Ritual and Sincerity-The Difference Could Lead You to Guantanamo

We discussed extensively today in class Pitts’ “identity crisis” and the nature of his confusing rhetoric. It seems that Pitts is unable to reconcile what he feels he should be versus what he truly believes. Our discussion reminded me of a similar situation that appeared on the show “Homeland.” I’m not sure how many have watched it, or intend to watch it, but this is your spoiler warning!

Sgt. Brody, a Marine, was held prisoner and tortured for 8 years by Al- Qaeda when he is suddenly found and rescued by U.S. Troops in Afghanistan (or Iraq, I can’t remember). Though he was presumed dead, he returns home to a surprised/confused/older family and media circus. This of course, creates a lot of dramatic problems you’ll have to watch the show to see. The real gem of the show in relation to our discussion is the true “identity” of Sgt. Brody. Since he was held captive so long, the CIA questions his true identity, fearing that he has “turned,” and is now working for a terrorist network. Brody’s identity (religious and therefore political) is also questioned by the audience because of the few private scenes in which Brody is praying in the ritualistic style of Muslims—the “salah” that Pitts describes in Chapter 6. This show and Pitts’ narrative is such an interesting parallel, because even today, a reverence for Islam’s rituals is still seen as extremely taboo. Though Brody never admits outright to being Muslim, we are to assume that because he prays in Arabic with the characteristic bending and bowing, that he is Muslim, and that he has “turned,” leaving no room for a much more forgiving psychological analysis of Brody’s methods of prayer. Similarly, Pitts seems “confused” because of his reverence for Muslim ritual (the hajj, the salah, the extensive washing and religious education) and his denial that he is Muslim. Can ritual and practice truly indicate belief? If not, and Brody and Pitts are just sympathetic and confused, what then, is the point of ritual? This is perhaps a question a Presbyterian would ask. Pitts, though Presbyterian, seems to frame his entire narrative around supplying the West with details of Muslim ritual without really condemning it. In fact, it seems like he’s admiring it.

In terms of Brody and Pitts, captivity in the Muslim world for extended periods likely plays a significant role in their views on Islam’s rituals. Perhaps ritual provided a sense of comfort that otherwise did not exist in prison and enslavement. Perhaps it was sincere, and for a time Pitts and Brody saw ritual as inextricable from true belief, and really were (are) Muslim. Regardless, a larger point here is the fear that those held captive in the Muslim world will “turn” has transcended 300 years of political history. It would still be weird for a white guy to spend 15 years in the Muslim world and come back, write a book, and not be suspected of some kind of treasonous activity. Just as Pitts’ audience would be incredibly suspicious that he’d “turned Turk,” a man in Pitts’ position with the same kind of “inside,” detailed information about Muslims in 2013 might not even be let back into the country without being placed on some kind of list. The religious identity of Pitts and Brody are forgivably muddied, considering their captivity, but their identities are still absolutely necessary to pinpoint (in the eyes of the public) because of the persistent “danger” that Islam presents to the West.  This is perhaps an interesting segue between our discussion today and our readings on Orientalism for next week. Why must the Other always be a suspected enemy?

I added a video of some decent clips from “Homeland” so you guys can see what I’m talking about:

Picking Sides

Pitts continually related Catholicism to Islam throughout the beginning portions of the text. I think there are a number of reasons he employs such a metaphor, but the largest contributing factor is the accessibility of this metaphor to his readers. It is something that Europeans clearly understand and thus it makes the incredibly foreign Islam slightly more digestible. In attempting to side himself with the Europeans, Pitts uses the analogy, in my opinion, to bring Islam and thus himself closer to those he defected from and is now trying to use the similarities he explores to re-pledge his allegiance to the culture of his readers. Ultimately, I felt Pitts believes the Catholics to be idolatrous and false in their faith and as such worse than Muslims. Given his attempts to realign himself, this type of narrative cannot continue to the conclusion. Thus, he ultimately strikes down the analogy in an attempt to further separate himself from Islam.

Pitt’s Need for Redemption

Sprinkled throughout Pitts’ “True and Faithful Account,” are a number of subtle parallels between Catholicism and the religion of Islam. According to Pitts, the Islamic hell may be compared to Roman purgatory and Dervish dress mimics that of certain orders of Catholic friars. However, Pitts digresses from this theme of Islamic-Catholic unity in his assertion that unlike Catholics, poor, uneducated Muslims, or the “vulgar”(290) are encouraged to read their respective holy book, the Qur’an, independent of a priest. Initially, Pitts identification of a major difference between Islam and Catholicism seems contrary to his objective of emphasizing commonalities between the two religions. However, by invoking this major difference, Pitts successfully furthers his purpose of injuring Catholicism. Because individual Muslims are encouraged to read the Qur’an, they are not, as the majority of Catholics are, “condemned to live and die in an implicit faith of what they are taught by their priests” (290). To note that the religion of Islam is superior to Catholicism in any respect is a devastating insult to Catholicism, and serves as a progression of Pitts argument against the Catholic faith. Initially noting that Catholicism and Islam are similiar, Pitts finally concludes that in some way, Catholicism was actually worse than Islam. By attacking Catholicism at a time in English history when anti-Catholic sentiment was still high, and the advocation of Catholicism was considered contrary to British interests, Pitts attempts to establish himself as both a true Protestant Christian as well as a patriot. As a result of converting to Islam and “turning Turk,” both of these identities were questioned.

Pitts: The Devoted Bringer of Truths

Joseph Pitts, in his publication, A True and Faithful Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mohammetans, with an Account of the Author’s Being Taken Captive (1704), set out to finally set the record straight about the culture and religion of the followers of Islam.  Within its short preface alone, he uses the word “truth” and its synonyms to all their varying degrees at least once in almost every paragraph.  His desire to dispel falsehoods is borderline obsessive, but it is, when ignoring solely his opinions, quite accurate.  Throughout the entire work, he uses comparative language between the Muslim and Catholic religions when discussing the customs, practices, and beliefs of the peoples he spent a large portion of his life emerged with as a slave and, eventually, a free man.  At the end of chapter 7, however, he turns away from this analogy saying of a 1649 English translator’s preface of the Qur’an, “the translator saith that the vulgar are not required to read the Alcoran but (as the poor Romanists) to live and die in an implicit faith of what they are taught by their priests.  This I utterly deny, for it is not only permitted and allowed of, but it is (as I intimated before) looked on as very commendable in any person to be diligent in the reading of it” (290).  There may be no other reason for this end to the analogy other than the fact that the comparison above, in this instance, holds no truth.

I, as a practicing Roman Catholic and in drawing on my knowledge of my religion’s history, have found that Pitts’ analogies of the Muslim and Catholic faith are accurate.  While the two faiths have many major differences, they also, as Pitt has pointed out numerous times within his publication, many major and minor similarities.  The veneration of saints, for instance, is one of these.  The main reason to deny the quote above then is that it is not true.  The followers of Muhammad are, in fact, encouraged to read their holy book, the Qur’an.  However, for the Roman Catholics, it was true that the lay people were discouraged from believing anything but what their priests and clergy taught them.  And, unless they had the privilege of time to study the Bible in depth on their own or to learn Latin, hearing the Gospel directly read from the Bible was nearly impossible, for Mass was delivered entirely in Latin.  This was common knowledge for the people of Pitts’ time.  It wasn’t until quite some time after the rulings of the Second Vatican Council that this changed.  That is, it wasn’t until 1965 that Mass started to be delivered in the vernacular!  As a Roman Catholic during or pre Pitts’ time, studying the Bible and developing one’s own personal beliefs and interpretations of the holy text then was not discouraged, but for quite a while, it was not circumstantially encouraged.  This analogy and of the Muslim-Catholic and common conception (or in this case misconception) of the two faiths, does not work in this context, and must therefore be dispelled by Pitts, the devoted bringer of truths.

Translation as Heresy: We Can’t Stop, We Won’t Stop

The final sentence of Chapter 7 of Pitts’ narrative reads less like testimonial literature and more like law: “The Alcoran amongst the Turks is strictly forbidden to be translated into any other than the Arabian language” (Pitts 290). This sentence, stark and isolated as its own paragraph, perhaps serves as the turning point of Pitts’ text in that it contrasts Islam and Christianity rather than drawing comparisons between the two.

To demonstrate the extent to which Pitts’ statements on the Alcoran disrupt his earlier portrayals of Islam and Christianity, let us recall the following passage from the work’s preface:

 “I think myself obliged to make my apology for calling the Turkish imam or emaum ‘priest’ and their mosques ‘churches,’ but I hope the reader will pardon it because I knew not well otherwise how to express myself so as to be understood” (Pitts 224).

From the beginning, Pitts positions himself as a man torn between two religions, and, by extension, a man torn between two cultural traditions — so torn, in fact, that he as a writer feels he cannot adequately express himself as a writer without blending religious terminologies. Pitts’ ambivalence toward both Islam and Christianity becomes an increasingly significant thread throughout the narrative, the central tension in this sailor-turned-confessor’s odyssey.

This conflict makes Chapter 7’s didactic close all the more jarring, as Pitts takes an ideological stand on — or, to put matters in stronger terms, constructs an ideological defense of — the practice of Muslim faith. By declaring the Alcoran’s translation as heresy, Pitts deems the Islamic text so holy that it cannot be modified in any way. Moreover, Pitts argues that the reading of the Alcoran is not only permissible but admirable, thus criticizing “the poor Romanists” for believing that “to live and die in an implicit faith of what they are taught by their priests” is a sufficient expression of faith (Pitts 290). Here, in language more frank and less apologetic than what, by this point in Pitts’ narrative, is understood to be his voice, Pitts asserts the Alcoran a holier text than the Bible (for which he mentions nothing of translation as sin); more poignantly, he asserts the devout Muslim a more intimate practitioner of faith than his/her Christian counterpart by virtue of reading — that holy act.

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A post-script, digression enough that I’ll distance it from the body of this post: There’s a serious question of cultural propriety in the claim that the Alcoran must only exist in Arabic. This assertion is tantamount to saying that The Word of God belongs to the Arabic language and vice versa: that Arabic is God’s language.

Now consider Miley Cyrus’ VMA performance and the reactions it garnered from the viewing public through a similar lens. By and large, the audience’s sentiment was one of disapproval: backup dancers dressed as drugged bears are too disturbing for broadcast television, they said; Cyrus’ costumes were not befitting of a lady, they said; her integration of twerking and ratchet culture, phenomena endemic to low-income black neighborhoods, into her act was downright racist, they said.

Sure, it’s a lesser battle than religions and cultures fighting over the claim to God’s tongue, but critics, in condemning Cyrus for insensitive adaptations, address those same, persistent questions: Who owns culture? And who does — or doesn’t — have the right to adapt or modify it?

And with that, some nonrequired reading: http://groupthink.jezebel.com/solidarity-is-for-miley-cyrus-1203666732

If the Moors read the Alcoran, pick up the Bible? Yes I can!

Throughout his expose, Pitts relates certain aspects of Christianity to certain aspects of Islam. As such, he describes his experiences through a biased vantage point. However, he is also quite clear to make note of certain marked differences between the two, especially those ones highlighting aspects of Islam that he finds heretical, hypocritical, and unsavory. When he says “and the reader may be pleased to note that they are altogether ignorant of astrology” (260), he is poking fun at this aspect of their religion suggesting that they couldn’t possibly truly know the month of Ramadan by just “seeing” the moon. Yet, other than critiquing or detracting from the ‘heathen’ doctrine of Islam or the Mohammetans, Pitts seeks to relay how Christians should follow their own religion with such a fervor. He states that, “it is a shame indeed to Christians to take a view of the zeal of those poor blind Mohammetans…if they are so strict in their false worships it must needs be a reprimand to Christians who are so remiss in the true” (223). In this Pitts isn’t departing from the analogy as he is suggesting that Christians have rendered such an analogy incomplete by not reading allowing their poor and common folk to study the Bible. He even states, “I wish to God that Christians were as diligent in studying the Holy Scriptures, the Law, and the Gospel, wherein we have eternal life, as those infidels are in poring upon that legend of falsities” (245).  Pitt has already established that Christians aren’t as fervent in their reading and worship as the Mohammetans. By departing from building up this analogy to reveal discrepancies in behavior when it comes to poor Romanists and the poor Mohammetans Pitts is able to give his opinion and encourage all Christians to study the scriptures.

It is an awkward argument in which he both compliments the practice of the religion while insulting the religion as false, and its followers as fools. A real question that lingers however, is if the religious officials that make up the audience of Pitts book would appreciate this particular “advice” from him. In suggesting that Romanists do not have to live and die by implicit faith it could be viewed that he is discrediting priests as teachers of the Gospel. All in all, I’m not sure that Pitts completely disavows the analogy he has created.  Rather, he might have noted a discredit to his analogy and hoped that he could give Christians the opportunity to rectify such a lapse.

True and Faithful or Agenda-Driven?

Throughout Joseph Pitts’ confessional tract, A True and Faithful Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mohammetans, with an Account of the Author’s Being Taken Captive (1704), he draws a chronic comparison between the Mohammetans and the Papists, indicating that, just as he sees the Muslims as vile and disgusting and false, he believes the Catholics to be so also. However, towards the end of chapter 7, he seems to have a slight change of heart, admitting that the “poor Romanists” may be more evil by means of outright exclusivity than the Turkish Muslims Pitts has encountered throughout captivity. He seems to make a concession for the Muslim believers, emphasizing that “at least” they, in their gusto and zeal in matters of faith and in their unfailingly strict observance of Islamic practices, will not deny anyone who wants to read the Alcoran the opportunity. This last-minute ideological conversion is brought on perhaps because, after his long and intimate experience of Islam, he verily sees more to be admired in Islam than in Catholicism.

“As to papists, what has been said of the Protestant dissenters would hold equally strong for a general toleration of them; provided their separation was founded only upon difference of opinion in religion, and their principles did not also extend to a subversion of the civil government. If once they could be brought to renounce the supremacy of the pope, they might quietly enjoy their seven sacraments, their purgatory, and auricular confession; their worship of relics and images; nay even their transubstantiation. But while they acknowledge a foreign power, superior to the sovereignty of the kingdom, they cannot complain if the laws of that kingdom will not treat them upon the footing of good subjects.” – William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765-1769

The above quote by British conservative, William Blackstone, explicates the formidable prevalence of anti-Catholicism in England during the late 17^th and 18^th centuries. Many in Britain at this time were outraged and incensed at the Catholic religion’s disregard for the almighty imperial power of England. Holding the Pope to be higher than the king of England meant those in Rome, i.e. those of the Catholic faith, would never concede England’s merit as a powerful world empire. Thus, Pitts argues, in his characteristically roundabout way, that England’s greatest enemy, despite England’s fears of the uncontrollable spread of Islam, is the Pope and those Romanists foolish enough to believe in the papal omnipotence. Likely an even greater enemy still, Pitts also disputes and laments the overall complacency of protestant Christians in Britain, admiring repeatedly the diligence of the Mohammetans in their faith (always followed closely by a swift repudiation of everything they believe).

Finally, it is likely Pitts disavows the veracity of his earlier Mohammetan-Papist analogy towards the close of a chapter well into his narrative, in fact almost sneakily and as if an afterthought, because this is what he truly believes: the Mohammetans are less evil than the Papists; not only are they less evil, they really aren’t that evil at all. Yet, Pitts has to be ever careful to represent himself as a Brit through and through; he must make clear where his allegiances fall. He cannot be seen as a renegade or a treacherous turncoat by his fellow countrymen. So, at all costs, he will continue to express his hatred of both the Mohammetans and Papists, though his true opinion regarding the relevance of his own recurrent comparison of the two non-English power players (read: religious competitors) is difficult to ascertain. But after reading some 70 pages of Pitts’ only literary work, I get the sense he almost never exactly means what he says when it comes to his personal analyses; he is too busy making restitution to the English public for his past defection.

Muslim Devoutness

At the end of section seven, Joseph Pitts contrasts the Muslim-Catholic analogy he has been encouraging throughout his writing because he is pointing out what Europeans can gain from observing the way in which Muslims practice their faith.  The devoutness and dedication that Pitts observed during his time in Algiers inspired a desire to encourage a stronger method of practicing the Protestant faith than Pitts had experienced Europe.  While he continually condemns Islam and the Prophet, he recognizes that the meticulous way in which they study the Qur’an and wash themselves before prayer, for example, should be imitated (to some degree) when practicing the Christian faith.  If Pitts had continued his comparison of Islam and Catholicism, his readers would have failed to see the value in their practice that he was attempting to share.  In these concluding remarks of section seven, Pitts reminds his readers that Catholicism and Islam are different for many reasons.  On the one hand, Islam was indeed a geopolitical power that controlled much more of the world than the Catholic Church.  Thus, they should be seen as a stronger threat.  Additionally, through his writings, Pitts was encouraging a closer understanding of the Islamic faith in order not for Europeans to convert but rather for them to understand what makes it so powerful and, inevitably, gather what is necessary to overcome their global influences.