海角大神

鈥� A version of this post ran on the author's blog,听www.sahelblog.wordpress.com.听The views expressed are the author's own.

Reporting on shari鈥檃 law and groups who attempt to impose their version of it often leans toward the sensational. This tendency appears to reflect the views of many Western journalists, and much of their audience, that shari鈥檃 is barbaric, violent, and misogynist, and its application trivial and arbitrary. Negative Western views on Islamic law have, to put it mildly, a long history; for just one example, take Max Weber鈥檚 notion of 鈥渒adijustiz,鈥� whichThe Max Weber Dictionary听听(p. 136) as 鈥渁n irrational type of justice focused on the single case.鈥� Kadi/qadi is Arabic for judge.

I mention this tendency in the media not because I want to make an apology for those who impose shari鈥檃 but because I believe that news coverage can blur our sense of context and cause us to misread the political relationships between those who apply a version of shari鈥檃 and those to whom it is applied. Reading coverage of shari鈥檃 in the news 鈥� coverage that tends to follow a model established in reports on Afghanistan, and extended to Somalia 鈥� one might easily get the impression that shari鈥檃 is simply an alternation of cruel acts and ridiculous ones. One moment the Islamists are stoning a woman, the next they are banning soccer. What this kind of coverage misses is how shari鈥檃 fits into the systematic attempts at state-building that groups like the Taliban in Afghanistan, al Shabab in Somalia, and Ansar Dine in Mali pursue. (Comparing such groups is fraught with peril, but we can at least establish these commonalities between them: they are all interested in shari鈥檃 and state-building, and the media has emphasized the brutality of shari鈥檃 when discussing all of them. Indeed the comparison may be most apt when we are talking about the media, rather than about events on the ground.)

With this in mind, recent reports on shari鈥檃 in Mali begin to seem contradictory.听听writes:

Residents of northern Mali say Islamist militant groups currently running parts of the region are trying to win hearts and minds with an odd mix of punishment and charity.

The groups carry out harsh corporal punishment they say the religion requires, while at the same time doling out cash and other gifts.

Note how mixing punishment with charity 鈥� or could we say mixing law with social services, which are core functions of any state? 鈥� is described as 鈥渙dd.鈥� Note how corporal punishment is marked as motivated by 鈥渞eligion,鈥� yet 鈥渄oling out cash and other gifts鈥� is not, even though charity is fundamental to Islam. Whipping a couple for having premarital sex, the article implies, was 鈥渟hocking.鈥� Rewarding the couple with money and gifts after they married was simply a way of trying to win the poor young man 鈥渙ver to their way of thinking.鈥� Does this reward have no religious significance?

I am not saying that members of Ansar Dine are motivated solely by piety and that political calculation does not shape their thinking; quite the contrary.听But is it a stretch to view all of these actions 鈥� the punishments and the charity, the whippings and the gifts 鈥� as part of an effort to impose a system seen by its architects as internally consistent, politically effective, and religiously proper?

The political opportunism of Ansar Dine鈥檚 leader听听has been well documented, but my impression is that at least some of Ansar Dine鈥檚 leaders and fighters take piety quite seriously. Let鈥檚 look at AFP鈥檚听听鈥淲ine, Women and Song Tempt Mali鈥檚 Islamists.鈥� It describes the Ansar Dine delegation鈥檚 reaction to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, where they met with regional mediators and with representatives of rival group the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (MNLA, a secular Tuareg-led group fighting for the independence of northern Mali). One could read the article as exposing Ansar Dine鈥檚 delegates as country bumpkins fighting to keep their pants on in the big city. But from the article it seems that it was Ansar Dine鈥檚 delegates who mentioned the 鈥渢est鈥� they faced to AFP鈥檚 reporter, and not the reporter who caught them in the grip of temptation. Perhaps they brought up the test to emphasize that they were passing it. The delegates scrutinized what they ate, where they prayed, and how their environment affected them; these are men who care about piety, or at least want observers to believe they do.

Back in northern Mali, reporters tell us, people don鈥檛 want shari鈥檃. But the reporting is self-contradictory enough that it becomes difficult to tell what the situation is.听, we learn. And yet we also learn that听听of 鈥渇ighters they say carry arms everywhere, from the market to the mosque.鈥� The people are tired and听, we hear. But we听听that 鈥渓iving conditions in Gao have improved somewhat since early April鈥�The hospital was looted in April but is functioning again under Islamist protection.鈥� It would be reasonable to conclude from these various reports that there is real chaos in the north, and deep division among the population. We could also conclude that Ansar Dine enjoys at least some support; surely hospitals, aid, and a form of law have benefited some civilians.

The media narrative about places like Afghanistan, Somalia, and Mali has often boiled down to, 鈥淕ood local Muslims just want peaceful, 鈥榯raditional鈥� Islam, but the bad outsider Muslims with guns want to go back to the seventh century.鈥� I find narratives like that too simple. Politics is complicated, and understanding it is too, particularly when information about a locality is so limited and confusing.

In previous posts, I have referred to Ansar Dine鈥檚 approach in northern Mali as 鈥�.鈥� I stand by that. A civilian population terrorized by men with guns may not always distinguish between different groups with different worldviews. Indeed, some of the residents quoted in the linked articles above seem to lump the MNLA and Ansar Dine into the same general category of thugs. But some residents will make a distinction, and Ansar Dine鈥檚 approach 鈥� which, I will reiterate, at least attempts to be internally consistent 鈥� seems to win some support by offering a form of law-and-order, backed by concrete social services. The MNLA, in contrast, has sometimes offered only chaos and suffering. Tellingly, it is the听, not Ansar Dine.

In case there is any doubt about my own views, I think women should be allowed to make their own choices about fashion and sex, that youth should be allowed to watch and play games, that people should have religious freedom. I find the situation in northern Mali upsetting. But if news coverage of shari鈥檃 only provokes our indignation and not our reflection, we miss the political context, and we risk our ability to understand the complexity of religious life in a place like northern Mali.

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鈥撎�Alex Thurston听is a PhD student studying Islam in听Africa听at听Northwestern University听and blogs at.