Well, early in the mornin’
‘Til late at night,
I got a poison headache,
But I feel all right.
I’m pledging my time to you,
Hopin’ you’ll come through, too.
(Bob Dylan)

Yahya Birt’s blog is host to a Pledge of Mutual Respect and Cooperation Between Sunni Muslim Scholars, Organizations, and Students of Sacred Knowledge which has been signed by an impressive list of Muslim clever people.

I have marked it as refuse to sign.

My principle objection is to the statement urging “…Muslims in the West, especially our youth, to leave off unproductive and divisive discussions of involved theological issues that are the proper domain of trained specialists.”

It simply won’t happen. And the reason is, people like me, who are not “trained specialists”, nonetheless feel that there are issues and debates raised by key facets of the teachings of Islam with which we feel impelled to engage, for the sake of our piece of mind. I don’t need to have bloody fights with people about my personal views, nor do I have the need to take up a position of authority with regards them.

However, given such issues are among my most pressing concerns, I enjoy discussing them, both offline and online, and like every human being in the free world I have that  need and right.

The pledge statement cited here conflates issues of intellectual elitism with issues of courtesy. The way in which some Muslims discuss their faith, particularly on the Net, is gruesome, although frankly a bit of rough and tumble in the heat of debate is not something I mind that much. Is it really ”rude” if done in jest? You see, even the meaning of courtesy is up for debate!

But this is bullshit, anyway - I know one signatory on this list is guilty of attacking a Muslim with whom he disagrees in quite shitty terms on his website! What is more important is fair-mindedness – an issue which should extend well beyond how we communicate with our fellow Muslims. And is this an issue that can be significantly addressed by signing pledges?

My principle objection is to the intellectual elitism implied in this statement, a position I consider both unworkable and unethical. Where will it lead? Will scholars who sign up to this refuse to translate key islamic texts from the Arabic in case the Muslim riff raff get to read them? How do you define a “specialist”? Does a trainee specialist have to agree with everything trained specialists say in order pass his exams? What are the key issues here? Tawhid? Or whether gays should be thrown in jail or hanged?

How many women are specialists? How many disabled Muslims? How many are mentally ill?

If you are unable to defend your position with reasonable argument - if you need to issue pledges and statements of positional authority (or indeed lists of oh-so-clever slogans maxims) to defend it, then it must be an extraordinarily weak one.

But my main objection stems from the presumption that Islam is a path in which beliefs and practices can be defined solely through intellectual reflection. My din is defined by the life I am living and the kind of person I am. I am a parent of a child with autism. I am a loner, myself bordering on the autistic spectrum. How many of the intellectuals and Shaykhs who signed this pledge know what it is like to live, day on day, year on year, caring for a disabled child with help from no help, struggling to connect with other human beings even in the virtual world? Would they expect me to fast? Would they expect me to pray five times a day? Would they be shocked if I looked upwards, once in a while, and screamed at God F**K Y*U in frustration and bitterness?

Me and my son, we are the mustad’afun fi’l-ard. These are the people with whom I sign a pledge of unity. The great shat upon. The people who, for one reason or another, you would rather pretend didn’t exist. And the Muslim elites, just like the do-gooder social services and professional educators who deal with me and my son, don’t want to hear the voice of the marginalised speaking.