Participation Versus Isolation

If you do not believe in destiny, then boy / girl do I have a story for you. So, I've been trying to get out of a conference presentation for some time now. First, I said that I don't have enough time to whittle my paper down to the required length. Then, I got a sinus infection (when one's nose got constantly broken, this is a result; kids, don't let your noses get broken. A public service announcement by Omar). Then I started doubting myself and convincing myself that no one cared about my work and that my day would be better spent tending my date palms. I was withdrawling inward, unsure of whether I wanted to be a part of the academic scene or even a part of the Muslim scene. It seems that sometimes individuals can act out in thier own lives the very same currents that push and pull whole communities and groups.

Yet, there was a powerful countercurrent that was pulling me to participate, so powerful that I am still pondering if my dear wife was behind it all, that conspirator of a woman she is whose dasterdly plans manage to set me right more often than I would care to admit. It all started last week when I bumped into not one, but three...yes count them *three* women from my department in the library. Each of them imparted something to me that pulled me towards participation, not least of which was one professor who must be sensing what I will not speak about and told me not to isolate myself and to participate.

Another was the conference organizer. I had told her I could not devote the time this year to participate. My presentation last year about the politics of determining the start of Ramadan had been very well recieved and they were looking for an encore; she told me they organized a panel around my paper. Well then, I couldn't very well stick to my guns and totally screw over a young woman who has been nothing but a good freind to me. I'm such a softie, but don't get any fancy ideas in your head, because I'm known to suddenly revert to hard-nosed Marine mode and...ok, you got me, I really am a softie and not even a gruff exterior can hide that.

But, that was over a week ago. I started sliding towards isolation again and away from participation by convincing myself that I was no longer at the top of my game. Then amazingly, last night another young woman (a talented Arab woman soon to be a bona fide linguistic anthropologist) emailed me saying that she had read my paper and she thought it was an important contribution to the study of how Arabic is used in Islamic cultures. I was floored. The night before the big day, the very night when I was going to give in to my sinuses and self-doubt and here comes a voice from out of nowhere saying I should go. Folks, is that the hand of God or what?

So, I closed my other programs, printed out my paper and set to rendering it into the finest Powerpoint a civilian could ever hope to behold. In the morning I rushed off...late as usual and found a room full of, oh wait, I can't use that adjective when 2/3 of the seats were empty, oh no sir. I was about to turn around, seeing my fear that no one cared come true. Last year, my audience was standing room only (apparently, the sparse attendence is across the board for some unknown reason). But, the one young woman was happy I had showed up and eagerly pointed for me to take a seat up front. So I did.

I could see some in the audience were not recieving it well, because I was telling them that current thinking in anthropology and linguistics is that certain languages are *not* especially suited to for specific purposes. That is, Arabic is not uniquely suited to being the sole language for expressing Islamic culture, siprituality or even law. Any other language can be equally well used for people to express themselves Islamically; Attar did it in Persian and so did Rumi; Fansuri did it in Malay; Iqbal did it in Urdu. However, I did say that knowledge of Arabic is a prerequisite for serious Islamic scholarship. However, that didn't mean I wanted to give up my native language or American culture as the Egyptian scholar whom I was critiquing had said I should. Indeed, other scholars say that linguistic diversity is an Islamic human right!

At the end, a Yemeni man was quite polite and jovial about his insistence that Arabic is protected by God (so tell me why no one in Yemen grows up speaking Classical Arabic then, why don'cha?). But, he was pleasant to answer. Not so pleasant was the older white woman who insisted that I was ignoring that certain languages *are* superior to another and that, for example, German was the perfect vehicle for a specific work of literature whose name escapes me now, while it would be impossible to write it in Dutch! I could only think that a) this was the clearest illustration of an ideology I had seen up close in personal in a long time and b) maybe she just wanted to get rid of all the Dutch speakers...perhaps a final solution for those pesky Dutch whose language is worthless for serious literature I suppose? Nevertheless, Dr's G and T. thought very highly of it and even want me to translate it into Persian and the later conversations I had with them were very illuminating.

I sent an email to Ms M., whose email had floored me last night telling her that she convinced me to go without even knowing at the time how much her note had meant to me. I then walked over to Dr H. and told her, too, how much her in-passing advice of "Don't isolate yourself" had affected my decisions over the past week. Niether of them had realized just how much such small gestures had affected the course of events. I'm glad they know, now.

But, in all this, I can't help to see how much this experience mirrors that of the community at large: the powerful urges, both internal and external which pull us as Muslims to both desire isolation and participation at one and the same time. I can only offer this: in the end, I was very glad I decided to participate. It was by no means easy, but it was accomplished. My wife was pleased, my professors were pleased and doing something is always better than doing nothing. Hear that, Muslims?