Casualties of war

Not all the casualties of war occur on battlefields.

So far, during the current hostilities against terrorism, I have "lost" three long-time friends.

They bit the dust from opening letters. No, not poisoned hate-mail. Just ordinary wartime e-mail – hardly virulent.

One melted down after reading a forwarded e-mail notice about peace vigils and prayer meetings and candlelight marches, then erupted into a murderous screed about what ethnicity they wanted to exterminate overseas.

TRENDING: Is this what you voted for, America?

After my polite but firm e-mail request to friends, please don't circulate any more unfounded rumors, another person freaked out and severed our ties.

Still another went askew after reading a forwarded e-mail about peaceful protesters in New England being gassed, beaten and jailed by police while practicing their constitutionally guaranteed rights of free speech and assembly. "I love hearing from you," he replied, "but I have no sympathy for anyone calling this a racist war. Spare me."

Clearly, folks are on edge.

The way I see friendship, we are all part of one big fractious human family, and sometimes we just don't get along, but eventually we do, all over again, and enjoy each other as before.

And yet, I wonder.

What if we allow our personal political inclinations and, yes, even petty prejudices, to blind us to being open to further information, or the complete story, or the whole truth, or the larger picture? What if we close our eyes and our minds and our hearts to what is really happening, whatever that may prove to be?

Long before the current era of political correctness put a noose around the necks of independent free-thinkers, quickly throttling unpopular ideas, I heard a lecture at college about "racial tags."

No, not license plates profiling drivers.

Here was a potentially unpopular idea certain to make nearly everyone unhappy: Once we dispense with all labels indicating race, ethnicity, national origin, the professor posited, eventually those distinctions would cease to trouble us, and we could go back to the glorious business of being humankind again.

See if you can follow his reasoning: Just as Eskimos have dozens of words for snow, they actually see dozens of different varieties of snow. If you say it, you will see it. In socio-linguistics, that's called the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis: language shapes external reality.

Hence, the very act of discrimination has several specific senses:

 

• The ability or power to see or make fine distinctions; discernment.

   

• Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice.

Which can – and does – lead to bias or bigotry.

The other week, in an AOL chat-room, a self-styled "warrior for the disenfranchised" demanded I name "one good Muslim."

I wouldn't even dignify him with a reply.

And yet, his bias troubled me. So much that I mentioned our interchange to my highly spiritual Manhattan teacher and friend Lorenzo, a former Guggenheim fellow in languages.

Here, he writes back, are some of the Muslims he especially admires. There are, of course, many more:

 

• Rumi, c. 1200, Sufi master and poet, Turkey. Obviously a great being, founded the Whirling Dervishes.

   

• Attar, wrote "Parliament of the Birds."

   

• Al Ghazzali, c. 1100, Persian Sufi philosopher.

   

• Bahaudin Naqsbandi, truly fabulous Sufi master, an inspired genius, indeed a saint. I believe his tomb is outside Kabul!

   

• Hazrat Inayat Khan, beloved poet, musician.

   

• Omar Khayyam, Persian Sufi poet.

   

• Hafiz, Persian poet, c. 1350.

   

• Fidausi, Persian poet.

   

• Sadi or Sandi, Persian Sufi poet c. 1200, who wrote "Gulistan."

   

• Bawa Muhayadeen, recent Sufi from Ceylon who lived in Philadelphia, Pa.

   

• Akbar, great Mughal emperor. Loved all religions. Indeed, started a religion that was an amalgam of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism etc.

   

• Jahangir, Mughal emperor, impassioned Renaissance man, a truly great patron of the arts, especially painting, and an enormous influence. He brought Realism to Indian art.

   

• Nur Jahan, Persian wife of emperor Jahangir. Brilliant woman. While he pursued painting, architecture, science, drinking and courtesans, she ran the empire with great genius.

   

• Al Biruni, c. 1100, famous Persian engineer.

   

• Al Jazari , c. 1300, clockmaker, great engineer. Brilliant.

And there are so many astounding Persian and Mughal painters – some of the greatest artists the world has produced. Some famous painters I like: Manoha, Aq a Riza Jahangirl, Ghulam Mizra, Mir Ali al Sultani, Govardhan Basawan, Abid, Abu'l Hasan ... And we don't even know the names of the geniuses who decorated the great mosques from Spain to beyond India, all great masters of abstract art. The Met Museum in Manhattan has a wondrous Islamic art wing.

Advertisement - story continues below

Since 700, the Arabs, Muslims and Mughals have produced an amazing array of scientists, engineers, architects, canal builders and ship builders. Great thinkers and innovators. Many of their names are lost as the credit was always taken by the caliph or emperor. All one has to do is look at pictures of Fatepur Sikri, the great tombs and mosques of India, Persia, Pakistan, Egypt, Cordoba and Granada.

The culture that produced the Alhambra, the Taj, Istfahan, the poems of Rumi and the genius of Bahaudin is a great culture, and should be appreciated more by Westerners.