Comments

Angiras on Wed 12 Nov 2008:

A crucial point in An-Na'im's fascinating and insightful article is the hegemony of the "center" over the "peripheries" as defined in terms of the historical origins of Islam.

Pondicherry is the Mecca of the Integral Yoga community. The question is: does this make Sri Aurobindo the property of the Ashram and India, or does he belong to the world? The attempt by defenders of the faith in Pondicherry to seize control of the representation of Sri Aurobindo on the other side of the globe resembles the hijacking of Islam by the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia.

In The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists, Khaled Abou El Fadl writes of the "puritanical Islam" of the Wahhabis:

"The real irony is that at the heart of `Abd al-Wahhab's zeal for Islamic purity was a pro-Arab ethnocentrism that was completely at odds with Islam's universal message.... Wahhabism responded to modernity's destabilizing forces, and to its overpowering moral and social insecurities, by running for shelter. In this case, the shelter consisted of clinging on to particular Islamic texts for a sense of certitude and comfort.... Consistently, religious texts become whips to be exploited by a select class of readers in order to affirm reactionary power dynamics in society. This is why al-Ghazali described the puritans as hadith hurlers - they use the inherited tradition and law to silence their opponents and to stunt critical or creative thinking.... God is transformed into a force justifying whatever follies human beings wish to do, all in God's name.... In periods of intense fluctuation and insecurity, clinging on to a system of rules for security and stability is sociologically understandable. The problem, however, is that history is relentless in its progress, and the high cost of this false sense of security is marginalization and irrelevancy to a constantly moving and developing world." (pp. 51, 46, 97, 138, 278)

El Fadl's observation about how the Wahhabis cling to texts for shelter and exploit them "to silence their opponents and to stunt critical or creative thinking" has implications that go beyond the tragedy of contemporary Islam. "Hadith hurling" is not a matter of quoting inspired words for illumination and inner guidance, but of taking specific pronouncements out of their original contexts and turning them into rules and regulations to be followed mechanically regardless of the changed circumstances of this "constantly moving and developing world."

According to the Mother, "perfection consists of having a movement of transformation or an unfolding identical with the divine Movement" (CWM 4:214). Taking one or two statements she made in particular situations more than half a century ago and using them as ammunition in a campaign of character assassination and book banning is part of a move by a Pondicherry-based group with a Wahhabi-like mentality to assert its hegemony over the worldwide Integral Yoga community.

Debashish on Thu 13 Nov 2008:

Apropos the "pro-Arab ethonocentrism" of the Wahabbis, An-Na'im's analysis and appeal bears the distant echo of history repeating itself. The Abbasids came to be caliphs of Baghdad with help from North African muslims of the 8th c. by an overthrow of the Arab ethnocentrism of the Umayyads on similar grounds of universalism. It is the cosmopolitanism and unrestricted love of wisdom of Abbasid caliphs such as Harun al-Rashid (763-809) and his son al-Ma'mun (786-833) which gave birth to the Academy of Wisdom at Baghdad, bringing the ideas of the known world together and becoming a conduit of exchange between east and west.

El Fadl's words on "hadith hurling" to "silence opponents and stunt critical or creative thinking" serves as an uncannily apt description of the "new clerics" of Pondicherry. What is surprising and frightening about the phenomenon though, is how easily and unthinkingly this has come to be accepted by the mass of Aurobindonian followers, how ripe they were for the picking. As I had mentioned in one of these comments earlier, history will leave its cynical gesture on the enthusiastic and vulgar destruction of the work of the most clear-thinking and socially conscious spiritual teacher of all times by those claiming to be his saviors.