Misquoting God!

I wasn't sure what to expect when I attended the talk given by Vanessa Jill DeGifis titled Scripture and Pious Rhetoric in Abbasid Politics. Like most, I have my preconceived notions before entering any situation. Being of Arab descent and also having what I consider to be a reasonably good understanding of the Islamic faith as well as an understanding of both the history of the region and its politics, I was definitely interested and at the same time curious. To be completely honest, my initial reaction was that the person giving the talk does not have a name that sounds Arabic or Islamic. Naturally, I next wondered about the credentials of the speaker and under what authority other than that of an academic one (as if that wasn't enough) was she speaking. In the past, when hearing talks dealing with religion, they were normally given by members of the clergy of that particular religion or guest speakers who were either of that particular faith, other faiths, or people that converted religions. I have even heard debates between members of different faiths as well as atheists and agnostics. Needless to say, the speakers were not always very objective when presenting their views so I was really looking forward to hearing a fresh perspective from an academic stance and I wasn't disappointed.

Having said that, I would like to add a few points about historical perspectives. Those reporting about history, particularly the history of the other, have a Western notion of thinking about that history. There exists a cultural difference between the two societies where common practices as well as ways of thinking about those practices are inherently different. This undoubtedly contributes to the legitimacy of the argument as well as the authenticity of the historical perspective. This doesn't necessarily make the argument right or wrong, it just makes it different. Having the privilege of being familiar with both cultures and in turn both ways of thought, I feel my life is evidence enough that there exists a difference between how information is processed and interpreted between the two cultures.

DeGifis's premise for her argument was the use of scripture by political figures for the purposes of political gain. She discussed the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun use of quranic rhetoric in a letter (833 CE) to his governor. In this letter, al-Ma'mun seems to be drawing parallels between himself and the prophets. As suggested by DeGifis, he uses the Quran as a demonstrative method to justify his authority and his political stance, ostracize his opponents, and implement the mihna (which means occupation as in "work" but she uses a different definition of the word that I'm not aware of and that is "inquisition"). His prose does not appear in the Quran but it gives the impression that it does. By adopting or borrowing quranic prose, he is able to bolster the potency of his voice and blur the lines between his words and the Quran. Invoking the Quran in his letter enables him to demonstrate his competency of deciphering the text and gives the impression that the Quran is steering his policies. This is a classic example of politics using accepted rhetoric to establish its' authority. We see this being done by extremists and fanatical groups today as justification for their policies.

What needs to be understood here is that for Muslims Islam is not simply a religion, it is a way of life. The Quran is widely accepted as the true and final word of God. In the Quran, one can find examples of ethical and moral values, scientific knowledge, historical accounts, and common everyday practices like physical hygiene. There is even a whole chapter devoted to the rights of women. However, like any other text this information is interpreted differently by scholars and individuals alike. There exists textual evidence that clearly states one is not permitted to interpret and use the Quran for personal gain or convenience. But like I stated before, Islam is a way of life for Muslims and the religion intersects and intertwines with every aspect of society and culture, even politics.

Invoking religious rhetoric or the "God is on our side" argument is a common practice even in our political arena here in the West. From a personal perspective, I have come to an understanding that religion is a personal relationship between a person and the object of their worship, whoever or whatever that may be or even if such an object exists. There is very minimal room for religion in politics and vice versa. However, the political spheres of the world can learn and adopt some ethical and moral values from all the religions in the world. It is my belief that there exists a common ground we as a human race can stand on when it comes to personal beliefs no matter how different we think we are. We only seem to highlight minor and at times insignificant differences to justify our beliefs and objectives. Our values may differ from culture to culture but we should be able to find common beliefs as a human race. Arab and Islamic politicians are no different than any other politician in the world. They are just as susceptible to abusing the privilege of their positions as any one else in the same situation no matter how "democratic" their political process may be.

Aside...

I also wanted to add that I took notice of a sermon like tone of voice demonstrated by the speaker at certain points during her speech. Her body language and hand gestures were reminiscent of a religious figure standing at a pulpit delivering a sermon. I was wondering if anyone who attended caught that as well. I don't know what to make of that. It could be because she felt it was appropriate considering the subject matter or maybe that it gave a certain authority to her argument. Or it could be simply her style of speech making.

These are supplemental handouts that were passed out illustrating examples from the al-Ma'mun's letter and how closely it resembled actual text from the Quran.

The following is somewhat related. It is an example of politics trying to impose on the religious beliefs of the people.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091102/lf_nm_life/us_egypt_niqab

History Repeats Itself: More Thoughts on My Final Paper

"Those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it."

This, as well as other quotes are constantly being repeated in my head. Some stick with me and some get pushed to the back-burner until I encounter something that triggers a chain of thoughts, and suddenly those quotes take on a new meaning. I believe this holds true in this case as well.

I feel that the Internet and other digital media will take human kind to parameters that exceed even those of the printing press. The printing press did wonders for literacy but we already, for the most part, have literacy. If Deibert's argument is correct regarding creating a middle class, a new sense of the individual, nation-states, or a new world order then today's innovations will take us even further.

I propose that we are heading towards a homogenization of the masses. Borders between countries will become blurred on a regional level and then on a world level. This is different than Deibert’s notion that the printing press contributed in creating national boundaries. Communities will be viewed in a totally different and progressive way. The Internet has created a cyber community where my little brothers can play videogames with kids in every corner of the world as long as they have access to a computer and an Internet connection. This wasn’t possible fifteen years ago. I’m reminded of a Coca Cola advertising mission statement or maybe it was even a slogan. It went something like a Coca Cola at arm’s length away from every human. Who or what institution would attempt to monopolize or at least have controlling interests of the Internet and make it at arm’s length away from every human. This is powerful and it’s the corporate mentality I’m interested in here. Would anyone be able to have that control in today’s world? The human race of today is not the same as that of the 16th century. We are more knowledgeable and hopefully smarter to allow that to happen. Or are we? Have we learned from our history? Will we continue to be consumed with becoming consumers? This takes me to economics. Local economic markets will compete with a global market leading to the development of a world currency. We see evidence of this in Europe with the Euro. What does this communicate about the selling of services as opposed to tangible products? What does it communicate about marketing?

Our studies lead us to the understanding that language preserves culture. However, there is a movement towards a common language in the world as we see more and more languages become extinct (examine the development of language from 35,000 BC until today). Will future generations become fluent in a few dominant languages or will they adopt one common language? What does this mean about preserving our history? How will future generations recall the history of the world? We are definitely better at preserving history or at least the evidence of history than ever before. Will we be able to avoid war and thus destroying that evidence? If there is war, what would it be fought over and how would it be fought? Biologically perhaps, or maybe even technologically since we are becoming more and more dependent on technology. What better way to cripple an infrastructure than attack the way it is built from the ground up. Should we even become so dependent on this technology we created?

I don’t know if I even want to take on the future of religion or that of religious thought. But today, I attended the talk Scripture and Pious Rhetoric in Abbasid Politics, which was given by Vanessa DeGifis and a question was asked at the end of the talk that got a few chuckles from the audience. The person stated that the three major religions came in succession, first Judaism, then Christianity, then Islam. He went on to ask if eventually there would be a common religion among the masses that encompassed the thought of all three? I don’t even recall how she answered the question or if there is an answer for such a question, but it made me think about what I have been contemplating regarding my research topic. Are we, as a human race heading towards a common religion that encompasses the ideals of all three? What is to become of Buddhism and Hinduism since nearly 40% of the world’s population is either Chinese or Indian? There exists a sentiment that many worship the almighty dollar. Are the two related? It’s no accident that the Roman Catholic Church was and still may be the wealthiest institution in the world. Maybe future generations will become without religion or perhaps they will worship a giant computer.

I have officially gone crazy, or maybe not. I’m sorry to burden you with all this and I realize I ask more questions than I answer. The truth of the matter is that I don’t have the answers, only my own way of thinking about the answers. I am flying off on too many tangents here but I can’t help but think that they are somewhat connected. Exploring many possibilities helps me in narrowing down what I want to write about. I’m simply thinking out loud or putting thoughts on paper. I do know this, the world is changing and it is changing at a pace faster than ever before. One only needs to examine the 20th century and the advancements that occured there compared to the rest of the history of the world to have proof of this. The answers to our future lies somewhere in the past.

Research Paper Topic Possibility

My senior year English course in high school required a research paper. My topic was radio drama and factors leading to its demise. The answer of course was the invention of television and making it available to the masses. I bring this up because I feel it relates to our discussion of technology replacing other technology just as in the printing press replacing the written word and in the process reshaping the way we view culture. It's also important to point out that cultures set preconditions that create a need for technological advances and in turn technology allows for new levels of sophistication to be reached within cultures. Following this frame of thinking, it's clear that culture and technology are related to one another.

As pointed out by Ronald J. Deibert, the concepts of culture and technology worked symbiotically. In Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communication in World Transformation, he makes a very compelling argument explaining the cosmology of the world. He asserts that communication technology, specifically the invention of the printing press, was a leading factor in breaking up the hegemony of the Church over medieval society ushering in the modern world order. Deibert points out the social conditions that gave rise to the Church as an institution of power and then the social conditions that created the need for technological innovations that lead to the brake down of the power structure of the medieval world.

Following Deibert's argument, this really got me thinking about other technological breakthroughs particularly those having to do with knowledge, communication media, and the book as we have explored it in this course. Immediately, my attention went to the introduction of the Internet and related digital media. Just like the printing press was a major contributor in changing the cosmology of the world, the Internet has already changed and continues to be changing how we look at our world today. The Church in medieval society owned and controlled communication by controlling knowledge and information in the form of the written word. In today's world, big media corporations own and control our world by controlling our access to information. Corporations like News Corp control the news and our access to it. Not only does it report what they see fit but we as a culture have to be consumers and pay to access their potentially biased information. I use the term biased because naturally such corporations are invested in preserving the dominant structures by which the world exists. Anything that would be potentially threatening to their model of power can be simply suppressed or manipulated in their favor. As pointed out by the film we viewed in class, Rip! A Remix Manifesto, a few companies own 90 percent of media holdings in America.

In my research paper, I will attempt to draw parallels between the institutions that controlled communication technology in the 16th century and in today's world. Furthermore, I will examine the cultural and social conditions that allowed for corporations to come to their position of power. Following Deibert's model, I will also examine the conditions that created the need for the invention of the Internet and other digital media. As pointed out earlier, culture and technology are directly related. Culture shapes and is constantly being shaped by technological innovations. Finally, I will point out the ways our world has been transformed and continues to change in response to the technology and its need to exist.

Leaving a Lasting Impression

Every year around the holidays when people make new years resolutions, I actually take the time to write some of mine down. I make what I like to call one year plans as well as five year plans. One of my favorite things to say is that air or oxygen is free. By this I mean, anyone can say anything they want to say anytime they wish to say it. I always found that committing things down on paper gives words a certain authority even if only for personal value. My little ritual helps me hold myself accountable for what I set out to accomplish every year. It also aids me in revisiting the frame of mind I was in every year I sit down to write these plans.

When reading Hamlet's Tables and the Technologies of Writing in Renaissance England, I couldn't help but think of the permanence of words. Orality, from what we learned can be very powerful in transmitting knowledge. The written word however, has a greater power of transmitting knowledge not only in its content but also in a historical context as well. To go even further, writing utensils also give a certain level of authority. Using pen versus pencil communicates a different message and speaks volumes on the permanence of text. I always liked using erasable ink pens because I felt they gave a more permanent notion of authority than pencils did and allowed for the freedom to erase and replace words without crossing out or scribbling over words when mistakes are made.

Reading Shakespeare and the Book introduced the concept of the author as well as the medium when thinking about the written word. This is where it got really interesting for me considering Shakespeare was written with the intention of being performed. All sorts of things are coming to play here in understanding "books" and the written word.

Not to leave out anything from last weeks readings, I would like to add about the typography pieces that technology allows us to be lazy. This doesn't necessarily mean that it’s a bad things or a good thing. Technology is supposed to simplify life. Maybe we read less elaborate type of printing easier because it’s easier to read. Reading more elaborate print type requires more of a concentration and work. It’s far less practical to use that type of print for everyday life operations. But like we mentioned, it’s a situational thing and when deemed appropriate I think more artistic print type can add to the aesthetics of the text as well as its content.

What Came First, The Chicken or The Egg??? Understanding Ronald J. Deibert

Imagine if AT&T just took over all forms of communication. They took over the accumulation and distribution of everything from wireless devices to cable television to Internet services to even landlines. Lets go on to say that with possessing all that power, and reaching unlimited financial stability, the big shots at AT&T preceded to place limitations on what, where, why, or how we use the technology they provide in an attempt to preserve the hierarchical order that places them at the top. The only way we would be able to communicate to one another without going through AT&T would be through face to face interaction. Globalization as we know it would be redefined and achieved through one institution. That is simply too much power for one institution to possess.

In my last blog, while discussing Johannes Trithemius, I mentioned some of my problems with organized religion using guilt and preying on people’s fears to set themselves as an authority. Needless to say, such an institution, or any institution for that matter, should not have a monopoly on anything let alone having one on something as important as knowledge. Ronald J. Deibert calls this "a monopoly of the production of knowledge." Knowledge is a successive process and is built upon with other knowledge through the various communication mediums. In essence, the Roman Catholic Church controlled a significant means of communications by controlling the technology that is the written word. In today's age, a scenario like the one I mentioned is highly improbable which makes the Church's hegemony over the medieval world that much more significant in the grand scheme of things.

Deibert mentions the assumption that as far back as 35,000 years humans have been able to communicate the spoken word in some capacity. Subsequently, a crude form of writing through representations and images was developed 32,000 years ago. Deibert calls this, "...graphic system of writing duplicating the linguistic one." The development of writing was the next breakthrough, but not until 3500 B.C. This lead to literacy but not until worldwide accessibility to the written word was made possible by the printing press. This process points out that the world has always moved towards globalization from early humans 35,000 years ago. This is still a work in progress today as the human race still finds communication technology to make the world we live in smaller and more accessible with each new invention. Whether it’s writing, printing, the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, television, or the Internet, we have found ways to communicate, store, and transfer knowledge allowing us to build on what we already know. Deibert goes on to mention the various social conditions that allowed for the dominant power structure of the medieval world to be created leading cultures to seek change through technology. He asserts that the development of the printing press was an agent in causing social change in pushing towards secularism leading to the developing of centralized state bureaucracies and eventually the nation state as we know it today.

As we discussed in class, this brings to the table the question of culture and technology. Which element leads to the development of the latter? Is it culture or social pressures that lead to the development of technology? Or is technology responsible for creating certain social conditions? For Deibert, the two concepts are symbiotic with each leading to the development of the other. In short, cultures set preconditions for the development of the technology and in turn the technology allows for new levels of sophistication to be reached within cultural conditions. One cannot exist without the other.

Johannes Trithemius: Preserving a Way of Life

Johannes Trithemius, in In Praise of Scribes, seems to be fearful of losing a way of life that he has become accustomed to. With technological advancements, there is always a sentiment of eliminating the old and ushering in the new. The fifteenth century introduced the printing age and presented a new challenge to the work of scribes. Printing posed the problem of eliminating the work of scribes for a more efficient, more productive way of doing things brought forth by printing from movable type. Trithemius desperately tries to be persuasive using a number of arguments to convince monks that the work of scribes is of great importance.

My problem with religion has always been that it relied heavily on instilling fear and guilt to win the devotion of its subjects. Trithemius' argument follows the same line of thinking. He starts off by invoking God claiming that scribes are promised "eternal life in glory" if their work is true. He goes on to elevate scribes and their work into glorious, even holy, status by referring to scribes as "heralds of God". Next, he claims that idle monks or those who don't fulfill their obligation of copying are acting against the injunctions of the apostle, the church, and God. He seems to be threatening to take away meal privileges and accusing idle monks of living "badly" challenging their identity and accusing them of dishonesty and insincerity. Just like good cop/bad cop, he reverts back to appealing to the senses of obligation to their work and devotion to God.

Trithemius goes on to spend some time attempting to convince his readers that the work of a scribe is worthwhile because it help to keep the mind off lustful desires. This would invariably anger God and go against his will. His will in turn would never be known if it wasn't for the work of scribes alluding to the importance of their work. It's very clear that Trithemius feels that monks are suited for such work. Their life and lifestyles are fitting for such work insisting that scribes are as, if not more important than preachers. He does make a good point here in that if it wasn't for the written word, the endurance of knowledge and information for future generations would not be possible. Trithemius closes his argument by insisting that scribes continue their work in spite of printing. He suggests that copying printed works helps in preserving them by guaranteeing their permanence since parchment is lasts longer than paper.

The traditionalist in me feels bad for Trithemius. The printing age threatened to make his way of life extinct. In Praise of Scribes is Trithemius' attempt to preserve this way of life, the only way he seems to know how to exist. I don't deny that scribes were important in helping us know about the past. I would even give credit to the aesthetic value of anything produced by hand rather than by machine. However, at the end of the day my practical side seems to prevail over my sentimental side. We are but too familiar with this concept in today’s world. We often see the work of man be replaced by machines in the industrial world taking away that personal touch. I guess that will always be a draw back and a price to pay in favor of advancement and moving forward.