Captain's Quarters -

“The psychological consequences of this case in the city have been great, and a lot of people have lost their confidence in the judicial system,” Nemat Ahmadi, a lawyer associated with the case, said in a telephone interview.

Gee, I wonder why?

I think (hope) that this sort of thing will ultimately be very, um, counterproductive for the ayatollahs. From what little I know about them, the Iranian people, despite the best efforts of their religious fuhrers, are not a bunch of backwards, illiterate, 12th century peons who believe in the divine right of kings (or imams). Rather, they are educated, "modern" people who understand how justice systems and the rule of law are supposed to work. Further, it appears from the article that this Basiji Force isn't targetting some hated minority, as the nazis did in Germany or the KKK did in the South.

If the Basiji Force and the ayatollahs who control it start making the average Iranian feel that he (or she) may be murdered at any time for no good reason by this gang of self-righteous thugs, they may well be setting themselves for a date with a lamppost.

We can only hope.

"They can freely operate outside the law."

This just shows that CQ does not understand Islamic law and culture. We in the west could correctly state that they were working outside any *western* notion of law - and I'm pretty sure the mullahs would agree wholeheartedly. They do not want to work within western law; they want to work within Islamic law. Just as they have contempt for the western notion of ambassadors being protected people who should not be taken hostage.

We in the west would probably really like it if the Iranians adopted western notions of law, but there are a lot of people (e.g. all those Basiji who'll publicly beat anyone who argues) who would really like it if the westerners adopted Islamic values.

And last time I checked, there were a lot more muslims coming to the west and getting the westerners to bend to their morals than the other way around.

Laocoon,

I think there's an important distinction here, one that is supported by the statement of Mr. Ahmadi.

If the Basiji Force were an official arm of the Iranian government, then you're right: what they do would simply offend our western notions of law. But they are apparently not an official arm of the Iranian government, nor are they even enforcing official Iranian law. Rather, they have set themselves up as judge, jury and executioner. I don't think that even shariia recognizes such except inside one's family.

In effect, they are a lynch mob who've given themselves a veneer of legality by claiming to enforce islamic law. That the ayatollahs who rule Iran have given them a pardon only adds to that veneer, but I don't think that many people in Iran appreciate a self-appointed and brutal "police force" anymore than we would here in America.

docjim,

You are assuming that a "lynch mob" is inherently unislamic, merely by being outside of the official process and outside the family. There is a long line of islamic jurisprudence that says defense of islam is important enough to validate individual action - precisely the tradition cited by the mullahs.

Mr. Ahmadi may cite a different tradition, and that is fine, but Islam has always been "a mosaic, not a monolith". Arguing with mullahs or researching the law that almost any position (outside the 5 pillars) can be justified. With over a thousand years continuous history over a huge area, that's no so surprising.

There has always been a moderate inclusive tendency in mainstream Islam, and there has always been an supremacist exclusive tendency in mainstream Islam. Both traditions can be cited in , but the supremacist one is growing (thanks to our Saudi friends).

BTW, the distinction between "Iranian" and "Islamic" should be kept clear, just as should the distinction between "Iranian government policy" and "desires of most of the subjects". My suspicion is that most of the people have enough Zoroastrian history and Western influence to seriously disagree with a lot of Islamic policies - but they are powerless.

The article is a bit confusing:
the killers were "six members of a prestigious state militia" which is the "Basiji Force, volunteer vigilantes favored by the country’s supreme leader"
But: "the accused watched a tape by a senior cleric who ruled that Muslims could kill a morally corrupt person if the law failed to confront that person"

So it appears that they were volunteer members of a state vigilante group, but acting outside the normal parameters of the law. Sort of similar to the US's laws about using deadly force to protect someone in imminent harm, except that in Iran it is o.k. to kill an engaged couple walking together.

Interestingly, "President Ahmadinejad was a member of the force"

Laocoon wrote (April 19, 2007 08:20 AM):

You are assuming that a "lynch mob" is inherently unislamic, merely by being outside of the official process and outside the family. There is a long line of islamic jurisprudence that says defense of islam is important enough to validate individual action - precisely the tradition cited by the mullahs.

But is there a long line of Iranian jurisprudence that says that religious lynch mobs are OK? I really don't know anything about the history of Iran and its legal system, but I get the idea that there isn't such a legal tradition in their country, and that's why Ahmadi is upset.

I understand that there are religious police in some Islamic countries, notably Saudi Arabia, but they are apparently as "official" in Saudi Arabia as the FBI is in our country. Hence, they are not a lynch mob, no matter how beastly their actions might seem to most Americans.

BTW, the distinction between "Iranian" and "Islamic" should be kept clear, just as should the distinction between "Iranian government policy" and "desires of most of the subjects". My suspicion is that most of the people have enough Zoroastrian history and Western influence to seriously disagree with a lot of Islamic policies - but they are powerless.

I agree. It may be that the average Iranian isn't upset by the existence and actions of a semi-legal religious police, but I doubt that this is so. I suspect that even "good Muslims" in the Iranian population have little desire to have a theocratic Big Brother hovering over them, just as "good Christian" Englishmen during the time of Cromwell got bloody sick and tired of puritanical laws (banning Christmas; how wrong is that???), or Puritans after the Salem witch trials realized that it was a Bad Thing(TM) to try to enforce hyper-strict standards of religion even on a colony of "visible saints".

docjim,

SUCCINCT VERSION:

You are definitely correct that there are official religious police in some Islamic countries. My point is that the is a large volume of Islamic jurisprudence justifying unofficial, individual or mob, action to Defend Islam, Punish Immorality, etc. The Iranians are applying that volume of law as it exists.

It gets back to the parallel traditions: tolerant, inclusivist, spiritual, and the intolerant, exclusivist, supremacist traditions.

FOR THE PEDANTICALLY INCLINED (like me):

The two traditions are fighting for supremacy (the much discussed "civil war within Islam"), and I hope the inclusivists win, but it is clear that both are well-established traditions - and the Islamic Republic was always been in the exclusivist camp.

The supremacists regard "good muslims" as so far above "bad muslims" or non-muslims as to inherently have the right to physically punish the latter two for not being good muslims, for expecting even basic equality, and so on. We in the west have a basic notion of equality that precludes one random citizen setting themselves up as judge, jury, and executioner of another citizen - but the supremacist tradition affirms the extreme inequality between man and woman, muslim and non-muslim, 'people of a book' and people without a codified holy book, free and enslaved, and so on.

For example, there are widely accepted Islamic laws justifying physical punishments of dhimmi who fail to yield the sidewalk to a muslim. Or who fail to wear the yellow star, or the blue belt, or the various other required insignia. [Yep, now you know where the Nazis got that system.] The laws were not just in regard to clothing. There are many, many more such laws justifying unofficial action against those who are non-muslim, immoral, offending Islam (e.g. wearing shoes that made noise when they walked, which is why the Taliban revived the old law and made everyone wear quiet shoes), and on and on and on.

And yes, they let any muslim to persecute a dhimmi for any minor infraction - even unto death. The penalty for defaming Islam was death, which again any good muslim could cite to justify his unofficial actions: "I pushed him off the sidewalk (with my left hand, of course), and he insulted Islam by calling me a 'dirty muslim'". And if the non-muslim's family were stupid enough to try to go to court, they would discover that their testimony was legally required to be disregarded whenever it conflicted with a muslim's.

Think about that. It was *not* the case that prejudiced bigots twisted a legal system that was basically decent by western standards, but rather that the system was designed to non-western, Islamic standards and hence it was specifically, deliberately, and openly designed to trample on non-muslims precisely because they were not muslims. That's islamic law; look it up.

Straight out of the koran: a muslim might or might not be put to death for killing another muslim, but no muslim can ever be put to death for killing any non-muslim, no matter how gruesomely they do it. Think about the morality that reflects.

In the Islamic heartland of the middle east, these exclusivist and supremacist laws were upheld, allowing any random individual muslim to brutally exploit and terrorize at will. ("Pay or I'll say you insulted the prophet", "Give me your daughter as a slave, or I'll say everyone in your whole family insulted the prophet", and so on.) And the law regarded this as a good thing, because the generally accepted logic was that (1) anyone with the personal arrogance and evil nature to resist Islam after they have seen it deserves whatever suffering they get, and (2) constant torment of non-muslims provides an incentive to convert to Islam, and anything that promotes Islam is ipso facto good. That's pretty different from western ideas of justice, and it has been the law for a thousand years. Think of how deeply that affects a people's psychology and culture.

That's what Pope Benedict was referring to when the quoted the Byzantine Emperor.

I think that this is contrary to the (comparatively) tolerant and inclusive traditions of ancient Persia (aka Iran) -- but (1) there is a vigorous debate on the issue, and (2) *islamic* severity is exactly what you would except from the *Islamic* Republic of Iran.

The debate is whether the Shah's modernizing revolution (e.g. banning the veil and punishing women who wore it) was a natural development of Iran's comparatively relaxed version of Islam, or whether it was an enforced deviation from the natural Islamic traditions of Iran (after all, it did take state coercion to do away with the veil, and the Khomeinists can argue that they are just bringing back the veils which women voluntarily chose before the Shah men polluted their minds with "westoxification" (his word, not mine)).

The whole rationalle for the Islamic Republic of Iran to exist is to undo westoxification and restore/enforce Islamic morality. One of Khomeini's advisors once pointed out that his religiously-motivated policies were trashing the economy, causing massive shortages, widespread hunger, and rampant inflation. His response: "The Revolution is not about the price of watermelon." The Revolution was not about providing a better life for the people, much less about doing what they wanted. It was about Islamic virtue. So, where Islamic morality of hierarchy and Persian traditions of equality clash, the *Islamic* Republic insists that the persian traditions must yield. They are unislamic and hence jahilli, you see.

Because of the two traditions, those draconian laws were not universally upheld. Because of the two traditions (the four recognized schools of law and all their subdivisions), Islamic Law is not a unified and consistent whole.

In Spain during the last centuries of the muslim occupation, those judges who tried to invoke the old arabic traditions were generally overruled. The non-muslims had nothing like equal rights, but at least they were not openly labelled and proudly persecuted.

The Iranian judges are just doing what the Spanish judges did: trying to use Islamic law to push Islamic morality on a society that does not really want it that much. The spanish judges 800 years ago and the iranian judges today are appealing to the same long-standing, widely respected precedents of that tradition in Islamic law.

docjim,

I forgot to add: the Iranian people are very much split over this issue, and every other manifestation of the two traditions.

There are obviously enough hardline Khomeinists to lead a revolution and hold power for almost thirty years. There are a lot who are bitterly resentful and regard the Khomeinists as un-iranian barbarians -- even making up conspiracy theories to show that no real iranians were involved in the revolution.

But most are schizophrenic, being both pro- and anti-, depending on who is speaking, how it is presented, and the precise phase of the moon.

Laocoon,

That was very informative. Thank you.

It also really underscores what we're up against. I suddenly feel like a Jew in '38 who suddenly, really realized that, "Those bastards are serious: they REALLY want me dead."

Yeah, I remember when I had that moment of realization. It was pretty depressing.

It's not really "depressing". That is, I don't think "depressing" is the correct word. Too "defensive" for me...my goal is that if I'm going out, I'll try to take at least three of them with me.

Fitzgerald offers a perspective on the 'two traditions', with the exclusivist, supremacist one on display in America in regards the VT shootings:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/016138.php

He also argues that the moderate, inclusivist tradition is merely a deliberately deceptive facade, concealing the exclusivist and supremacist core of Islam. In his reading, it is like the first stage of a cult, where they get you emotionally committed and dependent so that you'll accept atrocities in the second stage - atrocities which would have repulsed you as an outsider.

I can't say he's wrong.