FW: Mass self-flaggelation for the Muslim holiday Ashura

[David E. Guinn]

>From a colleague.

-----Original Message-----
From: Hamoudi, Haider [mailto:hamoudi at pitt.edu] 

_____________

Just a few points on this, from someone who would know very little about the
New York law aspect of it, but a reasonable amount concerning the Islamic
law side.

First, the practice of bloodletting during Ashura is not so much "Islamic"
as Shi'i Islamic, and secondly, and more importantly, if the police did
intervene, there are not an insignificant number of Shi'is who would
probably regard that decision rather favorably.  More moderate Shi'a, and
more educated Shi'a, tend to view these practices as misguided in the best
case, and an embarrassment in the worst case.  Even rather conservative
voices such as the late Ahmed Al-Waeli, the preacher whose voice almost
symbolizes the Ashura lamentations in the modern era given how popular and
widespread his rendition of the event was throughout the Shi'i world, spoke
out rather forcefully against bloody commemorations in Hyde Park, dismissing
them as barbaric and outdated.  When the police came down rather hard on one
such event in Detroit last year, the general reaction among the Shi'is I
knew was rather sympathetic to the police.  (In that case, it wasn't so much
a decision by the police to end the commemoration, they didn't even know
there was one, as to respond to what looked like some sort of serious
problem at a mosque they thought must have been attacked---men without their
shirts off with blood on their backs crying suggested to them something of
this sort).  I believe the same mosque still does these things in Detroit
but in an enclosed area far from the view of everyone else, including the
rest of the Shi'is commemorating, which I think does tend to suggest some
level of Shi'i community, if not disapproval, then equivocation as to the
matter.  The community told them to take it indoors.

Moreover, police are not generally viewed as hostilely in Muslim communities
as, say, the FBI or the military.  I don't mean to suggest they are welcomed
as heroes by all, but that when Muslims join police forces, and they do,
they neither hide it from other members of the community nor do they seem to
feel the need to engage in excessive apologetics over it.  The biggest
problem I find with conservative Muslims who immigrate when they first enter
is that they call 911 too often, not too little (because they assume the
police have assumed the role their uncle once had when he negotiated their
disputes).  The Shi'i jurists in particular have made sharp distinctions
between joining a police force, which they consider generally okay, and
joining the US army, where they generally do not.

Of course, a crackdown could backfire too, as an example of some sort of
perceived persecution.  After all, jurists haven't banned these things,
making many believe they are acceptable and therefore they have a right to
do them.  And even if the police aren't viewed as necessarily hostile, still
when interfering with a commemoration resentments can be stirred.
Nevertheless, I'm not convinced that the reaction to police intervention to
something Shi'is are of two minds about would be necessarily negative so
long as it was limited and intelligent (ie through consulations and
explained, as opposed to an unannounced mosque raid which would surely annoy
if not enrage just about everyone).

For those interested in these subjects, I do run a blog on Islamic law, as
per below.


Haider Ala Hamoudi
Assistant Professor of Law
University of Pittsburgh School of Law
3900 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
(412) 624-1055
hamoudi at pitt.edu

You can access my papers on SSRN at
http://papers.ssrn.com/author=641155

You can access my papers on Bepress at
http://works.bepress.com/haider_ala_hamoudi/

Check out my blog at
http://muslimlawprof.org/