紐約時(shí)報(bào)：回歸早期伊斯蘭教的寬容

Islam’s Problem With Blasphemy

回歸早期伊斯蘭教的寬容

WILL “moderate Muslims” finally “speak up” against their militant coreligionists? People around the world have asked (but, as in the past, have not all seriously examined) this question since last week’s horrific attacks on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and on a kosher supermarket in Paris.

“溫和派穆斯林”最終會(huì)“發(fā)聲”反對(duì)他們那些激進(jìn)的教友嗎?自從法國(guó)諷刺報(bào)紙《查理周報(bào)》(Charlie Hebdo)和巴黎的一家猶太潔食超市上周遭受殘暴的襲擊以來(lái)，全世界的人都在問(wèn)這個(gè)問(wèn)題。不過(guò)像過(guò)去一樣，并不是所有人都嚴(yán)肅地審視過(guò)這個(gè)問(wèn)題。

In fact, Muslim statesmen, clerics and intellectuals have added their voices to condemnations of terror by leaders around the world. But they must undertake another essential task: Address and reinterpret Islam’s traditional take on “blasphemy,” or insult to the sacred.

事實(shí)上，穆斯林政治人物、神職人員以及知識(shí)分子，已經(jīng)在和世界各國(guó)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人一道譴責(zé)恐怖行徑了。但他們必須承擔(dān)起另外一項(xiàng)重要的任務(wù)：用自己的聲音，重新闡釋伊斯蘭教對(duì)于“褻瀆”或者說(shuō)侮辱神圣的傳統(tǒng)立場(chǎng)。

The Paris terrorists were apparently fueled by the zeal to punish blasphemy, and fervor for the same cause has bred militancy in the name of Islam in various other incidents, ranging from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa against the writer Salman Rushdie in 1989 to the threats and protests against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten for publishing cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad in 2005.

顯然，巴黎的那些恐怖分子滿(mǎn)懷狂熱情緒，想要懲罰褻瀆者。對(duì)同一使命的狂熱，也催生了其他許多事件中，以伊斯蘭教的名義做出的激進(jìn)行為——從阿亞圖拉魯霍拉·霍梅尼(Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini)在1989年對(duì)作家薩爾曼·拉什迪(Salman Rushdie)發(fā)出追殺令，到丹麥報(bào)紙《日德蘭郵報(bào)》(Jyllands-Posten)因?yàn)榭l(fā)諷刺先知穆罕默德(Prophet Muhammad)的漫畫(huà)，而在2005年受到威脅和抗議。

Mockery of Muhammad, actual or perceived, has been at the heart of nearly all of these controversies over blasphemy.

所有這些因褻瀆而起的爭(zhēng)端，核心問(wèn)題都是嘲弄穆罕默德——無(wú)論這種嘲弄確有其事還是主觀(guān)感受。

This might seem unremarkable at first, but there is something curious about it, for the Prophet Muhammad is not the only sacred figure in Islam. The Quran praises other prophets — such as Abraham, Moses and Jesus — and even tells Muslims to “make no distinction” between these messengers of God. Yet for some reason, Islamist extremists seem to obsess only about the Prophet Muhammad.

乍看上去或許無(wú)關(guān)緊要，但這事兒真的有些奇怪，因?yàn)橄戎潞蹦虏⒎且了固m教唯一的圣人?！豆盘m經(jīng)》也頌揚(yáng)了其他先知——比如亞伯拉罕(易卜拉欣)、摩西(穆薩)和耶穌(爾薩)——甚至告訴穆斯林，要把神的這些使者“一視同仁”。但出于某種原因，讓伊斯蘭極端主義者念念不忘的似乎只有穆罕默德。

Even more curiously, mockery of God — what one would expect to see as the most outrageous blasphemy — seems to have escaped their attention as well. Satirical magazines such as Charlie Hebdo have run cartoons ridiculing God (in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim contexts), but they were targeted with violence only when they ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad.

更為奇怪的是，人們可能會(huì)以為嘲弄神是最?lèi)毫拥囊C瀆，然而這似乎并不在他們的關(guān)注范圍之內(nèi)?！恫槔碇軋?bào)》之類(lèi)的諷刺性報(bào)刊都用漫畫(huà)揶揄過(guò)神(猶太教和基督教語(yǔ)境的上帝，穆斯林語(yǔ)境的真主都揶揄過(guò))，但唯有在揶揄先知穆罕默德時(shí)才會(huì)成為暴力襲擊的目標(biāo)。

Of course, this is not to say extremists should threaten and harm cartoonists for more diverse theological reasons; obviously, they should not target them at all. But the exclusive focus on the Prophet Muhammad is worth pondering. One obvious explanation is that while God and the other prophets are also sacred for Judaism and Christianity, the Prophet Muhammad is sacred only for Muslims. In other words, the zeal comes not from merely respect for the sacred, but from militancy for what’s sacred to us — us being the community of Muslims. So the unique sensitivity around Muhammad seems to be a case of religious nationalism, with its focus on the earthly community — rather than of true faith, whose main focus should be the divine.

當(dāng)然了，這并不是說(shuō)極端主義者應(yīng)該出于更多樣化的神學(xué)理由對(duì)漫畫(huà)家做出威脅和傷害;顯然他們完全不應(yīng)該把矛頭對(duì)準(zhǔn)漫畫(huà)家。但只有先知穆罕默德受到關(guān)注的現(xiàn)象，是值得思考的。一個(gè)顯而易見(jiàn)的解釋是，盡管神和其他先知在猶太教和基督教也是神圣的，但先知穆罕默德卻只對(duì)穆斯林有神圣的意義。換句話(huà)說(shuō)，這種狂熱不單源自對(duì)神的尊敬，還源自對(duì)于我們(即穆斯林社群)視為神圣的東西，懷有的激進(jìn)傾向。因此，對(duì)穆罕默德格外敏感，似乎有宗教民族主義之嫌，因?yàn)樽⒁饬Ρ环旁诹怂资赖纳缛?，而非真正的信仰之?mdash;—而信仰的關(guān)注點(diǎn)本該是神。

Still, this religious nationalism is guided by religious law — Shariah — that includes clauses about punishing blasphemy as a deadly sin. It is thus of vital importance that Muslim scholars courageously, even audaciously, address this issue today. They can begin by acknowledging that, while Shariah is rooted in the divine, the overwhelming majority of its injunctions are man-made, partly reflecting the values and needs of the seventh to 12th centuries — when no part of the world was liberal, and other religions, such as Christianity, also considered blasphemy a capital crime.

不過(guò)，這種宗教民族主義是以伊斯蘭教法(Shariah)為指引的——根據(jù)其中一些法條，要把褻瀆當(dāng)成死罪加以懲罰。因此，至關(guān)重要的是，今天的穆斯林學(xué)者要鼓起勇氣，甚至以大無(wú)畏的精神來(lái)解決這一問(wèn)題。他們可以首先承認(rèn)，伊斯蘭教法的根基盡管是神圣的，但大部分禁令都是人為制定的，在某種程度上反映了從7世紀(jì)到12世紀(jì)的價(jià)值觀(guān)和需求——當(dāng)時(shí)，全世界都無(wú)自由可言;在基督教等其他宗教中，褻瀆也被視為死罪。

The only source in Islamic law that all Muslims accept indisputably is the Quran. And, conspicuously, the Quran decrees no earthly punishment for blasphemy — or for apostasy (abandonment or renunciation of the faith), a related concept. Nor, for that matter, does the Quran command stoning, female circumcision or a ban on fine arts. All these doctrinal innovations, as it were, were brought into the literature of Islam as medieval scholars interpreted it, according to the norms of their time and milieu.

《古蘭經(jīng)》是唯一一個(gè)無(wú)可爭(zhēng)議地由全體穆斯林接受的伊斯蘭教法的來(lái)源。然而值得注意的是，《古蘭經(jīng)》并未規(guī)定，要針對(duì)褻瀆或與之相關(guān)的叛教(背棄信仰)舉動(dòng)，施加俗世的懲罰。它也沒(méi)有規(guī)定可以對(duì)人施以石刑、沒(méi)有要求對(duì)女性實(shí)行割禮、沒(méi)有作出關(guān)于藝術(shù)的禁令。所有這些教義上的創(chuàng)新之所以被納入伊斯蘭文獻(xiàn)，是因?yàn)橹惺兰o(jì)的學(xué)者根據(jù)他們那個(gè)時(shí)代的規(guī)范和社會(huì)環(huán)境，對(duì)《古蘭經(jīng)》進(jìn)行了闡釋。

Tellingly, severe punishments for blasphemy and apostasy appeared when increasingly despotic Muslim empires needed to find a religious justification to eliminate political opponents.

針對(duì)褻瀆和叛教的嚴(yán)厲懲罰，是在越來(lái)越專(zhuān)制的穆斯林帝國(guó)需要為鏟除政敵尋找宗教正當(dāng)性時(shí)出現(xiàn)的，這很說(shuō)明問(wèn)題。

One of the earliest “blasphemers” in Islam was the pious scholar Ghaylan al-Dimashqi, who was executed in the 8th century by the Umayyad Empire. His main “heresy” was to insist that rulers did not have the right to regard their power as “a gift of God,” and that they had to be aware of their responsibility to the people.

在伊斯蘭世界里，最先被貼上“褻瀆者”標(biāo)簽的人之一，是公元8世紀(jì)被倭馬亞帝國(guó)(Umayyad Empire)處決的虔誠(chéng)學(xué)者蓋蘭·迪馬士基(Ghaylan al-Dimashqi)。他所秉承的“異端邪說(shuō)”是，統(tǒng)治者無(wú)權(quán)把自己的權(quán)力視為“神的恩賜”，他們必須意識(shí)到自己對(duì)人民負(fù)有責(zé)任。

Before all that politically motivated expansion and toughening of Shariah, though, the Quran told early Muslims, who routinely faced the mockery of their faith by pagans: “God has told you in the Book that when you hear God’s revelations disbelieved in and mocked at, do not sit with them until they enter into some other discourse; surely then you would be like them.”

但在所有這些政治動(dòng)機(jī)讓伊斯蘭教法變得更加繁復(fù)和嚴(yán)厲之前，《古蘭經(jīng)》曾告訴早期的穆斯林：“神確已在這經(jīng)典中啟示你們說(shuō)：當(dāng)你們聽(tīng)見(jiàn)真主的跡象被人否認(rèn)而加以嘲笑的時(shí)候，你們不要與他們同座，直到他們談?wù)搫e的話(huà);否則，你們必與他們同罪。”當(dāng)時(shí)的穆斯林常常因?yàn)樾叛?，而被異教徒嘲弄?/p>