July 15, 2013
Yasmine Bahrani
The Miami Herald
3511 NW 91st Street
Miami, FL33172

RE: “What Happened to Islam?” – Some comments on your op-ed in today’s Miami Herald that, alas, asks the wrong question.

Ms. Bahrani,

The heading should be “What Didn’t Happen to Islam”. The question should be “Why Didn’t It Happen”.

Here’s what I know.

25 centuries ago, the Muslim world – even before there was a Muslim world – tried to strangle Western Civilization in its crib. Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Platea, the Wooden Wall, Hoplite phalanxes, all said no. Look them up. It makes for interesting reading. The tradition of “free men speaking with free tongues” began there. Is there a Muslim country anywhere on this planet where that is the law and the custom?

14 centuries ago Muslim hordes – And I don’t much care whether it was the Sunnis or the Shia – rampaged across Europe. They set standards for rape, looting, and pillaging that were most impressive, even for those days. They would have gone straight to Finland if it weren’t for Charles Martel, AKA “The Hammer”. He earned his name the old fashioned way: He killed the first Muslim thugs to invade Europe.

In the meantime, the entity oft times known as Western Civilization was stumbling its way to self-governance. It wasn’t pretty and Allah knows it wasn’t easy. In the parts of the world where it has taken root it is taken for granted as is the sun and the moon. In most of the world it is as welcome as a toxic fungating pox. Naturally, the people in charge, the ayatollahs, the imams, the whippers, inter alia, want to stay in charge. Thus, when a cartoon in Holland appears suggesting the Allah ain’t so Akbar and the prophet Mohammed, and blessed be his name, kept his dance card filled with pre-menstrual girls, all of whom were Muslim because you have to die to get the 72 infidel virgins, half of Pakistan burned down the other half. Both halves applauded. Slick.

In the end the legatees of the agora, of the forum, of Runnymede in 1215, of London in 1688, of Philadelphia in 1789 have something that most of the world secretly envies and openly resents.

Along the way we went to the moon, walked around the moon for a few days, picked up some cool souvenirs from the moon, and came back from the moon.
Bach, Mozart, Beethoven - where are their contemporaries from the Fertile Crescent?

The Zippo lighter. Child proof caps. MRIs. MREs. The Sidewinder missile. Chuck Yeager. Corduroy. Zippers. Lead free gasoline. Kipling. Kemmons Wilson. Picasso & Matisse. La Giaconda. Midway. Nessum dorma. The presumption of innocence. Russell Kirk. Single malt whisky. Walt Disney. The first ERA. Oranges year round. SPAM – both kinds. Grove’s Law. Radar. Winston Churchill. Zip-Loc bags. Saint Marcellin Champagnat, Twitter, Senior discounts. Hayden. The infield fly rule. Inside straights and the attempted filling thereof. Food for dogs; food for cats; food for birds; food for fish. Norman Podhoretz. Amazing Grace. Samuel Johnson. Cole Porter lyrics. Jumbo shrimp. National elections, vigorously contested, in 1864 and 1944. WD40. “But wait. There’s more.” Dante. IS95 and IS80. DDT. Inflight movies. The UT/OU October shoot out. Scrooge. “Where or When”. 50 months from pencil sketches to Fat Boy, Little Man, and blotto. Hula Hoops. The Concorde. Talbot ’79. Drive-thru Big Macs. The eternal Hostess Twinkie. Cable TV. Due process. Shakespeare.

After Omar Sharif your list dwindles.

How many symphony orchestras are in Riyadh? Will the touring company of Las Cages aux Folles be stopping in Medina this season? Why does Baylor Hospital in Dallas have an entire floor reserved for Saudis? They have a lot of money. Why don’t they have hospitals? What does the Islamic Silicon Valley do during Ramadan? If it weren’t for oil they would have eaten all their camels by now. [Maybe bacon ain’t so bad after all] Tell me again about “honor killings”. I lost my notes from the first lecture.

“Critics say Muslims have to deal with it on their own.
What does that require of the average Muslim? March in
the streets? Egyptians and Bahrainis did. Rise up? Check.
Demand rights from leaders? Check. Clearly non-political
Muslims need help.”
The Miami Herald
Today
You

When Napoleon learned – after Trafalgar – that Nelson exhorted, not commanded, his Jack Tars by signal flag that “England expects every man to do his duty” he ordered the same language run up on his remaining ships. What was missing was the centuries of repetitive DNA dousings of freedom being applied over and over to the warp and woof of these men that made them say “Of course. You don’t have to ask.”

If leaders can dispense rights would not Logic dictate that leaders can take those rights away?

“Rights” are not in a lockbox hidden behind a magic curtain that only the Wizard, and don’t we hope it’s a good Wizard, has the combination to.

“Arab springs” do not “create” rights.

Rights are ours at birth. They are “gifts from beyond the stars”. The only positive thing any government can do is to codify and defend them. It is inherent in the nature of all governments all the time to restrict, to deny, to control the rights of its citizens. Burke told us that the conflict between order and freedom is never ending. [Last week marked the 215th anniversary of the Alien & Sedition Act]

If you read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution you will see a blueprint for self-governance. Those documents presuppose 2 millennia of turmoil, of debate, of bloodshed.

Architecture demands, inter alia, certain constants. Imagine a bridge or a building where pi differs according to the architect’s taste.

As to “What happened to Islam”, the die was cast – I am nothing if not an elitist – 25 centuries ago. You went for double or nothing 14 centuries ago. Losing again, you, your religion, and your culture began to turn inward. Absent any outside influence – consult an Augustinian monk named Mendel – you became gnarled and intransigent. Worse, you allowed that to become the model for generations yet unborn.

What are the accomplishments of Islam – literary, scientific, medical, cultural, ethical - in the past millennium?

The roll call of Islamic Nobel Prize winners would fill the back of an envelope if you wrote large.

It took T. E. Lawrence, a slightly mad Englishman, to get your immediate forebears to see past the closest wadi.

I am not sure even if you stop outlawing whistling, if you say that balloons are Kosher, if you stop blowing up people to make your point, if you stop beheading Catholic clerics, if you stop saying the Jews are descended from monkeys and pigs you would be worthy of an Islamic replay of the American Presidential election of 2000.

Perhaps you will continue to chew your limbs off. I don’t know if it’s still your choice.



Kevin Smith