a digression on jews and muslims

late 14c., from L. digressionem (nom. digressio) "a going away, departing," noun of action from pp. stem of digredi "to deviate," from dis- "apart, aside" (see dis-) + gradi "to step, go"

Jean Weir in his 'De Praestigis daemonum' (1564) had calculated that 7, 409, 127 demons were working for Lucifer.

You find this fascination for detail laughably ridiculous. Slightly more serious, though, is the religious fanaticism that lies behind it. Of course, not 'counting' can sometimes also be diabolical ("we don't do body counts," they said about Iraq).

What's disturbing about certain aspects of religion is the flights of fancy it can inspire. The mind, unmoored, unrestrained by facts, veers off into all sorts of useless directions. The fanatic, unaware of his own humanity or that of others, disparages the ordinary and the complex and opts for the "heroic" and the simple. The springs of motivation are clear-cut and elementary; the end is dazzlingly self-evident and irreducible, and the possibility of a revision of one's ideas of how to live are ruled out from the beginning, which is another way of saying that he never allows his ideas and values to brush up against the social fabric of reality.

But the 'anti-religious' types are no less boring and predictable. Those who can't see any beauty or truth in religion or other cultures are often, to my mind at least, as closed-in and narrow in their outlook as the conservatives (and possibly the fundamentalists as well).

So, when E-k writes about the dispersion of jewishness in America I can understand that at a personal level ('understanding' is already once removed from feeling perhaps). I mean, to lose one's identity is,no doubt, a personal tragedy. Politically, of course, it might not be such a bad thing for the Palestinians!

And from my own experience I know that some of my cousins/friends are deeply concerned about losing their muslim identity living in Britain and the States. And yet, to be honest, such a thought never occurred to me in all my years there nor does it interest me one bit.

Recently got in touch with an old friend who chose a religious life. Very moderate person, not a 'beard'. Read Augustine's City of God in school days -and not to refute, but to learn. And you've still got a lot of admiration for his quiet dedication to a kind of life that he passionately believes in. There's something to be said for that and you would be wrong to say that there isn't something there that deeply appeals to you. The 'life of the mind' isn't all that great if you haven't got much of a mind, and you doubt it would be even if you did.

So, I don't think of myself as a 'British Muslim' at all. Questions of identity are, to paraphrase Augustine, not a problem unless I think about them! Can one stand aside from one's faith and still be religious: a non-Muslim muslim? Again, questions of faith are only interesting to those who are out of the circle of faith (this horrifies my non-religious friends who believe everyhting should be questioned, scrutinized, even though that's very bad manners).

Can one renounce one's faith? Possibly. But I was born somewhere else, and this nose of mine, which no-one as of yet has commented upon,that neither Roxana, or anton, or nikki knows, though both jewish and muslim is, to not put too fine a point on it, still quintessentially Kashmiri!