The Hijab and I - Essays/ Polemics/ Reviews is the fourth collection of the English writings of Indian-American Urdu scholar Choudhri Mohammed Naim to be published by The City Press. This particular volume represents Naim’s “[…] engagement with issues of ‘identity’ politics in the United States [...]”, and comprises revised versions of pieces which were originally published between 1992 and 2012.
There are countless writers discussing issues which interlink identity, politics, and religion. What differentiates Naim from many others is his linguistic facility coupled with a knowledge of the evolution of religious and social practices. The result is instructive commentary on the fluidity of identity i.e. the way in which people’s understanding of their own cultural activities differs in time and space.
The Hijab and I- Essays/Polemics/Reviews. C. M. Naim, City Press, Karachi, 2015. Pp.131. ISBN: 9789696480112. Rs.450.
For example, in the titular essay ‘The Hijab and I’, Naim recalls how the burqa of an older generation was usually white, in contrast to the black burqas of modern times, and goes on to describe how successive generations of women have altered their clothing preferences over the decades and interpreted purdah in various ways. Different locales, eras, and socio-economic factors, it is revealed, necessitate diverse applications of religious ideas.
Women in Islam is also one of the themes of ‘A ‘Hyper-Masculinised’ Islam?’. “The diminution of the women’s role has removed the poetry, ambiguity, and humility that my generation commonly experienced […]”, writes Naim, contrasting this with the aggressive “sectarian self-righteousness” of the more masculine Islam of today.
Inquiring as to what constitutes one’s identity - and being cognizant of how identities may evolve - is linked to challenging monolithic ideas of what Islam is and is not, and Naim is prone to deconstructing simplistic ideas about Islam, whether these are perpetrated by Muslims or non-Muslims.
C.M. Naim
C. M. Naim offers instructive commentary on the fluidity of identity
For instance, in ‘The Outrage of Bernard Lewis’, Naim points out the generalisations and prejudices that dominate the orientalist’s essay ‘The Roots of Muslim Rage’. Similarly, the piece ‘A ‘Browning’ of Islam in America?’ raises the question as to why the American media, when discoursing about Islam in the USA, does not discuss African-American Muslims. ‘Some Thoughts on Christian-Muslim Dialogues’ recounts the limitations of the inter-faith events which Naim has attended, dialogues which tend to promulgate oversimplified and politically correct historical narratives: “There is one Islam and there are many Islams. There is one Islam in the fact that there is one revealed book and one Prophet to whom it was revealed. There are many Islams in the fact that there are many different traditions of interpreting God’s words and relating one’s life to the life of the Prophet. […] the lived Islam of a peasant in Bangladesh is similar to but not identical with that of his counterpart in Algeria, as is the case for a middle-class professional in Karachi and his counterpart in Indonesia.” Naim observes that these regional differences “[...] were not present in the remarks of the Muslims, and formed no part of the understanding that the Christians sought”.
Another way in which Naim indirectly dismantles reductionist notions of what constitutes a legitimate Islamic identity is by discussing historically prominent people whose allegiances or practices cannot be neatly compartmentalised. So, ‘The Maulana Who Loved Krishna’ touches upon the life and poetry of Fazlul Hasan, more widely known as Maulana Hasrat Mohani, a man who seemingly found no incongruity between going on Hajj eleven times while also composing verses expressing love for Krishna.
Orientalist scholar Bernard Lewis - C.M. Naim engages with his work among others
The piece titled ‘A Musafir to London’ discusses the European trip of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan during the years 1869-1870. During this sojourn, which was funded by mortgaging his property and borrowing funds from friends, the Anglophilic Sir Syed spent time in the library of the British Museum in order to gather data for a book he was writing: a rejoinder to Sir William Muir’s “twisted and distorted” book A Life of Mahomet and History of Islam to the Era of the Hegira. The effort Sir Syed put into his book was considerable, so much so that he was unsure as to how he would return to India. Given that Sir Syed was sometimes branded as a kafir, this defence of Islam is interesting, in that it might be instructive to many ostensibly more holy men whose first recourse is to the sword rather than the pen.
Other worthy inclusions in this volume include ‘An Epiphenomenal Book’, in which Naim dissects what he sees as the incompetence, inaccuracies, and plagiaristic tendencies of Jaswant Singh’s biography Jinnah: India, Partition, Independence, and a nuanced review of Deepa Mehta’s controversial 1996 film Fire.
Naim’s pieces often mingle the personal with the political - private experiences and observations are often the springboard to a more historical and objective exploration or analysis of contemporary issues. He is honest about his own feelings and attitudes to various events, and doesn’t hesitate to point out his errors and weaknesses. One noticeable example of this is Naim’s description of his state of mind during and immediately after 9/11. A few days after the attacks, Naim attended a memorial service on a university campus. In a nervous and fearful state, he witnessed a young Muslim girl donning a hijab recite a seemingly simple prayer to honour the victims of the terrorist attack. “How trite, I thought patronisingly”, recounts Naim. But upon reflection the older scholar came to admire the younger girl and her actions, regarding her as a braver soul than himself. This readiness for self-examination and questioning is admirable, and by reflecting both within and without, Naim is well-placed to tackle the dangers warned of by historian Eric Hobsbawm, who Naim quotes: “Myth and invention are essential to the politics of identity by which groups of people today, defining themselves by ethnicity, religion, or the past or present borders of states, try to find some certainty in an uncertain and shaking world by saying, ‘We are different from and better than the Others’”.
Like previous publications, this volume suffers from some minor typographical errors and inconsistencies in Romanisation, but these are few and far between. What is disappointing is that, of the thirteen pieces in this volume, six have appeared before in the 1999 City Press collection titled Ambiguities of Heritage. This volume is still in print, however, and the sound decision to incorporate thematically similar pieces into a single volume notwithstanding, one wishes that more space had been dedicated to previously unpublished material. More material by C. M. Naim revealing the complexities of history and culture, and thereby uncovering the myths and inventions which fuel intolerance, is always welcome.
