Barend Vlaardingerbroek: A response to Lindsay Perigo

I agree with Lindsay Perigo [see his Breaking Views blog HERE] that the perpetrators of last week’s slaughter in Paris were ‘savages’. 

However, I take exception to much of what else he says.

His personal attack on the Prophet Mohammed whom he labels a paedophile involves the imposition of 21^st-century Western norms and standards on the actions of a man who lived in the Arabian peninsula 14 centuries ago. There were social rules and laws against sexual liaisons with minors in the societies of that time and place, and Mohammed did not break them. Marriage and consummation were often not simultaneous, and estimates of Aisha’s age at the time of consummation vary; whatever it was, it was within the limits of what was then socially acceptable.

This may all sound ghastly to a modern person, but let us remember that things were not so different in mediaeval Europe and indeed in centuries following. Shakespeare’s Juliet was 13. The age of consent to marriage for girls in England (under canon law) was 12 until the mid-18^th century. Edgar Allen Poe married a 13-year-old in 19^th century America. Standards have changed over time and it is naive – and grossly unfair – to apply the standards of our own time and place to people otherwise located.

Lindsay Perigo quotes Voltaire in mocking Mohammed for having claimed to be visited by God and his messengers. Fair enough, providing the commentator treats all such claims arising from the Abrahamic religions likewise, for there is no difference in this regard between Mohammed and the likes of Moses, King David, Jesus and St Paul; there are no grounds for singling out Mohammed.

In a similar vein, to refer to Islam as a ‘superstition’ is simply to say that it is a religion no different from Christianity or any other. To be quite frank, if it’s ‘absurdities’ you want, the Bible strikes me as a better place to start than the Quran. Islam is demonstrably ‘rational’ in the sense of applying systematic evidence-based reasoning processes within its mindset. Sharia law is a case in point, and was following evidence-based due process at a time when Europeans were still using ‘trial by ordeal’ and ‘confessions’ extracted under torture. True, what constitutes ‘evidence’ in this mindset may differ somewhat from a modern Western conception thereof, but all reasoning processes are based on underlying assumptions and that includes both traditional Islamic thought and 21^st-century Western thought. There is an absolutism underlying Lindsay Perigo’s case that needs to be critically examined. We should, of course, compare like with like on the historical timescale, and between the totally irrational, superstition-driven horrors of the Middle Ages in Europe and the comparatively rational order of the great contemporaneous Islamic civilisations there would appear to be little doubt as to whom the ‘superstitious savages’ were. There was certainly no doubt in the minds of a Saracen delegation who witnessed judicial procedures at a French military outpost during the time of the Crusades, describing them as ‘barbaric’.

Many Western commentators including big names such as Voltaire and Churchill have said and written lots of nasty things about Islam, but these outbursts need to be critically evaluated rather than being unquestioningly quoted to back up one’s own prejudices. Islam presented ‘Christendom’ with some viable competition, and so it was little wonder that Western commentators were hostile towards it. (We should also recall the centuries-long Catholic-versus-Protestant Punch and Judy show and the ‘lovely’ things they said about one another, often far more venomous than what they were saying about Islam!) Note Voltaire’s side-swipe at the Turks. Churchill was incensed by the humiliation the great British Empire had suffered at the hands of Muslim militias in the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan, and his pique in the face of the insult augmenting the injury comes through strongly in some of his invective.

I share Lindsay Perigo’s outrage at the events of last week – I should hope that we all feel the same way – but would counsel us all to resist the temptation to lash out at Islam or Muslims in general, or vilify historical personages. It adds nothing of any intellectual or ethical value to the discussion – and is exactly what the extremists want us to do, thereby fomenting ill will and bringing their version of Armageddon a step closer. Let’s not do their work for them.

Just one quick point to wrap up. The famous dictum “I may disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it” are not Voltaire’s words but those of Evelyn Beatrice Hall who is on record as saying in 1935 that “I did not mean to imply that Voltaire used these words verbatim and should be surprised if they are found in any of his works. They are rather a paraphrase of Voltaire's words in the Essay on Tolerance — ‘Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.’" Sounds like good advice.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek is at the American University of Beirut and is a regular contributor to ‘Breaking Views’. Feedback welcome at bv00@aub.edu.lb