winter 2015 vol 5 no 2

avicennathe stanford journal on muslim affairs 1 THE STANFORD JOURNAL ON MUSLIM AFFAIRS avicenna THE STANFORD JOURNAL ON MUSLIM AFFAIRS

WINTER 2015 VOL 5 NO 2

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Sevde Kaldiroglu ’17

ASSOCIATE EDITORS Abdullah AlSharhan ’18 Ken-Ben Chao ’17 Bradley Wo ’17 Rifath Rashid ‘18

DESIGNERS Anna Zeng ’18 Motasim Zawawi ‘18

FINANCIAL OFFICER Samuel Jacobo ’17

To contact Avicenna Editorial Board or to send text or image submissions, please email at [email protected].

Avicenna—The Stanford Journal on Muslim Affairs would like to thank the ASSU Publications Board for their support.

All images in this journal are in the public domain with Creative Commons copyright licenses unless otherwise noted. More information about these licences can be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/.

Front cover image, “Inside Sakhi Jan”, by Parwana Fayyaz ‘15. Back cover image, “Tiny Minstrel”, by Allison Mickel, PhD ‘16. 2 avicenna CONTENTS

Editor’s Note 4 SEVDE KALDIROGLU

A Greek and a Persian: Plato’s Influence on Ayatollah Khomeini 6 ALINA UTRATA

American Muslim Groups as “Native Informants” of Neo- Orientalism: Essentialism, Reproduction, and Intellectual Manipulation 10 MAHA ELGENAIDI

Redefining Calligraphy 17 MOTASIM ZAWAWI

On “Ethics of Jihad” with Professor Alexander Key 21 Interview by RIFATH RASHID

How to Grow Up Muslim in America 24 Spoken Word by FARHAN KATHAWALA

Sheikh to Suicide Bomber: Understanding the Roots of the Contemporary Arab Stereotype in Hollywood 26 CHRISTINA SCHICIANO

To Climb a Wall 33 Creative Nonfiction by MARIUM ABDUR RAHMAN

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 3 Editor’s Note

“I am not to make any comments. But I can write. Just as I write my fears, worries, dreams, and falls, I can write this action as well. Because writing is also an action.”

In The Act of Writing (1995), Ferit Edgü, a renowned Turkish author, utters these candid words. Edgü highlights an important point: writing is also an action. Not to say that it is at least as powerful and effective as taking “action” by marching on the streets and joining protests. Perhaps the strikes the pen throws on the paper or the fingers hitting on the keys of the keyboard are not as harsh as the heels violently pounding the pavement; but writing walks forward with quieter yet firmer steps. Sometimes the murmurs the pen spits can be heard louder than the calls bouncing off the lips. What the pen produces is virtually a quiet noise; it is able to grate on the ear when necessary. Indeed the movement of the pen means action. The pen dances; writing moves, develops, improves. If writing were not an action, why have thousands of writers kept their noses to the grindstone and written for centuries? While people were motionlessly waiting for Godot, for the Barbarians or for fear, haven’t many Becketts, Coetzees and Atays taken action and written the meaninglessness of the situation? In that case, it is not right to limit the scope of action by the motion of limbs or the scope of impact by a tangible change. Some things must be written, the pen must always give voice to what the mind produces.

Perhaps someone will read, perhaps someone will think, perhaps someone will awake: this is the only hope of the writer.

Holding on to this “hope”, a group of Stanford students initiated Avicenna – The Stanford Journal on Muslim Affairs in 2011. Since then, through Avicenna, many students and scholars have partaken in this “action”; that is, they have used their pens as a medium through which to shed light on different aspects of the Muslim World and discuss critical issues pertaining to Muslims worldwide. Considering that there is a plethora of misinformed pens and voices out there when it comes to Muslim affairs, Avicenna’s existence is a humble yet crucial one: it fills the need to allow individuals from various backgrounds and beliefs to express different perspectives regarding the Muslim world, at a free, respectful, and academic space.

Diversity is essential to the sustenance of the Journal. This can only be considered a humble attempt when one thinks of the extremely broad spectrum of Muslim cultures, lifestyles and perspectives all around the globe; yet, we still tried to emphasize and appreciate a diversity of perspectives in our Winter 2015 issue. For instance, Alina Utrata, in her article, offers an intriguing historical angle on how Ayatollah Khomeini’s ideas regarding the basis of the Islamic Republic of Iran were in fact influenced by Western philosopher Plato’s Republic. On another note, Maha Elgenaidi elaborates on the role of American Muslim groups in contributing to Neo- Orientalism whereas Christina Schiciano delves into the roots of the contemporary Arab stereotype in Hollywood movies. You can also find in our Journal an interview with Professor Alexander Key by Rifath Rashid where Key talks about “The Ethics

4 avicenna of Jihad”, a quite popular class he is currently teaching at Stanford University.

In the second issue of our fifth volume, we also tried to include a diversity of artistic perspectives in addition to our academic prose pieces. The issue features a spoken word piece by Farhan Kathawala where he addresses some of the struggles of growing up Muslim in America, and a creative nonfiction piece by Marium Abdur Rahman where she gives us a heartwarming account of a Pakistani-American girl’s adventure during the Pakistan Cricket Regionals. The issue also includes several wonderful photographs taken in Afghanistan and Bangladesh by Parwana Fayyaz, and in Egypt and Turkey by Allison Mickel. In addition, a calligraphy portfolio by Motasim Zawawi can be found in the middle four pages where the artist challenges traditional Arabic calligraphy rules and brings in his unique and innovative touch.

I would like to thank every single member of my editorial team as well as each of our authors for all of their enthusiastic efforts to put this issue together. Before ending my editorial note, I would like to refer the following quote by Oğuz Atay, an acclaimed Turkish author whom I’ve always admired:

“I’m here, dear reader. Where are you, I wonder?”

As Avicenna Journal, we’re here; writing, discussing, and exploring matters pertaining to a mass of people constituting almost one fourth of the world population. And we know that you’re here, too; reading, discussing, exploring, and partaking in this meaningful action with us.

We hope that you stay here, dear reader, and we hope you find as much pleasure in reading our Journal as we did in putting it together.

Always here, Sevde Kaldiroglu ‘17 Editor-in-Chief

Sakhi Jan, Afghanistan (Photo by Parwana Fayyaz ‘15)

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 5 A Greek and a Persian: Plato’s Influence on Ayatollah Khomeini

Alina Utrata B.A. History ‘17, Stanford University

In 1970, a group of seminary students Islamic State . . . is Plato adapted to published a series of lectures on the theory Is l am .” 3 These observations are exactly of Islamic government entitled Velayat e right. Plato and Khomeini both advocate faqih or The Guardianship of the Islamic for a state ruled by guardians based on Jurist. The author of these lectures was the belief that humans will succumb Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini—the cleric to materialism and corruption without who, only ten years later, would establish proper guidance. Khomeini, however, the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Velayat e justifies and alters some aspects of Plato’s faqih, Khomeini argued that while waiting Republic with Islamic traditions in an for the return of the Madhi, the twelfth attempt to reconcile the two. successor to the Prophet, a religious leader should be appointed caretaker Khomeini had certainly read Plato. of the state, “like the appointment of a Time Magazine published an article on guardian for a minor.”1 The perfect state, Khomeini in 1979 claiming that, in his Khomeini preached, should be ruled by youth, Khomeini was “fascinated with an Islamic jurist. This dream was realized Aristotle and Plato, whose Republic in Iran in 1979, after popular protests provided the model for Khomeini’s concept toppled the secular regime of the Shah and of the Islamic republic.”4 Khomeini’s Khomeini established an Islamic state. But former students Javad Bahonar and shockingly, for a revolutionary who came Madhi Ha’iri Yazdi apparently revealed to power riding the waves of anti-Western the influence of Plato on Khomeini’s rhetoric, Khomeini’s description of the thoughts in an interview with the Time perfect state is almost identical to Plato’s reporter. Khomeini referenced one of Republic. Plato’s books, Timeaus, in his own book Kashf al-asrar or The Unveiling of Secrets.5 Some scholars have noted in passing that Although Khomeini never confirmed the there is a resemblance between Khomeini exact nature of how he was influenced by and Plato’s ideas. In The Theology of Plato, it is clear that he had read the Greek Discontent, Hamid Dabashi briefly philosopher in some depth. mentioned that Khomeini’s conception of Islamic governance was essentially rule The strikingly similar perfect republics by a Platonic “philosopher king.”2 Beatrice that Khomeini and Plato described are Zelder remarked that “the answer to the philosophical context [of Khomeini’s] 3 Beatrice Zelder, “The Ayatollah Khomeini and His Con- cept of an Islamic Republic,” International Philosophical 1 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, “Velayat-e Faqeeh,”The Quarterly, Vol. 21, Issue 1, 1981. Institute for Compilation and Publication of Imam 4 “Iran: The Unknown Ayatullah Khomeini,” Time, July 16, Khomeini’s Works: 34. 1979. 2 Hamid Dabashi, “Theology of Discontent: The Ideological 5 Vanessa Martin, “Creating an Islamic State: Khomeini and Foundations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran,” New the Making of a New Iran,” I.B. Tarius Publishers, York University Press, 1993: 413. 2000: Bibliography.

6 avicenna based on many shared assumptions about Noble Messenger is the foremost example human nature and the role of the state. The of the just ruler”12 and that it is natural two men both claimed that without the his successors be the rulers. Rather than guidance of a proper government, people deriving legitimacy from the truth, the become corrupt. Plato dedicated an entire guardian would be bound by Quranic law. book in The Republic to bemoaning society Khomeini said that “Islamic government without adequate government, calling it is . . . constitutional . . . in the sense that an awful state where the “tyrannical man the rulers are subject to . . . conditions set . . . becomes drunken, lustful, passionate.”6 forth in the Noble Quran and the Sunnah Similarly, Khomeini argued that without of the Most Noble Messenger.”13 Both the proper authority “everybody would Plato and Khomeini stipulated guardians engage in oppressing and harming others must possess knowledge and the ability for the sake of his own pleasures and to dispense justice. Plato stated that the interests.”7 To combat humanity’s inherent guardian would need to possess “the love corruption, the two believed that the central of learning . . . and spirit and swiftness and tenant of a perfect state should be justice. strength.”14 Khomeini also named a few Plato asserted in his teachings that “the necessary qualities of a guardian, citing subject of our inquiry is [justice]”8; in the “knowledge of the law and justice” as the same vein, Khomeini frequently reminded most critical. Khomeini, however, coated his readers that the Prophet Mohammad this qualification with the rhetoric of “had in mind a vast community that would Islam. He argued that “these are precisely undertake the establishment of justice.”9 the subjects that the faqih has studied,”15 Plato and Khomeini concurred: “cities so therefore it was natural that an Islamic will never have rest from their evils [of jurist would be the best guardian for the corruption]”10 until the state was based on state. justice and ruled by a guardian. Plato and Khomeini each dictated That perfect guardian, according to Plato, stringent conditions for how guardians must be a philosopher. A philosopher, ought to conduct themselves. Plato he said, is a “true lover of learning” and asserted: “our guardians [ought not] to therefore would “trace the outline of a be given to laughter” and “drunkenness constitution”11 limited by nothing but and softness and indolence are utterly truth. The ruler would determine laws unbecoming of the character of our and justice, motivated by what would guardians.”16 Khomeini reiterated much be best for the city. While Khomeini’s of the same, saying that “the fuqaha are guardian resembles Plato’s in most of the trustees of the prophets, as long as his characteristics, Khomeini slightly they do not concern themselves with the altered Plato’s ideas to comport with illicit desires, pleasures, and wealth of Islam. Khomeini took the idea of rule by a the world.”17 Guardians, they said, should guardian, but replaced “philosopher” with not be “materialistic creatures trying “Islamic jurist.” He argued that “the Most to accumulate worldly wealth.”18 Plato

12 Khomeini, 53. 6 Plato, “The Republic,” Dover Publications, 2000. 13 Khomeini, 29. 7 Khomeini, “Velayat-e Faqeeh,” 26. 14 Plato, 47. 8 Plato, “The Republic,” 40. 15 Khomeini, 85. 9 Khomeini, 75. 16 Plato, 70. 10 Plato, 141. 17 Khomeini, 44. 11 Plato, 166. 18 Khomeini, 64.

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 7 believed that to achieve immunity from the as Plato did, but justified it with Islamic corruption of material pleasures guardians traditions. should not be able to “have any property of [their] own.”19 Instead, the guardians Protecting the citizens from corrupting must rely on the citizens to support them. influences was always at the foremost of In Shia Islam, ulema are allowed to own Plato’s and Khomeini’s minds. They both property—however, they are supposed to believed that the guardian could mislead use this money for charity and not live the public for the sake of protecting the ostentatiously. Khomeini himself lived public. To this end, Plato believed that a very simple life, and argued that those the guardians of the state should “have “who have sold their religion for worldly the privilege of lying . . . for the public gain, must be divested of their garb and good.”23 Guardians know better than the expelled from the religious institution.”20 common man, and therefore are better The two thinkers were clearly concerned able to discern what they should and with corruption, and argued that should not know. Indeed, Plato stated that guardians should not concern themselves “the first thing [to do in our state] will be with material pleasures in order to remain to establish a censorship of the writers uncorrupted. of fiction.”24 Plato was worried about the effect that the prevalence of incorrect Khomeini and Plato shared the belief that ideas will have on the youth and their it is the role of the guardians to interfere conception of the world. Therefore, they in the lives of their subjects in order to must “put an end to such tales, lest they protect them from corruption. Plato spent enter laxity of morals among the young.”25 an extensive amount of time discussing Khomeini certainly took Plato’s advice various social aspects of the perfect state, about the censorship of books. Censorship including the “sort of community of on books has been a de facto practice women and children” and how to “manage in Iran since the Iran-Iraq War and was the period between birth and education.”21 formalized in the 1988 Supreme Council He stipulated breeding ceremonies, of Cultural Revolution Resolution “The communal wives and children and various Objectives and Policies and Conditions of other social controls. Khomeini, on the Publishing Books.” There is today in Iran other hand, justified his guardian’s ability an extensive mechanism for publication to interfere in its citizen’s lives with Islam. censorship in Iran.26 Khomeini was He said that the Qur’an is comprehensive clearly worried, as Plato was, about the in its rulings on proper behavior in life, corruption of society if the masses were to from “duties . . . while the infant is being read certain books. He again used Islam suckled . . . how the child should be reared, as a justification for Plato’s point on the and how the husband and wife should necessity of censorship: the Constitution relate to each other and their children.”22 of the Islamic Republic of Iran recognizes Since the Qur’an had rulings on all aspects freedom of expression “except when it is of life, the guardian was therefore justified detrimental to the fundamental principles to interfere in all aspects of life. Khomeini argued for the same right of interference 23 Plato, 60. 24 Plato, 49. 19 Plato, 88. 25 Plato, 63. 20 Khomeini, 85. 26 Arash Hejazi, “You Don’t Deserve to be Published: Book 21 Plato, 117. Censorship in Iran,”Journal of the World Publishing 22 Khomeini, 20. Community, Vol. 22, Issue 1, 2011.

8 avicenna of Islam or the rights of the public.”27 Plato and Khomeini diverge: the scope of While Plato said books that engender lax the perfect state. morals ought to be banned, Khomeini said that books against the principles of Islam It is clear from a comparison of the two ought to be banned. texts that Plato had an influence on Khomeini’s conception of a perfect state. Despite the authoritarian and heavy- Both men believed that human beings are handed policies they advocated, both men easily corruptible and that it is necessary to argued that these laws were not malicious establish rule by guardians to keep humans in intent. Khomeini and Plato believed on the right path. They both emphasize that it was important the guardians love justice and the good of the whole their city or state. “A man,” Plato said, community as the basis of government. “will be most likely to care about that Their guardians are learned and wise, which he loves.”28 Therefore, Plato posited, self-sacrificing and compassionate, and a guardian will be a better guardian if he immune to the corruptions of material loves his city. Khomeini, too, stated the pleasures. These guardians have a right to two most important qualities in a believer interfere in all aspects of the lives of their is that they “should display the utmost subjects in order to protect them from love and solicitude whenever they are corrupting influences. With the distinct called for.”29 Both of them acknowledged exception of universalism, almost all the need to toe the line between executing other aspects of the perfect state pictured justice and compassion. by Khomeini and Plato exist in parallel. Khomeini took Plato’s ideas and replaced Throughout Velayat e faqih, Khomeini them or argued for them with Islamic took Plato’s ideas and tweaked them to suit traditions—an Islamic jurist, instead of a his own purposes. While Khomeini may philosopher; religious schools, instead of have used Islam and its traditions to justify scientific education. an Islamic state, Khomeini’s state looks very similar to Plato’s Republic. Indeed, the What we can glean from this insight is only major way Khomeini diverted from that Iran has not been taken over by “mad Plato was his belief in the universalism mullahs” of Islamic fundamentalism. of an Islamic state. Khomeini believed While the Islamic Republic of Iran claims that “the universal movement of all alert to reject the West, its founder and its Muslims can establish Islamic government foundation were influenced by one of the in place of tyrannical regimes.”30 This type West’s most renowned political thinkers. of state is universal: not confined to just Although many assume that religious one country. Plato, on the other hand, states must be inherently dictatorial, the believed that “one is enough.” If there is basic structure of the Islamic Republic of “one man who has a city obedient to his Iran was not solely influenced by Islamic or will,”31 Plato thought that alone will be the religious thought, but political philosophy. perfect state. This is the only major way It was Plato, perhaps just as much as the Quran, which inspired the structure of the 27 Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Chapter 3, Islamic Republic. The Greeks have had a Article 24. hand in forming the state the Persians are 28 Plato, 84. 29 Khomeini, 54. living in today. a 30 Khomeini, 66. 31 Plato, 166.

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 9 American Muslim Groups as “Native Informants” of Neo-Orientalism: Essentialism, Reproduction, and Intellectual Manipulation

Maha Elgenaidi M.A. Religious Studies ‘14, Stanford University CEO and Chairman, Islamic Networks Group (ING)*

Abstract The paper seeks to show how U.S. Muslim organizations are inadvertently contributing to a new form of Orientalism by reproducing old tropes in their efforts to combat it. The paper will begin by analyzing the discourse underlying two typical events experienced by American Muslims to draw out the nature of Islamophobia in narrative frames and images. It will then trace the roots of Islamophobia to Orientalism and show how American Muslim groups, as “native informants,” unwittingly contribute to neo-Orientalism through static images of Islam, reproduction, or intellectual manipulation, and conclude with implications of this argument for American Muslim representations of Islam. Introduction lies to Kafirs (those who don’t submit to Negative images of Islam in America’s sharia law), Constitution-free zones, and media and culture continue to pervade total world dominion.”1 popular thinking, leading not only to bias and discrimination but also, in the worst This lays bare the source of the agitation cases, to hate crimes. This paper seeks against Muslims: a view of Islam as a to analyze the discourse that underlies world-wide, monolithic, evil entity to these images, starting from statements which all Muslims living anywhere must that emerged in controversies over the subscribe. A Republican Congressional construction of Muslim spaces. candidate in the area gave voice to precisely this view when she claimed that American The construction of a mosque in Muslims could not “find it in their hearts Murfreesboro, Tennessee, sparked massive to separate themselves from their evil, protest. One protester declared, “Everyone radical counterparts”2—ignoring the easily knows they [Muslims] are trying to kill accessible fact that American Muslims, like us.” Most telling was a statement made the great majority of their “counterparts” by plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the in other parts of the world, have long county for granting a permit to the mosque condemned terrorism and terrorists.3 that alleged that Islam “advocates sexual 1 “An uncivil action: Islam in Tennessee,” The Economist, abuse of children, beating and physical November 20, 2010. abuse of women, death edicts, honor 2 loc. Cit. 3 For Muslim condemnations of terrorism generally, see killings, killing of homosexuals, outright http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/ * Islamic Networks Group (ING) is a non-profit organization with affiliates around the country that counters prejudice and discrimination against American Muslims by teaching about their traditions and contributions in the context of America’s history.

10 avicenna The same view of Islam as a monolithic and its supposed antitype, setting up a “Other” emerged in the battle over the so- binary opposition between the two that called “Ground Zero mosque”—actually makes impossible an understanding of an interfaith center with Muslim prayer the variety of cultures that make up both rooms--in New York City. Typical of the realities. Just as there is no one “Islam,” attacks made against the center were there is also no one “America” or the “West.” statements by Raymond Ibrahim, a former It is this construction of an idealized Self associate director of the Middle East Forum and a demonized Other that is the root (a leading Islamophobic organization),4 misunderstanding of Islamophobia as it is claiming that mosques were not “Muslim of all other such constructions of bigotry. counterparts to Christian churches” but This Islamophobic vision of the Muslim rather “symbols of domination and centers world is nothing new; it is simply a rehash of radicalization.” Opponents claimed of long- standing Orientalist tropes about that Muslims wanted to erect a mosque the “East.” to celebrate their “victory” and “conquest” on 9/11.5 The barrage of opposition Orientalism succeeded to the point that polls showed Edward Said popularized the term a majority of Americans opposed to the “Orientalism” to denote a set of project, though recognizing that Muslims representations about “the Orient” had a constitutional right to build it.6 (meaning primarily the predominantly The conflation of Islam generally with Muslim Near East), depicting the region, “radicalism” and “terrorism” and the its people, and its culture (including its resulting view of Muslims as a threat religion) as uncivilized, violent, backward, to America were clearly driving this unenlightened, undemocratic, oppressive controversy. to women, and so forth,8 in contrast to the “modern” and “enlightened” West Not only do many Americans view Islam (meaning western Europe primarily). through this “essentializing” lens, seeing Orientalism thus served—and still does Muslims and their faith as a threat,7 serve in some quarters—as a foil against but they also see it as a contrast to what they which to define the “West” and “western understand or imagine about themselves values.” It reductively constructs its as Americans and to what they believe imagined “Orient” as a monolithic and America stands for. By this rhetorical ahistorical entity; resistance to change is construction, they essentialize both Islam one of the “Orient’s” salient characteristics. muslim_voices_against_extremism_a nd_terrorism_part_i_ Said defines Orientalism as a discourse fatwas/. For condemnations of ISIS, see https://www.ing. through which “European culture was org/community- statements/1336-global-condemnations- isis-isil able to manage—and even produce— 4 Center for American Progress, Fear, Inc. (http://www. the Orient politically, sociologically, scribd.com/doc/63489887/Fear-Inc-The- Roots-of- the-Islamophobia-Network-in-America), 41-44. militarily, ideologically, scientifically, 5 Raymond Ibrahim, “The Two Faces of the Ground Zero and imaginatively during the post- Mosque,” Middle East Forum, June 22, 2010. Enlightenment period.”9According to Said, 6 “Mosque-building and its discontents,” The Economist, August 19, 2010. it must therefore be understood within 7 Gallup/The Coexist Foundation, Religious Perceptions in the context of a relationship of power America: With an In-Depth Analysis of U.S. Attitudes Toward Muslims and Islam (http://www.clubma- drid.org/img/secciones/SSP_MWF_WorldReligion_Re- 8 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, 1994), 63. port_en- US_final.pdf), 10. 9 Said, Orientalism, 3.

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 11 and domination subordinating the Orient least four of them.12 A worldview founded to the Occident, wherein the Orient on a polarity between a “good” Self and an “submitted to being made oriental.” “evil” Other resonates with many who seek sense in a chaotic world. Underlying this understanding is the notion of knowledge developed by Michel The Islamophobic view of Islam and Foucault, who argued that “all claims to Muslims has several overarching themes knowledge involved an attempt to establish or tropes, the most salient being the a particular setof power relationships.”10 following: Islam promotes violence; Said held that Orientalism was born of an Islam subordinates women; Muslims imperialist project and served colonialist hate America and the West; Muslims are and neo-colonialist ends. intolerant of other religions; and American Muslims are “Islamists” isolated from David Ludden refined Said’s concept, the rest of America.13 These tropes are pointing out that while Orientalism precisely those of the “Orientalist” view of originated as an assertion of imperial the Muslim world.14 power, its wide acceptance made it available for use by diverse political Roots of Islamophobia in Orientalism and social forces, such as liberal elites In American mass media, the Orientalist (including some native elites) who have construction of Islam is still very much used it to promote their own programs of alive,but it now functions as the lens “modernization” and “liberalization,” as through which Muslims described will be shown below. variously as “extremists,” “fundamentalists,” or “radicals” are seen, functioning as a foil Islamophobia both to Americans generally and to certain The report by the Center for American thoroughly “Westernized” Muslims who Progress titled Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the would, say, abandon Shariah (commonly Islamophobia Network in America defined as Islamic law) in favor of the U.S. defines “Islamophobia” as “an exaggerated Constitution, as if the two were mutually fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam exclusive. Such Muslims are generally what and Muslims that is perpetuated by is meant by “moderates.” In other words, negative stereotypes resulting in bias, this discourse reproduces the Orientalist discrimination, and the marginalization binary opposition between “Islam” and and exclusion of Muslims from “the West” by letting a certain class of America’s social, political, and civic Muslim stand in as part of “the West.” life.”11 Islamophobia is thus rooted in the All other Muslims represent the negative essentializing characterization of Islam as Orientalist and Islamophobic tropes, a threatening Other, as noted above. Such a while the “moderates” represent what are characterization has political clout; to cite considered exclusively “Western” values but one example, “anti- Shariah” legislation, such as democracy, women’s equality, though clearly unconstitutional, has been freedom of religion and expression, etc.15 introduced in 23 states and passed in at 12 Fear, Inc., 38. 13 See Fear, Inc., especially 27-51. 10 Richard King, “Orientalism and the study of religions,” in 14 See Said, Orientalism, 63, referenced above. John Hinnells, ed., The Routledge Companion 15 Halil Ibrahim Yenigun, “Muslims and the Media after to the Study of Religion (London, 2007), 277. 9/11: A Muslim Discourse in the American 11 Fear, Inc, 9. Media?” The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences

12 avicenna Native Informants emerges particularly in apologetic I use the term “native informants” by accounts that present the “authentic” analogy with those members of colonized or “true” Islamic position on, say, society who furnished knowledge of their women, by marshalling Qur’anic quotes culture to the colonizers, thus aiding them supporting women’s equality or individual in the colonial enterprise and contributing instances of prominent Muslim women to the construction of Orientalism. I to demonstrate that “true ” Islam does contend that some typical American not oppress women. Such a presentation Muslim responses to the charges of can ultimately do no more than mirror Islamophobes participate— quite contrary an opposing presentation that marshals to the intention of those Muslims who Qur’anic and hadith quotes apparently present them--in analogous fashion to the opposing women’sequality or instances of construction of Islamophobia. oppression of women in Muslim-majority societies. American Muslims as Native Informants I refer to three types of defensive portrayals There are several interrelated problems of Islam: one that claims the authority to with this apologetic strategy. First, it define “true Islam,” thereby essentializing denies others the authority to define the faith; a second that reproduces Islam for themselves while claiming Orientalist narratives in its very effort to that authority for those who employ it refute them; and a third that manipulates (American Muslims). Second, it ignores Orientalist tropes to promote a western the reality that what is considered “true Islamic agenda, whose authors represent Islam” depends on the Muslims living it, themselves (whether explicitly or not) as who are influenced by a variety of factors or “reform- minded” Muslims” contrasted other than religion. Third, projecting a with and superior to “illiberal” or “Eastern” static, “idealized” image of Islam promotes Muslims. All of the aforementioned the idea that Muslim behavior should only attempts to combat negative stereotypes be determined by one’s religion and not about Muslims cede to Islamophobes the also by other cultural, social, and political power of determining the nature of the factors unrelated or only remotely related discourse. I will document this contention to religion. This is why, according to a below by elaborating on the three 2010 Gallup Poll, 81% of Americans view aforementioned modes of discourse about Islam as misogynistic,16 where patriarchal Islam that American Muslims should attitudes and practices in Muslim- majority avoid. regions are attributed in the public mind solely to Islam. An honest and credible The first is what is commonly termed presentation on this question must delve “essentialism.” To essentialize a social into the experience of Muslims as they live group is to attribute to it a set of fixed and out their faith in different times, places, unalterable characteristics that supposedly and cultures, revealing a complex reality define it; usually these are set in binary that resists easy categorization but also opposition to the (likewise) fixed and points to Islam’s potential for adaptation unalterable characteristics assigned to a to changing circumstances. Only such an contrasting group. Such essentialization account can show how Muslims, building

21:3 (2004): 46. 16 Gallup, Religious Perceptions, 10.

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 13 on liberating elements present in their whether Muslims might be better served by tradition, can move, and (in some places) teaching about the background of terrorist are moving beyond the patriarchy that or extremist actions instead of rushing has characterized most of their history (as to issue repeated—and repetitious— it has the history of every other religious condemnations. tradition) and thus provide a credible answer to the constantly asked questions Finally, I question whether it is really about Muslim attitudes toward women. helpful, or even entirely honest, to claim And so too with other issues. that the ideology of ISIS (for example) is “anti-Islamic,” thus removing ISIS from Another problematic mode of defensive Islam altogether. Certainly the ideas and Muslim discourse, closely related to the actions of ISIS are as far removed as can “essentializing” discourse, presents Islam be imagined from what most Muslims in a way that reproduces, and therefore consider a proper understanding of Islam; reinforces, the structure of Islamophobic but simply trying to write ISIS and similar discourse. Such discourses frequently outfits out of Islam entirely implies that appear following atrocities committed Muslims recognize only an “idealized” by groups or individuals identifying as version of Islam as the “true” Islam, in Muslim; virtually every such incident is other words, that Muslims “essentialize” followed by a spate of statements from Islam as the Islamophobes do, only with Muslims disassociating the religion a “positive” as opposed to a “negative” from such actions and quoting Qur’anic polarity. Uncomfortable though it may be, verses and other authoritative teachings Muslims would do better to acknowledge condemning them. Often the perpetrators ISIS or its followers as an extremist form of are declared not to be “true” Muslims or “lived Islam”— calling for condemnation, even Muslim at all. to be sure, but also for understanding it in its historical and political context, These responses are problematic. First, for only by such understanding can we hearing from Muslims every time violence deconstruct (and therefore combat) the is committed in the name of Islam binds appeal it appears to have for a portion “Islam” and “violence” together, exactly as of the Muslim population in the region. the Islamophobes contend, and reinforces Here too, a presentation of “lived Islam” the terrorist lens or trope through which in history and in the present is the only many Americans see Muslims and Islam. convincing way to respond to the question Second, the constant repetition of such of Islam and violence. denunciations can be taken to imply that if Muslims do not denounce an act A third type of questionable discourse claimed to be committed in the name of deployed defensively by Muslims asserts Islam, then they must approve it. This that American Muslims or “Western” reinforces the perception that causes many Muslims generally must take the lead Americans to claim that Muslims are not in “reforming” Islam (particularly the condemning terrorism vigorously enough. Islam found elsewhere, in North Africa, Ironically enough, the very frequency of the Middle East, and South Asia—i.e., such condemnations may play a role in the “East”), infusing into it (or restoring prompting this complaint. One wonders to it) the values of individual liberty

14 avicenna and civil rights that have been largely impact both U.S. foreign policy and the suppressed by authoritarian regimes and quality of life for American Muslims, as authoritarian religious institutions in the continuing anti-Muslim sentiment and Muslim- majority regions. This reproduces hate crimes in this country attest. what Halil Ibrahim Yenigun describes as the “modernist” trope that prescribes The Islamophobic establishment produces that all societies (especially those of these narratives for its own political the “East”) must go through exactly the purposes. Ironically, however, as I have sort of modernization that the “West” shown, American Muslim organizations, went through.17 This discourse (in line in their attempts to respond, often with Orientalism generally) minimizes reinforce these narratives by unwittingly or dismisses the agency of those in the reproducing their basic structure; they East—a thesis that has been dramatically participate in the very discourse they refuted by the Arab Spring, despite all the are seeking to dismantle. As when one reversals it has suffered. It also ignores the responds to a loaded question, it is fact that Muslim-majority societies are necessary to deconstruct the assumptions modernizing, but not necessarily along behind a discourse in order to respond to the same lines as the West; for instance, it effectively. a 2013 Pew polls showed majorities in most Muslim-majority regions (except This paper aims to move American Southern-Eastern Europe and Central Muslims (myself included) away from Asia) favoring making Shariah the basis of an apologetic mode that rests on an national law.18 essentialized representation of the religion to a rounded representation of Islam as it is American Muslims will rightly want to actually lived out by diverse communities support the struggle for freedom and in very diverse ways, including those that human rights in Muslim regions but “Western” Muslims may find problematic this Orientalist approach of pitting the or even embarrassing. Only such a East against the West is hardly likely to presentation can put forth in an honest and commend them to their co-religionists convincing fashion the richness of Islam as there, and it supplies fuel for the it has been and is being constructed and Islamophobic narratives here. Again, lived in the multitude of communities that American Muslims are unwittingly identify with it. I am not saying that we and unintentionally acting as “native should abandon our values and indulge in informants” for a new Orientalism that an indiscriminate relativism, only that we may be working against them. cannot honestly essentialize our version of Islam as the only “true” Islam. Conclusion The Orientalist and IslamophobicThe first step towards correcting this narratives are of far more than academic situation is to recognize it; that has been interest; they have political power. They the task of this paper. How to fully change it must be the subject of another paper. a 17 Yenigun, “Muslims,” 46. 18 Pew Research Center, The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society (http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/04/worlds-muslims- religion-politics-society-full- report.pdf), 46.

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 15 Avicenna by Motasim Zawawi ‘18

16 avicenna Redefining Calligraphy by Motasim zawawi Stanford university ‘18

My pieces are a combination of modern Arabic calligraphy and abstract art. They all tend to go beyond traditional Arabic calligraphy rules in order to add vitality and energy to the words they represent. Before writing new words on canvases, I focus on the design, and the aesthetic element of the word. I tend to create different designs of a single word in order to find the one that is the most aesthetically pleasing. Using a broom and wall paint brushes to draw the words adds more texture to the line, unlike normal calligraphy pens, which often create a smooth line. Texture adds energy to the word. I also incorporate splashes with different colors in the design to achieve the same goal texture achieves.

First letter of the Arabic alphabet (Alif) the stanford journal on muslim affairs 17 Salam (Peace) rotated right

18 avicenna Ain (Eye) the stanford journal on muslim affairs 19 Khair (Good) by Motasim Zawawi ‘18 20 avicenna On “Ethics of Jihad” with Professor Alexander Key

Rifath Rashid B.S. Human Biology ‘18, Stanford University

Alexander Key is an Assistant Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He holds a B.A and M.A from University of St. Andrews and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is currently teaching a class called “Ethics of Jihad”, which aims to discuss the different ways that people view and use the word “jihad”.

Rifath Rashid: What is your definition of different definition of jihad, and that’s the the word jihad? argument that matters.

Prof. Alexander Key: What I’m doing in Rashid: So, you’re not saying that there’s any the course “Ethics of Jihad” is working right definition, but that you’re struggling through different answers to that exact to find a definition? same question. I think that one of the things that I’m trying to teach is whichever Key: I think that if you’re Muslim, then way you answer that question, you are you are in a position to say that you think taking part in a discourse that lots and lots there is one definition, and all I’m saying is of other people have been taking part in that if you look at history, and if you even for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds look at the present day, and you look at the of years in lots of different languages. So vast diversity of answers to the questions, you have a number of different strategies that’s interesting. That’s how you have to within. Do you go straight to the Quran? go about answering the question, “What is Do you look at the verses that mention jihad?” jihad? […] That’s what Muslim scholars have been doing for centuries. And Rashid: Why did you decide to teach this then you can bring in lots and lots of class, and what do you hope your students other stuff. Stuff you believe about God. will leave with? Stuff you believe about hadith. Stuff you believe about history. And then you come Key: I decided to teach this class because I up with a position from where you’re am a scholar of Medieval Islamic Theory, standing. So, if you’re Aminda Wadud, and I think that if you end up in a job where a Muslim-American feminist, you come you’re a professor that studies Islamic texts up with a definition of jihad that is about and cultures and you can read Arabic, it’s Islam and feminism that works for a incumbent on you to engage with things Muslim in America who lives in Oakland. that are happening in the real world in the And if you’re ISIS, you come up with a 21st century. I think that courses like this

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 21 are a way that people like me can give Key: I think, to a massive extent. However, students the tools to break down those easy I think there’s a risk in saying that the media equations [such as:] “I look at this verse is doing this to people in the sense that in the Quran, [which] Muslims believe there is some innocent neutral populace of in, [and] the verse talks about fighting. people and then the media has an agenda Therefore Islam is violent, and therefore and does stuff to them. I think it is more we have to combat it, fight against it, and productive to say that people tend to get lock up Muslims.” If you break down that into groups and then we tend to look from first “is”, it’s got to be good for American inside our group out at some other groups society. and say stuff about them, and this is just the way communities tend to form. Also, Rashid: For the majority of students who what we do in our groups is that we have take this class, what perception do they media that reflect the kind of discourses begin the class with, and what perception that we’re having. So, if you’re in the do they complete it with? Middle East, which is just one place Islam happens to exist, the media tend to reflect Key: I think on the one hand, Islam in the kinds of feelings that that community America at the moment occupies this has about being under attack by Western space where everybody knows it, and military actions, and vice versa. I think almost everyone who is going to turn up really the central dynamic is the “us and to a class like this knows they don’t know them” dynamic. anything [about it], so people are very conscious of their ignorance. And that Rashid: There’s been an extensive campaign comes across in questions like “what does to raise awareness about the fact that jihad jihad even mean?” or “what is the Quran?” can have so many different meanings. This or “where is the Quran from?” or “how can has lead to people discussing what their the Quran say one thing and Muslims say individual struggles are with the hashtag another?” I don’t have much experience #myjihad, and some of these struggles take with Stanford undergrads behaving like on a less serious tone. So is it possible for people do outside the academy. They don’t the word “jihad” to operate as having a have some super confident account of what simple meaning for the everyday person jihad is and [they’re not] very aggressive and having a more radical meaning for about it. Stanford undergrads tend to have groups like ISIS? a lot more of an “I don’t know, please tell me” sort of attitude. Key: On the one hand, people have made the argument that when you look back at Rashid: Many sources of broadcasting the Quran or the hadith, it’s a word that’s media will easily label certain situations as used when you want to change something jihad without really thinking about the fact for the better. [...] It’s a discourse that you that the word can have so many different call upon when you want to change stuff meanings. How do you think that the media for the better. So, it makes total sense. If and popular culture shape the way the you think of English words like “game,” average American thinks about the word you know “game” can mean almost “jihad”? anything, like rock, papers, scissors or the Super Bowl final or war games as military

22 avicenna training. If you were an alien, you would Rashid: Do you have anything else you look at that and think that this stuff is would like to add? totally different, and yet we manage in English to use the word “game” and Key: The thing that this course keeps everyone understands what we mean when teaching me is that stuff is constantly we say that these three things are games. happening outside the Stanford bubble Language does kind of work like that. Yet, that is relevant to this course. I taught it the question is who gets to say what a word last year, and we talked about lots of things means. Amina Wadud, a Muslim feminist, like Amina Wadud, Muslim feminism, wrote a book called, Inside the Gender and Al-Qaeda. I mean, I was planning the Jihad where she talks about a personal course over the summer, and ISIS was one struggle and changing stuff for the better thing, and then ISIS started executing all and calling it jihad. Now she says, “to these hostages, and then ISIS became a be honest, jihad is not really a word that different thing. ISIS burned a Jordanian I would call on if I wrote the book now, pilot in week three of the quarter, so stuff because it is a word that is so problematic is changing. Three Muslim students were and charged.” So that’s people outside the killed at UNC, and the federal government discourse altering the word that people opened a hate crime investigation, and inside the discourse want to use. That’s nobody actually knows what happened. problematic. I mean, who should have But still, this is relevant to the course, and control over what this word means? relevant to the idea that Islam is something, and from the outside I am trying to give people the tools to problematize. a

Swirling (Photo by Allison Mickel, PhD ‘16)

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 23 How to Grow Up Muslim in America Spoken Word Farhan Kathawala B.S. Computer Science ‘17, Stanford University

1 I asked him why he let everyone call him When your kindergarten teacher offers that. you root beer He said, “It just sounds nicer.” at the end-of-year class party tell her you don’t drink and that that’s 5 haraam. Write your name in Arabic everywhere. At least this way, 2 no one will read it and mispronounce it. Learn to respond to a thousand and one permutations of 6 your name. Have at least 3 teachers decide Get used to name-calling. to make a “nickname” The first time someone calls you “Hajji” for you. They won’t respond well it does not sound like an insult. when you decide to do the same for them. But the laughter afterwards comes from all 3 directions and is made of barbed wire. Go to the mosque every weekend. Decide to stop speaking at school Make duwa like you talk to lest you cut your tongue and your great-grandmother, all smiles, forget how to say anything at all. no words. Look up at the sky, 7 on the car ride home, Listen to the principal’s speech before and see a God up there. Thanksgiving. He will thank “Our Lord and Savior”. 4 This is not the last time you will hear the Watch all your friends’ names slowly word “ours” change over time. and think it means “theirs”. See, I knew a boy named Usama. He smiled like his mouth was full of paper 8 airplanes, Read the Qur’an cover to cover for the and he loved his mother, his father, and first time. DragonBall Z. Ask your mother why she doesn’t wear a Around the 5th grade, people started hijab. picking on him. Watch her eyes like a movie reel Started calling him an A-Rab piece of shit. rewinding back Around the 6th grade, they just called all the times she’s had to have men tell her him Sam. how to look,

24 avicenna how to dress, how to cook. Think that 12 you are just Start causing trouble in school asking a simple question. Think you are after you punch the 8th person in your not old enough class to understand your mistakes. Know that to call you a terrorist. everyone Start going to school with your fists does not look in the mirror and see a balled up in your sleeves like boxing God in there. gloves and an engine of rageful blood in your 9 chest. Visit your grandparents’ home. Stop going to the mosque. Ask your father why half of the family Stop waking up in the mornings. goes to one Stop looking at yourself in the mirror. mosque and the other half goes to the You feel that even if God were real, other one. these days he would have trouble He will say they are still arguing over believing in you. what God’s men meant when they wrote his words down. 13 In the Qur’an there is a verse which says 10 Your enemies will never stop fighting you Stop watching the news. until they can pull you away from your You are sick of seeing bombs religion. and planes next to names like those When you grow up Muslim in America, of your uncle, your cousins, your father. it’s like being born behind enemy lines. You don’t know what the war is about, 11 and you try so hard not to fight. Watch your parents stop going to the But you just end up a casualty mosque. of the place you always called home. a Your mom cooks instead as if there’s any difference. And your father just sleeps in his lab coat like he’d rather work in his dreams where no one asks him what he believes in. One day you go alone. The imam asks you where your parents are. Tell him they are both sick and hold out your palms as if you don’t know what to do with them. But he is not stupid and he knows what you are trying to say and he says “Inshallah, what will be will be.”

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 25 Sheikh to Suicide Bomber: Understanding The Roots of The Contemporary Arab Stereotype in Hollywood

Christina Schiciano B.A. Political Science, Minor in Arabic ‘17; Stanford University

Part I: Contemporary Violent Arab culture and Islamic religious practices Representations of Arabs and terrorism. This is nothing new. But this movie is different. This movie purports to be “People do not understand—the word ‘Arab’ a socially responsible, serious intervention is not synonymous with the word ‘terrorist.’ […] about how American society responds Islam is a religion of peace.” to a threat.2

So proclaims a disembodied voice in the Although portions of the film’s script movie The Siege (1998)1, a Hollywood appear to paint Arab-Americans and blockbuster that follows a group of Muslims in a positive light, much of the FBI agents attempting to track down a cinematic language of the film, in fact, does terrorist cell hiding in an Arab-American the exact opposite, essentially equating community in Brooklyn, eventually Arabs and Muslims with terrorism and leading to the detainment of all “Arab- violence. Director Edward Zwick begins speaking” young men in the city. Lines the movie with clips of real news coverage such as this were meant to portray the film of terrorist attacks on American embassies, as sympathetic toward the Arab-American interspersed with clips created for the community, as a film warning of the dangers film discussing a “radical fundamentalist and cruelty of discrimination against a cleric” planning further attacks. The film minority group. Despite this purported also includes numerous shots of Muslims intention, however, many believed that the praying in their homes and in mosques film promoted a demonized, violent image to foreboding music in the background, of Arab-Americans. Hussein Ibish, media preceding acts of extreme violence carried director of the American-Arab Anti- out by the fictitious terrorist organization. Discrimination Committee, released the With this juxtaposition, the film effectively following statement in regard to the film carries out this linking of Arab culture upon its release: with terrorism. Furthermore, one of the only humanized, sympathetic Palestinian This movie participates fully in the linking of characters in the film ultimately reveals 2 Sharon Waxman, “Arab Americans Protest Film’s Stereo- 1 The Siege. 20th Century Fox, 1998. Film. types,” Washington Post 8 Nov. 1998.

26 avicenna himself to be a part of the terrorist cell — Everyone in Yemen is complicit in the responsible for the attacks, and attempts anti-American violence. Witnesses lie. The to detonate a bomb strapped to his body. police lie. Doctors lie. Everyone in Yemen As a writer for Complex Magazine states, lies. Meanwhile, the streets are literally “The Siege’s real message is that the strewn with cassette tapes calling, again Middle Easterners who you least expect of without any apparent reason, for “all good wanting to kill you definitely have a belt of Muslims” to kill any and all Americans explosives in their wardrobe.”3 they can find. Yemen, we are assured, is a “breeding ground” for terrorists.6 Though The Siege is a more blatant, conspicuous example of violent, villainous Countless other films have followed in the representation of Arabs in Hollywood, footsteps of Rules of Engagement, though it is but one instance of the pervasive some did not draw nearly the degree contemporary habit of perpetuating of criticism that Rules of Engagement negative stereotypes about these minority received. Air Marshal (2003), Black Hawk groups in film, particularly in action- Down (2002), The Condemned (2007), adventure dramas and thrillers. The Final Destination 3 (2006), Home of the usage of contemporary, in this case, refers Brave (2006), The Marine (2006), and to the 1990s and beyond. According Rendition (2007), among many others, to Jack Shaheen, Rules of Engagement all portray Arabs as dangerous, anti- (2000) “encourages viewers to hate Arab American villains. Muslims.”4 The film, which was number one during its opening weekend and Jack Shaheen, who has written four books grossed over $15 million, had audiences and numerous articles detailing the subject cheering as American Marines gunned of Arab and Arab-American stereotypes in down Yemeni men, women and children film, wrote in his copious reviews of post- protesting outside of an embassy in the 9/11 films that “[he] found that 22 movies capital of Sana’a.5 Just as with The Siege, (1 in 4) that otherwise have nothing the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination whatsoever to do with Arabs or the Middle Committee issued a press release East contain gratuitous slurs and scenes condemning the movie, listing the that demean Arabs. Arab villains do organization’s many (and valid) grievances dastardly things in 37 films (most gunning with the film’s portrayal of the Yemeni down or blowing up innocent people).”7 people, including but not limited to: Modern cinema clearly perpetuates an — The portrayal of Yemeni society as an image of Arabs as violent savages, and it anti-American mob just waiting to erupt at might seem logical to simply condemn any second. The images of Arabs in the film current news media and images of Arab are solely stereotypical - veiled women, men and Muslim terrorists that they display in headscarves and all shouting fanatical, as the cause for the paralleled negative/ angry slogans and firing automatic weapons violent representation of Arabs and at a peaceful US embassy. Muslims in Hollywood. A contemporary 3 “The 50 Most Racist Movies: The Siege,” Complex Maga- zine 9 May 2012: n. pag. Web. 1 June 2014. 6 Arab Americans Denounce Paramount’s Racist Film 4 Jack Shaheen, Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after “Rules of Engagement.” N.p.: n.p., 11 Apr. 2000. 9/11, (Northhampton: Olive Branch, 2008) 404. 7 Jack Shaheen, Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 5 Ibid 15. 9/11, (Northhampton: Olive Branch, 2008).

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 27 problem, after all, requires a contemporary Part II: Violent Arabs of Hollywood’s Past cause, and it is true that Hollywood acts (Ali-Baba Bound and Beyond) as a mirror, producing films that reflect the collective feelings and fears of the The image of the violent Arab can be traced American public. Shaheen notes that back to the inception of Hollywood itself. “news reports selectively and relentlessly The book Reel Bad Arabs by Jack Shaheen focus on a minority of a minority of Arabs, offers brief evaluation of over 900 films the radical fringe. The seemingly indelible produced in Hollywood between 1896 Arab-as-villain image wrongly conveys the and 2001 that include any representation message that the vast majority of the 265 of Arabs or Arab-Americans. Sharing his million peace-loving Arabs are ‘bad guys.’”8 conclusions from his extensive research, Shaheen points to two separate events in Shaheen states that Hollywood has been the 1990s – the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait “tutoring movie audiences by repeating (leading to the Gulf War) and the bombing over and over, in film after film, insidious of the World Trade Center in New York images of the Arab people.”10 He argues: City – as critical to creating a “misguided mindset, leading some Americans to I am not saying an Arab should never be believe all Arabs are terrorists and that portrayed as the villain. What I am saying Arabs do not value human life as much as is that almost all Hollywood depictions of we [Americans] do.”9 Thus, these images of Arabs are bad ones. This is a grave injustice. violent Arabs and Muslims seen in modern Repetitious and negative images of the reel American cinema would appear to be Arab literally sustain adverse portraits simply the reflection of the way in which across generations. The fact is that for more American society has been exposed to than a century of producers have tarred an these minority groups through the lens of entire group of people with the same sinister new media. brush.11

Despite this intuition, however, the violent Although more recent literature may stereotype of Arabs in Hollywood is not focus on the negative imagery relating simply born of post-Gulf War or post-9/11 to terrorism and violence that has so anxiety. The violent Arab of Hollywood often been the principal representation of has existed since the beginning of the Arabs in Hollywood films post-9/11, it is cinematic institution itself. Furthermore, clear that violent representation of Arabs previous representations of Arabs who in Hollywood has been a pervasive issue were not as violent or as ostensibly “evil” as since the creation of film as a medium. their modern-day counterparts effectively “Beginning with Imar the Servitor (1914), laid a foundation of equating the Arab up to and through The Mummy Returns with the idea of the ‘other.’ By so radically (2001),” states Shaheen, “a synergy of exoticizing the Arab since the beginning, images equates Arabs from Syria to the Hollywood helped to facilitate and ease the Sudan with quintessential evil.”12 Films transition of the screen Arab from simply a throughout the 20th century, from the mysterious foreigner to a dangerous, anti- 1910s up to the 1980s, definitively followed American terrorist. 10 Jack Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, (New York: Olive Branch, 2001) 1. 8 Ibid 28. 11 Ibid 1. 9 Ibid 29. 12 Ibid 14.

28 avicenna the pattern of painting Arabs as dangerous ram, slamming his head repeatedly into villains. the fort gate in an attempt to open it. The Arab antagonist is portrayed as violent and One particularly blatant example of this evil, willing to hurt even his own allies to villainous imagery can be found in the cause maximum destruction. Reinforcing Looney Tunes short film Ali-Baba Bound this image, another one of Ali Baba’s (1940), in which Porky Pig must protect a henchmen waits on a bench with what desert fort from being overrun by the evil appears to be a bomb strapped to his head. “Ali-Baba.”13 The film begins by reinforcing A sign next to him reads, “This bench less overtly negative stereotypes about reserved for suicide squad.” Arabs and the Middle East in general, with desert images of rolling sand dunes and Though the films are separated from one palm trees and a Vegas-like “Desert Oasis,” another by over half of a century, the complete with a Rent-A-Camel station. significant similarities betweenThe Siege and Ali-Baba Bound remain. The screen Porky Pig travels to the Desert Fort via “Arab” of the 1940s is nearly identical to the a pint-sized baby camel, and the music screen “Arab” of the 1990s—bloodthirsty, grows louder and more sinister as the evil, and willing to kill himself for the camera pans away from Porky Pig to reveal cause. Ali Baba hiding behind a sand dune, with a caption underneath reading, “Ali Baba: Ali-Baba Bound is an overtly discriminatory The Mad Dog of the Desert.” Ali Baba film against Arabs; however, like The Siege, sports a thin moustache, a bulbous nose, it is only one of many films which portray and an evil grin as he watches Porky Pig Arabs as murderous barbarians. Without through a makeshift pair of binoculars doubt, the issue of Arabs being painted as formed from two beer bottles. violent savages in Hollywood is not simply due to the way Arabs were represented in the news beginning in the 1990s, but rather a continuation of a long-established American cinematic custom.

Part III: Establishment of the Cinematic Arab as the “Cultural Other”

It is not just the overtly negative images of Arabs of the past (i.e. violent religious fanatics, terrorists) that allow for the Screenshot of Ali-Baba in Ali-Baba Bound (1940) recent eruption of Arabs used in films as Ali Baba, after seeing Porky Pig alone and anti-American threats. Even less overtly vulnerable inside the Desert Fort, calls his negative stereotypes of Arabs prevalent minions, whose heads pop out of the sand in early American cinema are partially dunes, and begin their assault on the fort. to blame for this contemporary trend. Ali Baba, among other techniques, uses Because there was an increase in demand one of his minions as a human battering for movies involving national security and “protect the homeland” mentality 13 Ali-Baba Bound. Dir. Robert Clampett. Leon Schlesinger Studios, 1940. Film. and Hollywood had already so firmly

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 29 manifested the idea of the Arab as the been perpetuating less overtly negative “cultural other,” Arabs fit most easily into stereotypes about the Middle East and the role of the external threat in movies Middle Easterners that essentially isolated involving national security. the region and those who lived there from everything deemed to be “American.” The Karin Wilkins, in her book Home/Land/ Middle East and its Arab inhabitants were Security, asserts that, with the heightened made to appear to have absolutely nothing discourse about America needing in common with America; thus, to the protection from foreign threats after 9/11, American audience, Arabs as a group “the fear accentuated in this political would logically be “anti-American” and narrative resonates with the heightened an external enemy. Shaheen asserts that sense of danger that builds suspense in while the type of stereotypical “reel Arab” action-adventure film. Danger becomes has shifted over time, “[h]e is what he has positioned as an external force that must always been—the cultural ‘other.’”16 be fought.”14 Thus, those groups that had already been perceived as “others” One such stereotype that Hollywood has in cinematic history would be used by maintained is the image of the “Arab- such films to represent pressing danger as-Sheikh.” In Reel Bad Arabs, Shaheen to national security. Arabs and Muslims asks the reader to “pause and visualize work well to represent this danger because the reel Arab. What do you see? Black “historically, Hollywood films have beard, headdress, dark sunglasses. In presented Arab characters more as villain the background—a limousine, harem than as victim or as hero, accentuating maidens, oil wells, camels.”17 Edward Said their distance from projected normative notes that “the perverted sheikh can often US society by highlighting foreign accents, be seen snarling at the captured Western traditional clothing, aggressive actions, hero and blonde girl.”18 The “Arab-as- and hostile attitudes.”15 Thus, the negative Sheikh” image, the mysterious, lecherous, imagery of the preceding century is critical greedy oil tycoon dressed in robes, is to the heightening of discrimination one strewn throughout the history of against Arabs in film beginning in Hollywood, even as far back as 1894, in the 1990s and ramping up post-9/11. the Kinetoscope short Sheik Hadj Tahar Because Hollywood had already so firmly Hadj Cherif. Other early silent films, established Arabs and Muslims as this including The Unfaithful Odalique (1903) mysterious “other,” these groups served as and The Fire and the Sword (1914) revolve the “external force” that must be defeated around this precise stereotype. Though in contemporary films revolving around the “Arab-as-Sheikh” image may not national security. seem as obviously negative as the “Arab- as-terrorist/religious fanatic” that is so So how, exactly, did Hollywood so endemic today, it still laid the groundwork effectively position Arabs to be viewed as for American audiences to view Arabs as a this “cultural other?” Shaheen, in Reel Bad mysterious “cultural other.” Arabs, at least partially alleges the answer. Hollywood had, for so long, already Another such stereotype is the “Arab-

14 Wilkins, Karin Gwinn, Home/Land/Security: What We 16 Jack Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a Learn about Arab Communities from Action-Adventure People, (New York: Olive Branch, 2001) 2. Films, (Lanham: Lexington, 2009). 17 Ibid 2. 15 Ibid 27. 18 Ibid 19.

30 avicenna as-swindler”: the greedy, untrustworthy Part IV: Conclusion market vendor or merchant. The most flagrant example of this particular Clearly, the issue of Arab representation stereotype can be found in Disney’s in American cinema is not new, and it has animated musical Aladdin (1992).19 also yet to be fixed in any substantial way. The film’s opening number is sung by a The screen Arab of the past, who is defined character known as “the Peddler,” who by his violence and savagery, whom we see kicks off the movie by singing a wildly blow up forts and attempt to kill innocent racist song about how the town in which animals in Ali-Baba Bound, is the same he lives in the Middle East is “barbaric,” as the screen Arab of the present. We see then breaks the fourth wall and attempts him in The Siege, when he blows up buses to sell some of his merchandise to the in New York City, in Rules of Engagement, audience before starting his narration of where he attempts to kill Americans the film. The trinkets he has are clearly abroad, and in countless others. Looking outdated or damaged, but that does not into the past, however, we also see other, stop the Peddler from trying to lie and less conspicuously damaging stereotypes convince the audience of the fine quality about Arabs immortalized onscreen. We of his products. For example, he promises see the screen Arab as the oily, lecherous the audience that a “combined hookah Sheikh, whose obscene wealth is only and coffeemaker” will not break; he matched by his obscene treatment of his then taps the contraption on the table, harem maidens. And we encounter the and pieces of it fly off or break instantly. deceitful market seller, willing to do or Though Aladdin is just one instance of say anything to convince the innocent this stereotype, Shaheen confirms that Westerner of the quality of his damaged “interspersed throughout the movies are goods. While stereotypes such as these do souk swindlers.”20 Once again, though the not appear to be as damaging as stereotypes stereotype of greedy, swindling merchants involving violence or brutality, they are, is not as conspicuously adverse as the in fact, equally detrimental. Though they violent, murderous stereotype seen so may not seem as dangerous, such “lesser” often in more recent films, this “Arab- stereotypes help to bolster even more as-swindler” image nonetheless laid the harmful ones. These less overtly negative foundation for Americans to view Arabs images of Arabs in actuality helped to lay as the “cultural other.” It can be concluded the groundwork for American audiences that the pre-1990s representation of Arabs to view Arabs as the cultural other; thus, was not dominated solely by images of allowing Arabs to fit neatly into the gun-wielding religious extremists and definition of the anti-American enemy, a suicide bombers; however, a plethora of role that increasingly needed to be filled in other, equally demonizing stereotypes contemporary films. a existed in American cinema long before.

19 Aladdin. Dir. John Musker. Walt Disney Pictures, 1992. 20 Jack Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, (New York: Olive Branch, 2001) 24.

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 31 A photograph taken by Parwana Fayyaz in a small procession in the Shia Muslim community in Chittagong, Bangladesh during the Day of Ashura, the mourning day of the martyrdom of Husayn Ibn Ali.

32 avicenna To Climb a Wall Creative Nonfiction

Marium Abdur Rahman B.A. English Language and Literature ‘12, University of Michigan

My grandmother and I watched the Misbah-ul-Haq, flashed across the screen opening toss on the tiny television in her as I thought about how Sialkot’s losing the flat as we got ready to visit my aunt’s house toss only made Shoaib Malik closer to the for dinner. My mother’s parents live in stands; he would definitely be fielding on Karachi, Pakistan, a coastal city with salty, the edge of the pitch. humid air and the biggest (and truthfully, only) cricket stadium I’ve ever seen. It was Our family is a cricket fan club in and of built in 1955, and can hold over 34,000 itself, spearheaded by my five-foot tall, people. When we visited them back in too-old-to-have-an-age grandmother. She March of 2010, after my high school religiously follows Wimbledon tennis, the graduation, the Pakistan Regional Cricket U.S. Open golf, as well as every cricket matches were going on right across the match that Pakistan has even the slightest street from their home. chance in—especially if India is involved. There is no messing with her feminist Thirteen of Pakistan’s largest cities each Pakistani jingoism. As embarrassing as it had a team competing in the set of sounds, even the American-born branch eighteen matches played at the Karachi of our generation can get riled up about National Cricket Stadium. Despite the Twenty20 and the One Day International, incessant national blackouts of electricity, or ODI, matches. We considered it an the fluorescent light panels of the National offshoot species of the American pastime. Stadium floodlit the night. The last To top it off, our favorite players were in regional game was held the Monday before the flesh, just across the street from our our departure back to Chicago. We were house. Shahid Afridi. Misbah ul Haq. invited out to dinner, so it was never an Shoaib Malik. I could have swooned. option for me to go see what a real cricket game was like. Even though Shoaib Malik is an all- rounder player for the national Pakistani The entire tournament was being cricket team, he only plays as captain in the telecasted live, and we spent the majority regionals. I halfheartedly proposed that of our evenings eating as a family in front we could slip out and run to the Stadium of the TV, rather than at the dinner table. for the first few overs or innings. After all, As I finished ironing my clothes for the when would I ever have the experience dinner party, I saw Shoaib Malik lose the of watching a live game in Pakistan with toss and heard the distant rumble of the Shoaib Malik as captain? My grandmother crowds across the street as Faisalabad was didn’t think twice before pulling the plug set to bat first. The English subtitles of of the iron out of the wall, grabbing the the interview with the Wolves’ captain, keys, and shuffling my extremely eager

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 33 grandfather and equally reluctant mother mustaches, made way for us to enter the into her car. Before I even realized what I stadium in front of all the men they were signed up for, we were in the middle of the coercing into a queue. biggest mob of people I had ever seen, on our way to the Regionals. The game itself is a blur to me, seeing as we were only there for half an hour before My grandfather stayed behind and watched rushing to our prearranged dinner party. the car as the three of us women trekked I remember the big screen with Urdu across the dusty road to the National subtitles that I couldn’t read, and people Stadium. My grandmother charged behind us banging glass bottles on the through the crowd, her hot-pink shawl railings every time the ball was hit. I saw fluttering through the dust a few paces Shoaib Malik out on the corner of the pitch, before me. In the composition journal I with his sharp jaw and grey baseball cap took with me overseas, I wrote that night: projected on the huge screen in front of us. More than the game, though, I remember Getting to the Stadium was an entirely the Stadium—bright, congested, humid, separate adventure. There were so many and loud. Even in my diary, I spent three people! And all of them seemed to be guys pages describing the trip to and from the between 16-25 years. The most accessible Stadium, with only a paragraph listing entrance was for families only. My all of the famous players I saw from my grandmother asked a group of boys where almost front row seat. the entrance was, and the guy in the front was like, “Auntie jee, this is only for women On our way out, people were still trying to and their families… can we all come with get in—all those boys! Guys were fighting you then!?” There must have been 20 guys with the guards and scaling the walls— with him! Every few guys tried to claim me some were even scaling the mesh wire to as a sister or a wife. Nani was all “chalo!” sit on the rafters! It was so hyped! (Ammi, or “let’s go!” and I kept laughing, but my my mom, was still freaked out by the mob mom was freaked out—she kept asking my of guys. I was still giggling.) I told Ammi, grandmother, “Who are all these men??” “I wish I was a boy! I’d go climb a wall and People made way for the three of us like sit on the roof!” She became sober and the Red Sea for Moses, and the Police were said, “This is a country that gives extreme so nice to us, it was phenomenal! respect to women. The only reason you got into the Stadium at all is that you’re a girl.” All Pakistani men looked the same to me, That shut me up. I still wanted to climb a jostling in the evening warmth—a mob wall. of brown bodies in motion. My mother is not only very claustrophobic, but she We watched the remainder of the match also has a fear of crowds, so she didn’t that night in my Aunt’s house on her big enjoy the event nearly as much as I did. screen TV until the lights blacked out. My Even though my mother quickly started two cousins, Bilal and Zaid, were green- hyperventilating, not a single man in the eyed to hear that I got into the Stadium. crowd gave any of us three a shove or so much as got in our way. It was the strangest “How could an American girl who can’t feeling when even the Pakistani Police, in even pronounce ‘ball’ properly in Urdu their brown berets and uniform handlebar go see the Regionals when we were stuck

34 avicenna at home?” They seethed about how their Wolves lost to the Sialkot Stallions, it didn’t parents didn’t even allow them near the matter anymore to Zaid that I got to see Stadium. the opening over. I still bragged about how I got to see Misbah-ul-Haq hit a Choka, or “We could have taken them with us!” I home run; Bilal was satisfied that at least I exclaimed to my uncle. “It was so easy for didn’t catch the ball. us three to get in.” Later, when I sat in Chicago O’Hare waiting “It’s different for you, Marium,” my uncle for our domestic connection to Detroit replied over the boys’ accusatory looks. Metro, I ruminated over that night when I “Because they are boys, there is always went to the National Cricket Stadium with the possibility that they could get hurt if my grandmother: they got caught in a rowdy crowd or even arrested if they somehow end up in the It was amazing—they say Pakistani women wrong place at the wrong time. It happens are oppressed or suppressed or whatever… all the time.” When I go visit Nani in a third world country, I get VIP access to the Stadium We had the most outlandish conversation even though I don’t even “belong” in their in the TV room, interchangeably carping country… Just because I’m a girl? I guess on their impassable world and cheering I’ve got enough walls I can climb right here for Faisalabad. Once the Faisalabad in America. a

And All At Once You Feel It / Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey (Photo by Allison Mickel, PhD ‘16)

the stanford journal on muslim affairs 35 A PEOPLE’S PUBLICATION STANFORD UNIVERSITY 36 avicenna