RABIH ALAMEDDINE
In the days of the mighty King Nimrod, there lived a young man named Abraham, son of Azar, an idol maker. Out of wood, Azar sculpted beautiful gods that the people loved and worshipped.Azar would send his son to market with the idols, but Abraham never sold any. He called out, “Who’ll buy my idols? They’re cheap and worthless. Will you buy one? It won’t hurt you.” When a passerby stopped to look at the beauty of the craftsmanship, Abraham slapped the idol. “Talk,” he said. “Tell this honest man to buy you. Do something.” There would be no sale.
Of course, his father was upset. He was losing money and had a nonbeliever for a son. He told Abraham to believe in the gods or leave the house. Abraham left.
Abraham walked into a temple while all the townsfolk were in their homes preparing for an evening of worshipping their beloved gods. Abraham held out food for the gods. “Eat. Aren’t you hungry? Why don’t you talk to me?” Again he slapped their faces, one by one. Slap, move to the next, slap. Then he took an ax and chopped the gods to pieces, some as small as toothpicks. He chopped up all but the largest and put the ax in this idol’s hand.
When the people came to worship their gods, they found them in a splintery pile around the chief idol. They bemoaned their fate and that of their gods. “Who would do this?” they cried in unison, a chorus of wails.
“Surely it was someone,” Abraham exclaimed. “The big one stands there with a guilty ax in his hand. Perhaps he was envious of the rest and chopped them up. Should we ask him?”
“You know they don’t speak,” the priest said.
“Then why do you worship them?”
“Heresy,” the people cried in unison, and took him to see his king.
About four years ago, I was on a cartoonist panel at the Lahore Literary Festival in Pakistan. I wasn’t sure why I, a novelist, was asked to pontificate on political cartoons and graphic novels. That was part of the overall charm of Lahore: not much made sense, so you went with the flow. There were two other panelists, one arguably Pakistan’s most famous political cartoonist, and the second a graphic journalist who, in my opinion, was nothing short of a genius. The audience hall was overfilled, more than seven hundred people, mostly young adults, university students, some high school kids. The conversation was lively, and as was to be expected, halfway through, the moderator asked how the panelists felt about the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. The other panelists, while defending free speech and the right of the Danish newspapers to publish the cartoons, argued that it was not a good idea to offend religions and that the newspapers should not have done so. Those two panelists knew more about the subject than I ever could, but that did not stop me from keeping up a running uninformed commentary. I mentioned that my problem with the cartoons was that they were not funny. I talked about how insults and offenses are ways for humans to figure out boundaries. Like children, we have to test the rules, have to figure out how strict those rules are.
During the Q&A, it became obvious that the majority of the audience preferred that no one offend their religion. The moderator asked the panelists if they had any last thoughts to close the session. Well, I did.
I said that had the prophet Muhammad not wished to offend, we would not have had Islam.
Many Christians will tell you: proclaiming truth always offends.
Jesus caused trouble wherever he went. He was so offensive that he was crucified for it. He violently insulted the beliefs of the time. He made a whip out of cords and drove everyone from the Temple. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves.
What did he have against doves? I ask you.
Muhammad destroyed the idols surrounding the Kaaba, 360 of them that various Arab tribes worshipped. He showed no respect to the pagan religions of his time.
Moses not only offended; he challenged an empire.
Would a plague of frogs be considered a sign of disrespect?
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
And usually demanded with no little offense.
Sidney Street was an African American veteran of World War II and a Bronze Star recipient. On June 6, 1966, when he heard that civil rights activist James Meredith had been shot by a sniper during his march through Mississippi, Street went to the intersection of Lafayette Avenue and Saint James Place, one block from his apartment in Brooklyn, and burned an American flag. He was arrested for it. The New York City Criminal Court charged Street with malicious mischief for willfully and unlawfully defiling, casting contempt on, and burning an American flag. The Supreme Court overturned the conviction.
The details of the burning are what I find fascinating. Sidney Street placed a piece of paper on the sidewalk. The flag he set on fire was properly and exquisitely folded. He held the burning flag in hand as long as he could, then laid it on the paper so that it would not be soiled by the sidewalk.
When I was fifteen, I made a list of all the ways in which I could kill my parents. I separated the murderous possibilities into two categories: on the left were those where it would be obvious that I killed them, and on the right were those I would almost certainly have gotten away with.
Even at that confused age, I knew that I loved my parents dearly, at least most of the time. I also knew that I couldn’t survive without them. After all, they paid for everything, and the food in our house was really good. That did not mean that I should let them get away with always telling me what to do.
When I told my father about the list, he said, “That’s lovely. I do hope you pick the right method.”
I always wondered whether there was a law against throwing tea into a harbor; in other words, was the beginning of the American Revolution illegal or simply offensive?
Someone who knows much more than me explained that it was probably both. The colonists boarded the ships and stole the tea: illegal. They threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor: definitely offensive.
E. M. Cioran wrote, “Once man loses his faculty of indifference he becomes a potential murderer.”
Abraham stood defiantly before his king, the one and only Nimrod, who grew nervous, since it was his first encounter with a free soul. “You are not my god,” Abraham told Nimrod. That was blasphemy. The young man grew in stature when he defied the hunter-king.
“Who is this mighty God you speak of?” asked the frightened Nimrod.
Abraham was resolute. “He it is who gives life and death,” he answered, his gaze unwavering.
The king said, “But I too give life and death. I can pardon a man sentenced to die and execute an innocent child.”
Abraham said, “That is not the way of God. But can you do this? Each morning God makes the sun rise in the east. Can you make it rise in the west?”
Nimrod grew mighty angry. He did not have the wit to suggest that maybe Abraham’s god should try to make the sun rise in the west for a change. Oh no. Nimrod had his minions build a great big fire and ordered Abraham thrown into it. The men came to carry Abraham, but he told them he could walk.
After suitable burning time had elapsed, the servants opened the oven door expecting to see nothing except charred remains, but there our prophet was, as glorious as ever; the young Abraham was singing, lying indolently on a bed of red roses, red like the color of fresh blood. Thousands upon thousands of crimson rose petals. The attending courtiers ran away in terror as if they had seen a jinni or an angel.
Abraham, unblemished and untouched, walked out of the furnace, smirked as he passed Nimrod, and went home.
But not before the great prophet Abraham said, “I spit on your god and fart on everything you hold dear. I will destroy your religion and install mine. Once everything is set up, make sure to start being civil. Don’t you dare do what I did or my new god will smite you!”