EGO-CENTRIC CRIMINALITY

The lesson of oppression, torture, mass killings, flagration and devastation goes beyond the mere question of ends and means and allows us to grasp the basic question of the nature of criminality.  Hasan bin Sabah (d. 1124 A.D.), known as ‘sheikh-ul-jabal’ and pious men like him, the Kharjites of early Muslim history, were by any definition Right Men. But their religious sincerity is not in question here; they placed their grimly obsessed ego at the service of their religion, is the question. They were personally convinced that they were right; everything else followed. Those who opposed them were wrong and deserved to die. The same perspective was true with Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda.  It is a moot point whether it makes the slightest difference in a believer who refers to his deity as Jehovah, God, Allah or Ahura Mazda. This is not the issue even. The issue is that man is capable of reaching out towards a freedom that transcends his everyday societal limitations, and that saints and prophets, poets and artists, scientists and philosophers all share this aim to a greater or lesser degree. The greatest enemy of this transcendence is the ego with its petty aims and convictions. It is true that we cannot live without the ego; a person without an ego would be little more than an idiot.

The literal meaning of ego or egoism, according Merriam Webster, is ‘the feeling or belief that you are better, more important, more talented, etc. than others’. But in applications and practices it is varied and mostly damaging to human society.  And this ego or egoism, as we can see, is the basic theme of history, its most constant pattern; and this is the theme of my discussion here.

Civilization was the outcome of man’s religious urge – for the first cities grew up around temples. Religion has continued to be perhaps the most dominant theme in human history. Yet practically every major religious movement has changed its nature as and when its followers have fought amongst themselves. Why could those early city-dwellers not have lived in peace and prosperity, tilling the ground and worshipping their gods?  They had what all animals crave most – security.  But sooner or later, some minor squabble would blow up between small groups of rival citizens, and then all their fellow citizens would feel outraged to hear about the affront; every ego would rise up on its legs and cry out for revenge. The human ability for sympathy and communication instantly becomes a disadvantage as everyone feels that he himself has personally received the insult.  Nothing heals more slowly or festers more persistently than a bruised ego. New resentments supplement the old ones, and soon both sides are convinced that the only answer lies in the total humiliation of the other.

The history of world organized religions furnish typical examples of egoism displayed in the tussles between churches and emperors, between ulama, fuqaha and theologians, between caliphs and their courtiers, between soldiers of sword and warriors of pen.

The history of Christianity could offer a thousand such instances of self-egoism. As soon as Pepin The Great (d. 768 as king of the Franks) gave the popes a basis of power by making them a present of the first Papal States, the popes became as violent and predatory as any emperor.  When the German emperor Otto-I (d.973) set out to create the Holy Roman Empire, the pope and emperor instantly came into head-on collision; the pope lost and Otto-I became Holy Roman Emperor. A dispute arose when the Church annulled the marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon, the Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 and became the established church, Church of England,  by an Act of Parliament. This caused a series of events known as the English Reformation. 

There are hundreds of such instances in the history of medieval Europe. For recent episodes, we can see the tussles between Bush and Saddam, between Shah Iran’s ouster and Iranian’s clergy. Almost parallel stories are repeated in Egypt, Libya, Sudan, and the cold war situation now going on between Russian President Putin and President Barrack Obama of USA on the issue of Ukraine.

Almost identical scenario of egoism appeared in the Muslim history.  Just after the demise of the Prophet Muhammad (Blessings of God be upon him), the Muslim community was split into Sunni and Shia factions. The whole family of the house of Ali and Fatima was massacred, excepting few, in the barren field of Karbala in Iraq by the governor of usurper caliph of Bani Umayyad tribe, named Muawiya bin Abu Sufyan. The Muslim history is full of such squabbles mainly due to display of egoism by caliphs, governors, their generals and courtiers.

 In 767 Imam Abu Hanifah, the founder of Hanafi School of Theology in Muslim history had died in prison when he refused to support the Abbasid ruler Al-Mansur. When the governor of Madinah demanded and forced people to take oath of allegiance to Abbasid caliph al-Mansur, Imam Malik issued a fatwa that such an oath was not binding because it was given under coercion. This resulted in many people finding courage to express their opposition. Consequently, the Imam was arrested, found guilty of defiance, publicly flogged and put in prison and died of torture.

If we look past for a moment the endless complications of loyalties and territorial claims and go straight to the heart of the matter, we can see that this was not really an ideological struggle between spiritual authority and the ambition of emperors, kings, and caliphs.  The underlying reality of the quarrel is also the underlying reality of the rise and fall of such persons who were grimly inflated by their egos and were convinced that they are arguing about spiritual issues or matters of justice and principle when they are simply dominated by their own emotions.

When one of the sages was asked, ‘What is the most wicked truth’? he replied, ‘A man’s passion for himself.’  So beware of falling into the habit of doing that.  Such conduct assuredly lowers one in people’s estimation, and leads to hatred of oneself in God’s eye. If we want to appreciate the fact that praise of ourselves does not raise us in other men’s estimation, let us consider what happens when our acquaintances make much of their own virtue, influence and wealth.  Our heart refuses to acknowledge what they claim, and our nature finds it excessive; when we leave their company, we blame them.  Assuredly when we justify ourselves, they likewise blame us in their hearts while we are present, and after we have left their company they give tongue to their thoughts. God says, ‘So do not justify yourselves, He best knoweth those who show piety’ (Q.53:33).  ‘Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall’(Bible: Proverb 16:18). 

Invoking evil:  Guard your tongue from invoking evil on anyone whom God most high has created.  “Every morning when a person wakes up the whole body begs the tongue, ‘Fear God for our sake, for our salvation depends upon you! If you are true, we will be truthful. If you are false, we are doomed.’” (A Prophetic Tradition, related by Abu Sa’id al-Khudri, described in Tirmidhi).  Guard your tongue from jesting, ridiculing and scoffing at people whether in earnest or in play.  It disturbs our reputation, as water in a pool is disturbed by a stone; it destroys respect, induces isolation and harms the heart. It is the source of contumacy, anger and estrangement, and implants rancor in men’s hearts.  This much is about the various defects of the tongue.  Nothing helps us against it except our reservations in speaking with others and the preservation of silence wherever possible.

The nature of egoism changes with the changing concept of human society.  During the movement for socialism and communism, the writings of the socialists seemed to justify the depravity feeling of the mass.  They diffused the vague idea that the majority were under-privileged because a small minority had seized all the riches of society for themselves. This notion convinced the writers and the artists of the time that they should be stabbing people in the back rather than making any effort, and that anybody who had achieved anything through effort must be a crook who deserved to be murdered and robbed.  So although socialism began as a doctrine of compassion and concern, it soon degenerated into a ‘magical’ justification of criminality.  Marx and Engels (the founding fathers of Leninism) discussed of a society of strong and self-sufficient individuals; in fact, they did more than all the politicians to create a society of self-pitying egoists.

American society had always believed in the importance of individual enterprise; it is therefore no surprise that American crime began to exhibit this individualistic tendencies generated by individual ego long before crime in Europe.

ISRAR HASAN

MAR. 15, 2014

ASSASSINS: THE PRECURSOR OF WORLD TERROR

There was a sea battle between two fleets belonging to the rival trading ports of Genoa and Venice.  It ended in the humiliating defeat of the Venetians and the capture of their fleet.  Among the captured sailors was a man named Marco Polo, who was thrown into jail in Genoa.  There he found himself sharing a cell with a Pisan called Rusticiano.  Rusticiano was a writer of romances, and when Marco Polo began telling him stories of his extraordinary travels in China—the land of the great Kublie Khan—Rusticiano begged him to write it down.  So Marco[1] sent for his travel notebooks and with the aid of Risticiano, wrote an account of his adventures. He took the manuscript with him when he left prison, and, in spite of the fact that printing had not yet been invented, and books had to be copied by hand, it was soon being read from end to end of Italy.

 Regrettably, no one believed Marco’s tales of his travels; his contemporaries assumed it was a novel. Marco was called sarcastically ‘Marco Millions’, because his book mentioned such vast distances and huge sums of money; the book itself became known as The Million. On his deathbed, Marco’s friends begged him to admit that the book was mostly lies.  ‘I have not told half of what I saw,’ he said irritably. It was many centuries before scholars recognized that Marco Polo was  painstakingly a truthful man.

One of Marco’s least credible stories concerned a sinister being called ‘the Old Man of the Mountain’ (known by the Arabs as Shaikh-ul-Jabal).  This old man whose real name was Hasan bin Sabah, lived in Persia, and was regarded by his people as a prophet. He inhabited a fortress, taken by force and by treachery, the inaccessible castle of Alamut (“the Eagle’s Nest”) at the head of a valley. He was rich enough to turn the valley into an enormous and beautiful garden, full of pavilions and palaces, trees bearing every kind of fruit and brooks flowing with wine and milk as well as water.  The pavilions were inhabited by beautiful dancing girl.  It was, in fact, a very passable imitation of the paradise promised by the prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

When the Old Man wanted somebody killed, he would order one of his disciples, called feda’een, to carry out the assassination, promising that his reward would be an eternity in paradise.  And the man would unhesitatingly sacrifice his life to carry out the order; for he was convinced that he had already tasted paradise. The cunning old man had all his trainee assassins (called feda’een) drugged and carried into the garden; when they woke up they found themselves surrounded by beautiful girls, who plied them with food and wine and offered their favours.  After a few days, the young feda’een was again drugged and carried back to the castle.  He would not be impatient to sacrifice his life to regain paradise for good.

The would be killers, says Marco Polo, were called ‘Ashishin’ (Hashish taker). The castle really existed; it was called Alamut, meaning Eagle’s Nest, and is perched on a rock in the mountains of Mazendran, Iran. It was through Hasan bin Sabah that the word ‘assassin’ entered the European vocabulary.  It is derived from ‘hashishin’, for it was also widely believed that his followers nerved themselves to kill, and be killed, by smoking hashish.

Hasan bin Sabah was born about the year 1030, in the town of Rayy, near today’s Tehran; his family were Shi’ite Muslims.  Hasan was deeply interested in religion, and became involved with a sect called the Ismailis who had broken away from the main Shi’ites. He left his home town for preaching Ismaili doctrines and made his way to Ismaili capital in Cairo.  But court intrigues led to his expulsion from the capital.  He finally arrived back in Persia in 1081. For the next nine years he travelled and preached, gaining an increasing horde of followers. And in 1090 he came to the castle of Alamut and decided that this was the fortress he was looking for.

Hasan ruled from Alamut like a patriarch. His followers seldom saw him. The rule was strict. One of his sons was caught drinking wine and executed. Hasan lived frugally, wrote books, and plotted how to overthrow the Abbasids in Baghdad and their supporter, Sejuk Turks. He proved to be as good a general as the prophet himself.  His preachers, called da’ees won over the surrounding villages. His followers were devoted, fanatically so, but they were few in number compared to the Seljuk Turks. At last, he decided to strike down his enemies one by one, making use of the total obedience of his disciples.

The Grand Vizier of Malik Shah Seljuk was a man of fame and education, called Nizam al-Mulk, who had been at school with Hasan bin Sabah as well as with the mathematician and poet, Omar Khayyam. When Nizam became Vizier in 1073, the Arab chroniclers tell a story that both Omar and Hasan came to him asking for jobs, and Hasan was given a position at court; but his thirst for power soon became apparent, and Nizam sacked him.

Twenty years later, Nizam was Hasan’s most dangerous enemy. In October 1092, during Ramadan, Nizam had finished giving audience to various suppliants and was carried out of the tent towards the tent of his womenfolk.  A man in the garb of a Sufi, a holy man, came forward and was allowed to approach the litter.  He pulled a knife from his clothes drove it into Nizam’s heart.  A few moments later, he was himself killed by Nizam’s guards.  When Hasan heard the news, he chuckled, “The killing of this devil is the beginning of bliss.”

Hasan’s assassins were the first terrorists in the Muslim world. To their enemies, they were vicious criminals trying to overthrow society; to their supporters and converts, they were a small but highly trained army, overthrowing oppression by the only means at their disposal. In the years that followed, the list of victims was along one, and included anyone who had dared to speak openly against their doctrines – princes, governors, generals and religious opponents. A point came where no one in authority dared to go out without armour under his robes. One victim was stabbed as he knelt in his prayer in the mosque surrounded by his bodyguards. A chief opponent woke up from a drunken sleep to find a dagger driven into the ground close to his head, and a note saying ‘That dagger could just as easily been stuck in your heart.’

During the last thirty years of his life, he watched his empire crumble. The assassinations continued – he even extended his arm as far as Syria and Egypt – yet his situation remained basically unchanged.  Hasan died three years later in 1124, at the age of ninety.  The sect continued in existence and established a base in Syria.  But eventually they were stamped out – in Persia by the Mongols, in Syria by the Sultan of Egypt, Baybars, the Seljuks.

  

Edited by:

ISRAR HASAN

FEB. 20, 2014

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[1] Marco Polo, Italian born; from 1254 – 1324 C.E. was an Italian merchant traveller from Venice whose travels are recorded in Livres des merveilles du monde, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China.