the Syrian authorities were obliged to appoint inspectors and special forces to track down the Bedouin responsible. When I look back and recall that period, I can interpret the Bedouin’s behavior only as motivated by a fear engendered by this strange mechanical monster’s intrusion into their desert world, which had hitherto been shrouded in an unchanging silence. They regarded the roar of the train as an invasion of their privacy and a genuine threat to their way of life, and so tried to protect their world by destroying the train and breaking its windows, with total disregard for the safely of the passengers.
This is exactly what happened to Muslims living in their unchanging worlds. Overnight, nomads roaming the Empty Quarter (the Great Sandy Desert of the Arabian Peninsula) were catapulted from the backs of their camels to airplane seats, and found themselves in the streets of Paris, New York, or Copenhagen. Back home they woke up one morning and peeped out of their tents to discover outlandish heavy machinery drilling holes in their desert to search for oil, under the direction of people who resembled no one and nothing they had ever seen before. The sight terrified them, and they saw it as a threat to their belief system and way of life.
Muslims have been unable to adapt to the world in its new form, and have found themselves obliged, both at home in their own countries and as immigrants abroad, to adopt a new way of life incompatible with their religious laws and beliefs. Both acceptance and rejection of this new order entailed an appalling psychological struggle.
On the one hand, Western technology has provided Muslims in abundance with a lifestyle they had never dreamed of, and on which they have come to depend. But, on the other hand, this new way of life bears no relation and is not compatible whatsoever with the teachings, concepts, and religious laws they grew up with.
