Binary Islam

There is something binary about Islam.  At birth and with the first breath - when the father whispers into the neonates ear (the Adhan into the right ear and the Iqamah into the left) -  in the third grade text at the Islamic school a few miles from my home (which commands young children which side to sleep on and how to properly place the hand under the cheek) - in a book by Abu Ameenah Philips which advises how to properly step into a bathroom and which prayer to utter - down to the plastic water pot on the floor by the toilet in a local restaurant. Islam is binary.

Muslims will tell you that Islam is a code of conduct.  But it really is a bunch of zeros and ones - a software code which is hardwired into the frame.  It is a cryptograph and I have worked on it for two decades.

One of the most delicate of codes involves gossip. It is hard enough for the journalist to obtain a story. And nearly impossible for HumInt to produce results without a strong basis of trust.  And if there is one thing we have only grasped partially, it is our "naming" of a Honor/Shame culture in Islam.  

In charismatic circles, there is a phrase, "Name it and claim it!", as part of the hyper-faith component. But I have noted the Western weasels (otherwise known as our analytical community) love attaching names to things which they do not understand.  And a weasel in a cubicle somewhere coined the phrase Honor/Shame culture.

But remember that Islam is binary.  And our superficial explanation is tied into a much more mundane binary, and that is the lowly term of gossip.  And the binary aspect runs so much deeper.  What the Qur'anic Sciences have to say about gossip determine the fortitude of the Ummah not to tattle about anything.  And I really mean, errrr.... everything.  

We conveniently dispatch linguistics which expose the visible but not the invisible (Arabic root Gh-y-b).  And while Honor/Shame culture provides cover for ethnographers who nonchalantly discuss the murder and abuse of Muslim girls and women, the truth is that forbidding gossip means that coming up on twenty months since a young Muslim lady was forced out of my vehicle, she still remains Status Unknown. Because beneath the visible linguistics lie the invisible activities.  She remains Al-Ghayb.

The Qur'an does not actually use the word gossip and there is no real three-letter Arabic root; but other descriptions come into play with transliteration.  Regardless, to be allowed entrance into  the world of Islam and the homes of Muslims means entrance into a complex world of secrets.  As a journalist, I have kept many and not violated the confidence of the speaker nor perhaps, the sorrows shared by the women.

Gossip:

Let's start with the Qur'an:  Surah 49:12 and 104:1.  And let's move to a weak Ahadith.  Gossip (something which insults another man) is equivalent to incest with your mother. Abu Dawud no. 4083 and at-Tirmidhi no 1655 forbid exposing the faults of another Muslim.

And then we come to the Seerah of Prophet Muhammad.  His wife, Aisha, was reprimanded for a word wrongly spoken.  She was told that the one word could pollute the water of the ocean.  Now that is a heavy burden to place on the shoulders. 

I doubt we will encounter many Muslim comedy clubs because they are not to jest at the expense of another Muslim.  And this extends not only to slander, but even if the jesting is a truthful estimation.

Gossip is considered worse than any violations committed on Yawm al Nahr. (The third day of Hajj known as the day of sacrifice). Now we are getting into the heady stuff.  And we could talk about copper claws, but I think you get the point.

The terrain of the mind determines behavior and that behavior is determined by the terrain of the mind.

Padlock.