サルマン・ラシュディ叙爵を巡る騒動*1に関連して。
Khaled Diab*2 “The Muslim faithless” http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/khaled_diab/2007/06/the_muslim_faithless.html
先ずThe Satanic Versesへの「文学的」批判；
そして、ラシュディから30年遡る、埃及の作家Naguib Mahfouzの話。1959年の彼の著書Children of the Alleyは保守派の圧力により、埃及で出版することはできず、ベイルートで出版しなければならなかったが、ラシュディのように姿を隠さなければいけないということはなかった――”In fact, the late novelist is still one of Egypt's best-loved sons.” しかし、1994年にNaguib Mahfouzは原理主義者のテロに遭遇する。その５年後に、Khaled Diab氏は殆ど聴力と視力を失ったNaguib Mahfouzに会うが、その時の印章について、”his presence was a ghostly symbol of a fading age.”と書いている。さらに、シリアの作家Heidar Heidarの A Banquet for Seaweedが惹き起こした論争への言及。そして、イスラームにおける世俗的な伝統への言及；
My objections to The Satanic Verses - which Katleen, my wife, "smuggled" into Egypt for me wrapped in the cover of another book, just in case it was banned - are purely literary. I find it to be one of his weaker efforts, given how it limps, crawls and staggers along in places, intentionally trying to be clever, obscure and confusing to the reader. Far superior, in my humble view, was Midnight's Children and The Moor's Last Sigh.
結論としては、”Muslims could draw lessons from Europe's Renaissance and learn and embrace the "western" sciences while drawing pride from their own ancient heritage, rather like the Europeans did with the ancient Greeks.”ということになる。
Those Muslims who condemn such literature and views as un-Islamic and new-fangled western imports are obviously unaware of their own history. Some 12 centuries before these modern writers, Ibn al-Rawandi was establishing a controversial reputation for himself as the Richard Dawkins of ninth-century Baghdad (probably the wealthiest and most advanced city in the world at the time).Belonging, as he did, to a more poetic age, his most famous work was not entitled The Allah Delusion, but had the more colourful title of The Emerald Book (Kitab al-Zumurrud). Nevertheless, he was no less sparing than Dawkins would be in his indictment and rejection of the divine authorship of the Qur'an, Muhammad's status as a prophet and organised religion. He argued that humans possess the gift of intellect, by which they can judge right and wrong, rendering the prophets and scripture superfluous.
According to Dawkins, most of the modern scientists who talk of "God" do so in the loosest possible sense of the word. Likewise, many of the greatest scientists of Islam's golden age sailed pretty close to the wind and, like their modern counterparts, were often deists rather than theists.
Like Einstein, the 10th century Persian scientist and philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna) who established many of the logical principles upon which the modern scientific method is based had such an abstract conception of "God" that it bore no resemblance to the one we know from scripture. His was a "big bang" kind of God who appears to have no will. Ibn Sina viewed existence not as the work of a capricious deity, but of a divine, self-causing thought process.
以前にも書いたかも知れないが、原理主義者というのは基本的に反伝統主義なので、原理主義者に伝統を尊重しろと呼びかけても仕方のないことなのかも知れない。勿論、これはイスラーム世界に限った話ではないが。
