Ameer Ali: Islam's prophet had character flaws

Update: Ameer Ali has now denied making the comments attributed to him below. From The Australian:

Dr Ali has denied a report in The Australian newspaper last week which quoted him as saying that Muslims should not blindly follow the Koran and that Mohammed was not the perfect model and had human flaws.

But Dr Ali said the comments and a caption underneath a photograph saying "Muslim minds closed" were deeply offensive to all Muslims.

Federal parliamentary secretary for multicultural affairs, Andrew Robb, said Dr Ali should be congratulated for the comments.

But Dr Ali has been inundated with complaints from angry Muslims since the story appeared and Australia's most senior Islamic cleric called for him to be ostracised.

"I have received a number of emails from my fellow Muslims who have taken this opportunity to ridicule me and I do not deny their right to do so," Dr Ali said.

"The description projected by the article in The Australian totally misrepresents the noble character of the Holy Prophet who was sent as a model to humanity.

"Any part that I may have unwittingly played in this depiction is deeply regretted."

So, did the original article misquote him, or is he now backpedalling because of backlash from certain segments of the Muslim community?

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In Australia, Ameer Ali, the chairman of Prime Minister John Howard's Muslim advisory board, says some things which sound like just plain old regular common sense to non-Muslims, but which could be dangerous for someone to say who is in a position of authority in the Muslim community. From The Australian:

A leading adviser on Islam, Ameer Ali, has attacked Muslims who "blindly" follow their faith and fail to question the veracity of the Koran, saying that even Mohammed had "flaws".

[...]

"The jihadists are interpreting the Koran literally and that's the problem ... Popular Muslims, because of their lack of knowledge about religion, are vulnerable to these sort of teachings."

This is a problem with all religions that are based on an allegedly holy text. The literalists always have the advantage over the non-literalists, in the sense that the onus falls on the latter, rather than the former, to justify their position.

Dr Ali, who is writing an academic paper entitled "Closing of the Muslim Mind", said even Mohammed was not the "perfect model" as most Muslims believed. Asked if the prophet had character flaws, he said: "Of course - you must look at him as a human being also."

[...]

I wonder if the title of his paper is a play on "The Closing of the American Mind" by Allan Bloom or "The Closing of the Islamic Mind" by David Brooks? And one mustn't forget "The Closing of the Western Mind by Charles Freeman.

(Maybe I should write "The Closing of the Buddhist Mind".)

His comments came as a French philosophy teacher was forced into hiding after describing the Mohammed as a ruthless warlord and mass murderer. Robert Redeker has been under police protection, moving between secret addresses, since threats against him appeared on Islamist websites last week. His home address was published with calls to murder.

Dr Ali criticised community members for playing victim when Muslims reacted violently against criticism, as after the publication of the Danish cartoons and the recent comments by the Pope.

He said it was time for Muslims to "confront this challenge head-on and look critically at their behaviour and mode of response to alleged blasphemy".

The Muslim world needs leaders like Dr. Ali to spread a radical idea which is commonly taken for granted in the West, namely, that the proper response to words – whether it's criticism or even (perceived) insult – is not violence or threats, but words in rebuttal.

Dr Ali called for Hezbollah to be removed from the Government's terror organisations list two months ago, saying they were freedom fighters defending their country against Israeli invasion.

I think most non-Muslims would disagree with this idea, but it needs to be discussed rather than dismissed.

The former president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils said there were sections of the Koran that were relevant to "everybody at every time".

But he said people needed to read into the scripture and not merely accept it as the final word.

This will be a difficult mental shift to effect in the Muslim world, as it will require a moving away from the literal meaning of the text as well as going against centuries of tradition.

Dr Ali - who heads the Muslim Community Reference Group set up last year following the London bombings to improve communication channels between the federal Government and Australia's 300,000 Muslims - labelled the idea of going to hell for questioning the Koran a "load of rubbish". [...]

No sooner had Dr. Ali spoken the above words than he was roundly criticized by Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly, leader of the Lakemba Mosque in Sydney and, according to this article, Australia's most senior Islamic cleric:

Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilaly yesterday accused the chairman of John Howard's Islamic reference board, Ameer Ali, of selling out his religion to gain the support and financial backing of Muslim critics.

Dr Ali said in The Australian yesterday that Mohammed had flaws, and criticised Muslims who blindly follow the faith and failed to question the veracity of the Koran.

Sheik Hilaly, the head of Lakemba Mosque in Sydney's southwest, said Dr Ali's "defamatory" remarks were akin to those that in 1989 earned Rushdie a fatwa from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini.

Is Sheik Hilaly calling for Ameer Ali to be killed? It looks that way to me.

While Sheik Hilaly backed Dr Ali's call for a reinterpretation of the Koran to fit modern times, he condemned his "dangerous" and "ignorant" comments about the prophet.

"We forbid such statements, from both Ameer Ali and anyone who has encouraged him to say what he said," Sheik Hilaly said in an interview conducted in Arabic.

"We refuse to have him stand with us at any religious ceremony from now on, unless he revokes what he said about the faith and the prophet."

If the matter weren't so serious, this threat would be humourous. What is this, elementary school? "If you don't do as we say, you can't sit at the lunch table with us!"

But the Howard Government yesterday strongly backed Dr Ali's comments, with Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration Andrew Robb saying Dr Ali should be congratulated.

"I do think that Ameer Ali seems to be encouraging the teaching and the practice of Islam in an Australian context, and I think that's to be warmly applauded," Mr Robb said.

"I think it's critical that Islam is presented to Australian Muslims in an Australian context."

Of all the Western nations (yes, I know Australia is in Asia), Australia seems to be the most unabashedly unashamed of Western culture and civilization. I think the other Western nations have a lot to learn from that.

Naturally, The Australian applauds Ameer Ali in its editorial:

Islamic scholar Ameer Ali has shown great courage and done Australia a big favour in opening debate on how best to interpret Muslim faith in the modern world. The immediate reaction of Australia's Islamic leaders to Dr Ali's controversial comments is as predictable as it is disappointing.

[...]

Australia's Mufti, Taj Din al-Hilali, immediately criticised Dr Ali for daring to speak out, suggesting that he find another occupation. Sheik Hilali said anyone who said the prophet was human and had flaws could be renounced from the faith. He challenged Dr Ali to withdraw his remarks or be barred from standing at any religious ceremony. Sheik Hilali said Dr Ali's comments were worse than those by the Pope in his Regensburg lecture - in which Benedict XVI quoted a medieval text to discuss violence, religious conversion and reason - because they were his own. Other Muslim leaders have gone further. Muslim Youth leader Moustapha Kara-Ali argued that the scriptures should be translated literally and that Dr Ali's comments were like the publication of the Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed, and the Pope's Regensburg comments.

[...]

Dr Ali can expect to pay a price for his courage. Hardliners will attempt to undermine his credibility, accusing him of selling out his religious conviction to curry favour with the Government. Far from it, Dr Ali is to be congratulated for his courage in promoting honest discussion that is in the interests of Islam, its followers and the Australian community.

Amen to that.

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