The Year of Rice and Salt

'Khaldun also addresses a systemic problem in Islamic. economy, in its origins among Bedouin practice. He says of them, "Places that succumb to the Bedouins are quickly ruined. The reason for this is that the Bedouins are a savage nation, fully accustomed to savagery and the things that cause it. Savagery has become their character and nature. They enjoy it, because it means freedom from authority and no subservience to leadership. Such a natural disposition is the negation and antithesis of civilization." He goes on to say, "It is their nature to plunder whatever other people possess. Their sustenance lies wherever the shadow of their lances falls." And after that he gives us the labour theory of value, saying "Now, labour is the real basis of profit. When labour is not appreciated and is done for nothing, the hope for profit vanishes, and no productive work is done. The sedentary population disperses, and civilization decays." Really quite amazing, how much Khaldun saw, and this back in a time when the people living here in Nsara were dying of their plague, and the rest of the world not even,close to thinking historically.'

The time for reading ended. Her audience settled back into their chairs and beds, hunkering down for the long empty watches of the afternoon.

Budur left with her usual combination of guilt, relief and joy, and on this day went directly to Kirana's class.

'How can we ever progress out of our origins,' she asked their teacher plaintively, 'when our faith orders us not to leave them?'

Kirana replied, 'Our faith said no such thing. This is just something the fundamentalists say, to keep their hold on power.'

Budur felt confused. 'But what about the parts of the Quran that tell us Mohammed is the last prophet, and the rules in the Quran should stand for ever?'

Kirana shook her head impatiently. 'This is another case of taking an exception for the general rule, a very common fundamentalist tactic. In fact there are some truths in the Quran that Mohammed declared eternal – such existential realities as the fundamental equality of every person how could that ever change? But the more worldly concerns of the Quran, involved with the building of an Arabic state, changed with circumstances, even within the Quran itself, as in its variable statements against alcohol. Thus the principle of naskh, in which later Quranic instructions supersede earlier ones. And in Mohammed's last statements, he made it clear that he wanted us to respond to changing situations, and to make Islam better – to come up with moral solutions that conform to the basic framework, but respond to new facts.'

Naser asked, 'I wonder if one of Mohammed's seven scribes could have inserted into the Quran ideas of his own?'

Again Kirana shook her head. 'Recall the way the Quran was assembled. The mushaf, the final physical document, was the result of Osman bringing together all the surviving witnesses to Mohammed's dictation, his scribes, wives and companions, who together agreed upon a single correct version of the holy book. No individual interpolations could have survived that process. No, the Quran is a single voice, Mohammed's voice, Allah's voice. And it is a message of great freedom and justice on this Earth! it is the hadith that contain the false messages, the reimposition of hierarchy and patriarchy, the exceptional cases twisted to general rules. It's the hadith that abandon the major jihad, the fight against one's own temptations, for the minor jihad, the defence of Islam against attack. No – in so many ways, the rulers and clerics have distorted the Quran to their own purposes. This has been true in all religions, of course. It is inevitable. Anything divine must come to us in worldly clothing, and so it comes to us altered. The divine is like rain striking the Earth, and all our efforts at godliness are therefore muddy all but those few seconds of complete inundation, the moments that the mystics describe, when we are nothing but rain. But those moments are always brief, as the sufis themselves admit. So we should let the occasional chalice break, if needs be, to get at the truth of the water inside it.'

Encouraged, Budur said, 'So how do we be modern Muslims?'

'We don't,' the oldest woman rasped, never pausing in her knitting. 'It's an ancient desert cult that has brought ruin to countless generations, including mine and yours, I'm afraid. It's time to admit that and move on.'

'On to what, though?'