Reflections in Islam

A prologue to the blog Reflections in Islam.

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For my final blog post, I decided to create a short animation in response to the week 10 reading titled “European Colonialism and the Emergence of Modern Muslim States.” Nasr writes that there are over 50 Muslim states in the world today. As such, Islam has not only been a source of faith, he says, but also a source of identity with social and political relevance (549). For centuries, Islam had spread throughout the Eastern Hemisphere, primarily through the expansion of regional Islamic Empires, such as the Caliphate. After the rise of global European empires, the Muslim world, typically described as the collection of regions with majority Muslim populations, was divided into colonial territories. Muslim states began to emerge after World War II around existing territorial boundaries in Africa and Asia that would generally serve as the basis for state boundaries between Muslim states. In many places, Islamist movements played a significant role in the fight for independence from the colonial powers, which would have consequences for the future political regime.

The animation depicts some of the history of Islamic expansion from the Caliphate to independence. We can visualize and infer how the relevance of Islam has changed by looking at the difference between imperial rule and the nation state. It is also a quick way to visually access the information.

Persepolis is an autobiographical novel depicting Marjane Satrapi’s early life against the backdrop of the Islamic Revolution. As a coming of age novel, Persepolis deals with childhood issues as nationalistic, religious, and cultural forces mold Satrapi’s identity. Marji is ten years old at the beginning of the novel when it became obligatory for girls to wear veils at school after the Islamic Revolution. She writes: “I really didn’t know what to think about the veil. Deep down I was very religious, but as a family we were very modern and avant-garde” (6). Although Marji becomes comfortable with wearing the veil despite her obligation to do so, the meaning of the veil becomes a point of contention as it carries multiple meanings for the author. While Marji’s mother was an early public activist against the obligatory veil law, Marji becomes comfortable with wearing the veil, while rebelling against other forms of government restrictions on self-expression.

The introductory chapter highlights the mixed messages that children receive from the school and the home. As a Mexican immigrant, Marji’s experience reminded me of a cultural tension that I experienced early on in my schooling. I never experienced having to attach myself to a symbol that signaled my Mexicanness, but my dark complexion distinguished me from my American classmates and I was obliged to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school as a symbol of my Americanness. I created a snippet of my autobiographical novel, inspired by Persopolis, in the form of a comic. Like Persopolis, the form of the novel expresses the simplistic nature of the experience as a child would experience it and interpret it.

I attended school in the U.S. for all of my life, but I was an undocumented immigrant throughout grade school. All of the students were required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. I juxtapose this experience to a particular event that happened when I was in third grade. My birthday was coming up in the month of December and the teacher asked for my city of birth to post on her bulletin board.  Previously, I had noticed that the teacher responded favorably to another student who said he was born in Chicago. To gain the same praise, I said that I was also born in Chicago, to which she responded favorably. Moments later, she said that my school record showed that I was born in Mexico. The meaning of nationality had never struck me so deeply until that day.

It seems an obvious thing to say, but you should not imagine that we Pakistanis are all potential terrorists, just as we should not imagine that you Americans are all undercover assassins.

I know you don’t want to do this. It is all too apparent; the eyes are the window to the soul. Am I mistaken when I think that perhaps my messaged has reached you and you have reconsidered what you came here to do? There are no mind games here, my friend. This is merely an extension of our conversation. I will not attempt to prevent you to end my life, nor will I prompt you to do so with a vengeful proclamation of spite. I wish for nothing more than for you to act of your own free will. I speak because I anticipate the dusk of my life, or perhaps the dawn of my waking.

You still have not made a choice? Has someone else come to insure your mission? Do not worry, my friend, there is nobody else to influence your will. There are no repercussions, other than those of the mind, if you decide to pull the trigger. Or am I mistaken? Surely, my family and my students will speculate about the event, “An outspoken professor critical of U.S. activities in Pakistan found dead near an alley. Two, or three bullets? An exit wound through the back of the skull. No witnesses.” Who could ever trace the bullet back to your gun magazine? The memory would host only a faceless figure, for which the person is unbound to place any number of masks. Maybe one of my students will place an American mask on the figure, a fellow kinsperson… our kinsperson. Uncertainty produces anger, and perceived certainty multiplies it two-fold.

You react when I say kinsperson. Do I offend you? Or do I surprise you? Do not be alarmed, my friend. I do not mean to say that the faceless figure is an American, but, rather, that it is another human being. Do not interpret my open-mindedness as a lecture for manipulation. I confessed to you that I do not wish to interfere in your decision. I hope that your reluctance has not been due to my disclosure.

Do you harbor a flicker of hope for peace in your heart? How heavy is the burden on your shoulders? To date, the loop has not been broken. We are but a macro-organism, its parts programmed for apoptosis. Deviations are but an anomaly, an error in executing the command. The moment is infinite.

I must warn you, my friend, that our time is near and you must think quickly.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid struck a chord in me. My family immigrated to the United States from Mexico when I was five. Like Changez, the main character of the novel, I too have dealt with identity crises at various times throughout my life. Although Changez is arguably more of a foreigner, having immigrated to the U.S. as a young adult, than I am, the fact that I have been an undocumented immigrant for most of my life has made me feel apart from other Americans. In post-911 America, Changez is subject to the stigma held by many Americans towards Muslims and people descending from Islamic countries. Changez makes some attempts to feel and belong to the American culture, but he ultimately cannot do so, going so far as to say, “I felt at that moment much closer to the Filipino driver than to him,” in one of his interactions (71). These experiences ultimately lead him to sympathize more with his Pakistani background in opposition to U.S. foreign policy.

Undocumented immigrants like me have also felt alienated by the larger American culture. When I was in ten years old, I learned of the Mexican-American War that lead to the loss of Mexico’s northern territory to the U.S. Since then, I have remained suspicious of the U.S. government and have participated in the immigrant rights movement calling for the legalization of the undocumented immigrant population of the U.S. Realizing that this has caused antagonism from Americans toward undocumented immigrants, I think back to the abrupt ending of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. I may never be subject to an assassination attempt, but I can put myself in Changez’s shoes and think about what would come of such an event. For this blog post, I reimagine the ending of the novel. I attempt to write in a similar style as Hamid in order to emphasize my own point of view. I think that what I am trying to get across and the question I’m asking is: when can we, as human beings, stop our own self-destruction based on differences that run only skin deep? In my ending, it is implied that the American has pulled out a gun. I don’t reveal whether the American eventually assassinates him because I think this symbolic action is an open-ended discussion to be decided by future generations to come. The major theme is free will.