Peace Kenan,
Thanks for your interesting response!
I must say that I always enjoy your posts; they are always substantial and well argued. However I disagree with your take on porn and slavery in modern society and the relationship between the two.
First of all let?s define slavery. Slavery as I understand it is:
the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune.
Feminist claptrap. Most of them haven't got a clue what they are talking about. But not all of them, definitely not all of them. Some actually know exactly what they are talking about. Let me present Ovidie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovidie, a radical feminist, an intellectual (BA in philosophy) and a porn star. She wrote a book on porn called Porno Manifesto which gives a completely different view of the industry.
Louis Theroux did a documentary on porn a while ago:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Louis-Therouxs-Weird-Weekend-Porn-Stars; a bit superficial but OK, worth watching.
First, I wonder what you think of my point regarding the (explicit) virtualization of sexuality -- into 0's and 1's. Irrespective of whether you want to call these images ones of "slave girls", you will at least admit that jerking off to an immense LIBRARY of information, of 0's and 1's has become a pretty much a fixture of human sexuality.
My point is that this is actually a natural situation for us to be in, because all information is sexual. We naturally adjust to digital porn precisely because that's what we've been up to since the moment we gained sentience! And that this link, between information, the human body and sexuality and religion is very important. Remember that the printing press was immediately used as a vehicle for distributing Bibles AND porn ...
Your thoughts on that? (Ignoring slavery for the moment).
Now, regarding slavery ...
Okay, I don't really want to get TOO FAR into a whole discussion on the equation between porn and freedom, as it is a whole area of research.
I don't deny that there are amateurs who "play" at being porn stars. I totally understand the kick that might come from that fetish. Furthermore, I also would agree that there are also porn stars who do it simply for fun, not for profit. In such cases, I would not equate their status with slavery.
IF, however, they are doing the porn for SOME form of profit, then the equation with slavery is appropriate.
Don't forget that your arguments about empowerment have been used (sometimes, quite legitimately!) to highlight the "positives" of the systems of slavery employed by the Roman Empire and the Ottomans. When we think of slavery today, we imagine the racist system of "absolute" slavery run in the the US, where the slavery was more or less permanent. But in the Roman Empire and under various Islamic states, it was reasonably common (but not the norm at all) to grant a freedman status to a slave who served the master well -- or for slaves to work their way up to positions of great power in business and in the military.
To take a single example (of interest to me), see the Roman playwright Terrence (one of the classical influences on Shakespeare and, as a result, all the pop culture we watch today) :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerenceHe was a Libyan slave who was educated by his master and eventually granted freedom. And went on to make a significant contribution to the media, which we still feel indirectly today.
I could mention similar stuff from other cultural contexts -- masters marrying their slave girls, etc. Harun al-Rashid, the Abbasid Caliph, was the son of a former slave girl who somehow used her previous connections and networks formed to make machinations for her son's career. Etc.
Not the norm of course -- but there are many cases in which slavery of previous Empires -- LIKE MY OWN (because I count myself as western) -- was not completely absolute, where some slaves could "use" their situation to "empower" themselves and rise up the ranks, eventually gaining fame and fortune. The American system was an attempt at absolute slavery based around a deep racism, which is why it was not sustainable. Our own forms of slavery that the West operates today, from the porn we watch to the clothes we wear, is not really racist, and, while ultimately unfair and repressive by definition
Terrence, al-Rashid's mum, all those guys: no different from Danni Ashe, in my view
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danni_AsheForms of slavery DO empower. And slave girls can become CEOs. And more power to them! say I with my fatwa hat on.
Of course you would admit that there is a also class of porn which clearly exploits poverty, weakness or addiction in some kind of form. I'm not really talking about junkie or third world porn (although that exists): just your ordinary porn stars working their asses of for the Brazzer network or whatever company is running the show. You will find that most of these guys are doing it because they HAVE to for some reason or another: they are compelled (maybe not to buy drugs, but maybe to pay the mortgage). They don't earn megabucks or live a particularly empowered lifestyle: they are simply wage-slaves like the rest of us, working for a machine that keeps most of its profits, but with the difference that their bodies are the commodity.
I could say similar things about the sex trade.
Now, my point is: we are all masters at some point and all slaves at others, in all areas of information/capital exchange. In watching porn, we are certainly the masters, as we are paying the money. This DOES empower someone to an extent -- maybe the film company -- but in the case of a fortunate few -- this transaction also empowers the slave. So that she might become a master herself at some stage. This is certainly "empowerment".
And the holy books, in utilizing the whole master/slave terminology, still work in any day and age because, wherever you find humans, you will find new and interesting ways of exchanging capital between masters and slaves. Abrahamic religion is not Marxism: the master/slave dialectic is not an inherently immoral situation, even though it IS a tragedy, but it is simply the human situation.
Even if we leave society and try to run away to a commune (or even sit in a hut by ourselves), the master-slave thing will crop up in some form, either between us and other people, or even just in our own personal thoughts and the fragments of personality that make up the self.
Sufism offers a transcendence from this, the only "true" empowerment, comes from an entry into the 5th and 6th (tied) heavens of the Mi'raj, those occupied by Aaron/Harun and Moses/Musa. Their duality denotes the reversal of the master/slave dialectic, so that there is still transactions of capital, still conversations/trades/sex acts/books written but purely in a mode of perception of the Nur/Light of the Divine within the capital. Basically to see the "real" meaning behind the concepts of mastery and slavery is the "transcend" their "early" analogs.
At this point we are no longer "freed" or "empowered" slaves-turned-CEOs. At this point, Danni Ashe becomes transmogrified into an entirely different archetype: the gnostics called THAT empowered slave the Sophia or Norea, but we also have a different name for it in Sufism. We become a Wife of Prophecy.
Love and Light,
The Tailor
But the ultimate empowerment only comes from
Topic: Hadiths and Verses about Slavery in Islam