Anarca Islam(s)

War of Dreams: Becoming(s) of a Redeemed Circle A with an Eye and a Redeemed Eye with a Circle A

Written By
Mohamed Jean Veneuse
 Acknowledgments:
To every being mentioned & never mentioned with a name: How can one speak of Acknowledgments?
How can one pretend to summarize lives and their effects on I? How am I to deliver Eulogy after Eulogy in
the fake gesture that in such deliveries, in such work on work that has already been given and appropriated
by me, someway and somehow, that I absurdly could be regarded as returning a payment, even if partial, of
the debt that I owe others? Somehow I am expected to hierarchically do this, to act as this authority figure
calculating whom and whom not to acknowledge, who and whom are relevant?! No! The energy that I
could spend in lying and deceiving others and myself leaves me abandoned, left only with one possession:
my intentions. Intentions that if I could I would name those met, those never met, those I will meet and
those whom I shall never meet. But how can I? There is infinite debt here at work, more than one can
fathom and mention. An infinite debt, in admiration for those, who in my mind, have given and entrusted
parts of themselves to me; I have forfeited my infinite debts to God because you have all left me trembling.

For how can I not be left trembling if “I am sacrificing and betraying at every moment all my other
obligations: my obligations to the other others whom I know or don't know, the billions of my fellows
(without mentioning the animals that are even more other others than my fellows), my fellows who are
dying of starvation or sickness. I betray my fidelity or my obligations to my fellow citizens, to those who
don't speak my language and to whom I neither speak or respond, to each of those who listen or read, and
to whom I neither respond nor address myself in the proper manner, that is, in a singular manner (this is
for the so-called public space to which I sacrifice my so-called private space), thus also to those I love in
private, my own, my family” (Derrida).

To Eric: My tongue betrayed my intentions solely once…you have offered me infinite hospitality …
and it is finitely for that …I owe you infinite debt.

To Sean: A friend, a mentor, whom I have come to enjoy from the meanings of the word freedom. You
made me discover how one is capable of stuttering it for what remains of one’s life…I owe you infinite
debt.

To Sajida: I am told that without commitment, love becomes a friendship, an economy of utility and
perhaps even a testament to the impossibility of enduring the experience of earthly pure love. Initially I
presumed mourning had commenced but discovered that my mourning has yet to be given wings. Dearest
Sajida, You need to know that your love gave me tragic wisdom particularly with what now flows through
my life… For how can one have anticipated there to be a love left like this? I will always sincerely mourn
that it wasn't enough with you…for that was my love to you…and I thank you for it is before I had come to
know your name that…I owed you infinite debt.

To Marwa: When you told me we were always strangers…I embarked upon a voyage where you were
physically…I never felt that you were so private within me as much as I did upon taking that voyage to the
destination in which you chose to reside…a destination, for I, filled still with horrors…What I discovered
though was that despite the horrors, all I needed to know, even if I could not see or speak to you, was that
you were physically there…I never lost hope…I owe you infinite debt.

To Richard: You taught me the economy and rhetoric of language. You spoke to me and in my
directions. In truth, for I, in asylums were lab-coats are prominent, you abandoned yours. In truth, You
have shown me how to make a very thin file from a sledge hammer…and if the reader paused for a moment
and only a moment they would understand that I wrote for You and I…Nous…I owe you infinite debt.

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 To I: Do you see a reason for yourself? Yes. I am told that like Bartleby I am too smooth for anyone to
be able to hand any particularity on me. I am no one. I am told that I do nothing but take walks, yet am
capable of taking them anywhere, and without moving. I am told that I neither refuse nor accept advances;
that I advance only to withdraw upon advancing, barely exposing myself in the retreat and advance. I was
informed that my formula is such that I do not permit roots to grow or crops to carve out a kind of domestic
space for others and me to reside in. Perhaps because they, these domestic spaces, these tills of land,
continue declaring and proclaiming themselves, at least in my perception, rightly or wrongly, as foreign.
Perhaps I have said everything, exhausting language in the process and so I wander. Perhaps the intensity
of domestication is insufficient to hold me down, or that I see my duty merely to introduce and be
introduced to foreign language constantly; a pure outsider of sorts, to whom no social position could be
attributed. But perhaps, just perhaps, that a reason behind my distancing myself from everything else, save
my sporadic insurrectionary disruptions in the lives of others, is not that I lack a commitment to others.
Rather that I know now how often parts of myself have betrayed and continue to betray other parts of
myself. And so it is that I have come to the realization relatively recently that I only came here, lived and
will die to affirm and testify, to whomever chooses to see, not for my name, for I am no one, but that I had,
throughout my whole life and throughout all of my voyages, but a single possession; good intentions. This
resurgence of Islam(s) - my faith- denoted a leap forward… & was never a return to the supposedly
primitive cube house- the Ka’ba…

To Anarchists, Muslims/Muslimas, past, present & future: I never journeyed here to pledge allegiance
to either of you. I also never journeyed here to assimilate/integrate. I came here to negotiate, on behalf of
myself, for a tactical and hence organic treatise to begin. But any treatise requires ethics because, and
without deceiving ourselves, differences, within and without, will arise; in fact, they already have. Those
differences without come from mutual enemies and thus require that we unceasingly attempt to minimize
our stereotyping of one another, such that we may become more of a force in facing such enemies. Those
within come from our own selves and require that we unceasingly and tirelessly negotiate with our own
selves and rely on good intents. We will never foresee from where we stand now what lies ahead and all
that there is; But again we don’t need to, because together and only together will we be able to always
discover, construct and hence catch a glimpse of it…

Ila Rabe’e: haqab qa’d Ishtaqa Ghiyabee ilayk. Asaloa’ka a’n tuyasr Le Amri Wa’intchroha Le Saa’dri Wa’nthlol Uqdatan Min
Lesani ky Ya’Fqahu Le Qawle’e.
laqa Alhamd Walaqa Al’shukr qat…

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 Table of Contents

Preface……………………………………………………………………………………5

Introduction:
The Rhizome, Processes of Becoming(s) and Faith…………………………………10

Chapter One:
Kapital’s Wet Dream: Islam(s) & Post-Anarchisms..………………………...........25

Chapter Two:
Pedagogical Judicial Orders: Decentralized & Anti-Authoritarian……………...54

Chapter Three:
Nous..................................................................................................................................70

Chapter Four:
Infinite Thoughts as The End becomes a Beginning becoming an End…………...83

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………90

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You will permit me for I am more than revolted…more than outraged…

For I
wanted fresh work
One that would make contact with certain
Organic points of life,
a work in which one feels one’s whole
illuminated as if by a miner’s cap-lamp
with vibrations…
But that is only possible if nothing in the spoken text
happens to shock,
happens to damage this desire for glory

And so this

Might infringe on taste, morals, good manners, honorable intentions

or furthermore that might exude boredom,
familiarity and routine

But
The duty of the writer, of the poet is not to shut himself and/or
herself up like a coward in a text, a book, a magazine
from which s/he never comes out but on the contrary
to go into the world to jolt, to attack the mind of the
public, otherwise what use is s/he ?
And why was s/he born?

Thus
I had a vision of this in the afternoon…
There are some who eat too much, words…
Others whom never eat, words, at all,
and others…who can no longer eat words
without spitting; parts of themselves betray themselves…

Antonin Artaud

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 Preface

An Abode & The Three Witnesses

Muslims/Muslimas, claim or allege that the prophetic narrations, The Sunnah, or

varying texts of The Sunnah is/are dead. Others, Muslims/Muslimas as well, have
spoken distinguishing themselves, complaining that The Sunnah, or varying texts of
it, has been in the past and shall remain through endless eternity alive. I am not
interested here in becoming consumed with exactly the reasons behind such ‘talk’,
such an allegiance, the lack of it or even an abidance to varying degrees of The
Sunnah or not. Why would I? Why should I, as some Muslims/Muslimas believe it to
be, exercise a necessary desire to put to end such variations, I ask? And for what
purpose would an engagement in a discussion of such ‘talk’ carry in weight and
importance to the discussion here? I answer: Abstractly nothing, for such ‘talk’
would merely signify a reflection, a testimony whose testimony testifies to the
absence of attestation that there is a lack of consensus as to the Authenticity
throughout Islams of The Sunnah. Nonetheless such talk attains to I a degree of pure
testimony. There is a Pure Testimony namely to the triumphant spirit and fanatical
jubilation of such differing testimonies. As for The Holy Koran it remains
consensually Authentic amongst Muslims and Muslimas. The Holy Koran, is believed
to be protected by its first Witness-Author, God: “Verily We [God] ourselves have
sent down this exhortation [The Holy Koran], and most surely will be its Guardian”
(Qurran, Chapter 15: Verse 10).

Associate then what I address and proclaim here, in this economy of a paper, to
belong to and through The Holy Koran and interpretations longing and belonging to
its verses as I put away The Sunnah without delay, obligations to it or even talk of it
here.

Around her: Between Our Vows of Abstinence & Transgression

When I address you, when I speak to you here, each time, twice, it will be
through two narratives.

The first narrative is a transgressing narrative wrapped around and engaged

with an idea signified as becoming. This narrative touches, divides, shares and co-
appears with, yet is distanced from the second narrative, an abstaining narrative. The
abstaining narrative is a body of thought addressing both Muslims/Muslimas and
Anarchists.

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 Patience. For before I begin, there is a matter that demands attention. This is
the matter of clarifying terms, clarifying names. After all who are these Anarchists of
whom I speak? So let me tell you this: The Anarchists I will be and do refer to are
those whose practice and hence theoretical conceptions of Anarchisms operate from
European political/social specimens of the aggregate Anarchism.

After all the world - and Anarchism is no exception to this world as it is

grounded in relating to this world - is a collection, a work, heterogeneous and
multiple in its essence, and in its derivatives; that is, in its parts. These parts like the
European specimens of Anarchism, I referred to above, constitute merely fragmented
pieces of a puzzle, Anarchism. These pieces if taken together with other specimens
could and would constitute a possible totality, and hence the aggregate Anarchism.
But note the conditional ‘if’. It is only upon the fulfillment of this conditional ‘if’ that
the puzzle hangs in the balance; it is ‘if’ and only ‘if’ all the pieces belonging to this
puzzle could be traced that the puzzle and Anarchism would become tranquil,
peaceful as if they both have become conquered totalities. But often is the case, if not
in every case, that these totalities are disturbed from the ‘outside’ like the economy of
a paper I offer here and even from the ‘inside’; for example, the mere fact that other
specimens belonging to Anarchisms, are not so easily traceable.

And so it is that these fragments, Eurocentric Anarchisms, of an autonomous

socialism span periods of known discourses starting with what is often referred to
these days as Classical Anarchisms. Classical Anarchisms signify a problematic and
totalizing interpretation of Anarchism up-until the advent of the new social
movements. Then there are the more recent Post-Anarchisms, a fragile marriage of
Post-structuralism and previous incarnations of Anarchisms. Therefore, and here is
where I am obliged to make a confession: While in this tract I address those
Anarchists who have grappled with Post-structuralism and escaped bruised by an
understanding of Poststructuralist conceptions of force relations, I am aware that
many such Anarchists do not refer to their Anarchisms as Post. Therefore, in a world
of Anarchisms, like any other discourse, which cannot be neatly wrapped-up with a
bow for consumption, I find the subject of my treatise elusive. What’s in a name?
Apparently everything. This economy of a paper then becomes respectively written as
a critique of some Anarchist practices. I am aware that Anarchisms make a beautiful
composition, and that indeed there are religious and religious-friendly Anarchists
(many Post, many not). But there is also a strong silent majority of Anarchists who
are dismissive of those who choose to believe in God at best, and hostile at worst. I
call upon another ‘name’ to refer to these Anarchists. They are Anti-Religious
Anarchists of Classical Anarchisms; those who have chosen to remain attached to
essentialist identity politics, “hold finite philosophical views of the nature of power
relations” and presumably have killed God (Haberle, 2005: 28). They desire to
consolidate and reconcile the irreconcilable. That is, they see themselves as belonging
to one identity and not any other, thereby secluding themselves from the potential of
there existing any creative differences beyond their own selves and which they may
learn from. Such politics, I believe, arise out of a fear of what they do not and seek
not to know particularly regarding anything that goes beyond their own selves, as if

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somehow their state of ‘purity’ will be contaminated by anything outside it. This
economy of a paper is written with these Anti-Religious Anarchists in mind—not so
much as an address to them, but as a distant call to them and a beckoning desire for
them and those Anarchists aware of the hegemonic exclusionary politics that these
Anti-Religious Anarchists practice, based upon dogmatic understandings of Religions,
to speak and reflect with these Anti-Religious Anarchists regarding what I have to say
here. Two matters, speaking and reflecting, because in this economy of a paper, in
this prison of a paper, I am bound; I am unable to do either. There is an implicit
consent contained in silence and that ought and deserves to be disturbed, not for a
cemented totalizable Anarchism to be revealed but for an organically totalizable
Anarchism to be realized and actualized.

As for when I address Post-Anarchists (my own strawpersons constructed for

descriptive convenience) here, I mean to address all those Anarchists who have
embedded Post-structuralism into their practice, but who are still ambivalent towards
religions. With much confidence and tranquility I say: This is not my plea for your
attention, but a cautionary tale of your irrelevance.

And so it is that the purpose of the existence of the transgressing narrative then is
to contaminate intentionally what supposedly is the sacred event and the state of
purity assumed by Muslims/Muslimas and Anti-religious Classical Anarchists in the
abstaining narrative and who certainly constitute a majority.

As the end becomes the beginning becoming an End (Chapter Four), these heavy,
twisted and morbid thoughts, just expressed, will touch You and You inevitably will
feel embarrassed that, the touch, transgressed your body’s sacred space, brushed
against it, without your knowing, without You noticing.

They’ve Made me an organism! They’ve wrongfully folded me! They’ve

Stolen my body!

I believe and testify that Islam betrays itself. Islam bears a signature without
which it remains inaudible or weakly perceptible; a signature begetting permanent
difference. Such betrayal testifies that Islam remains indeed alive through the
multiplicity of its interpretations where each interpretation is ahead of another,
advancing upon another, towards one another, away from one another and such.

A monolithic Islam is a memory of beatitude and in its memory I begin speaking

of it no longer in the singular form. Rather I speak of it as plural, as an aggregate, as
Islams. There is no singular monolith and thus never more Islam. Such a statement
however would yet bear false testimony to my intents here. Thus, I tell you this:
Considering that there are a pluralistic series of traditions, perspectives and discourses
radiating from Islams – they, Islams, are not all anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist.
Respectively I become bound to address the topic at hand here using the signifier
Islam(s) to refer to a particular reading of Islams that highlights their anti-
authoritarian and anti-capitalist possibilities. And so it is, that Islam(s) then scurry

7
 like vermin, grope like a blind person, or run like a lunatic: desert travelers and
nomads (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 150). In other words, they are fixated upon a
moving instant, as a Bedouin upon a camel, experiencing movement, but un-
experienced in movement. ‘Islam’ has through an incessant process of renewal
succeeded in taking the structured organized organism that is itself as an enemy.
Islam’s essence and its undying desire belongs to its encounter with the temples of
interpretive difference; its organs; Islams. Islam if there is such an idea, such a
thought, such a way of life, does not permit itself to experiment in peace, it won’t
allow itself to ‘be’ just Islam because Islam is in combat with Islams; with its own
selves giving me now and here Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Authoritarian Islam(s). But
again its seems Anarchism(s) shares a similar trait; a similar desire for its organs to
engage in combat.

I ask for your pardon for having things go on so long. Let You and I now go a little
further.

Question of l’ Étranger

I am in mourning of all my tears. I am unable to participate in performing the rites of

my mourning. I admit without self-delusion that\ speaking to God appears still an
impossibility. A God whose absence remains for me, I am certain, forever unthinkable.
Yet I am at a loss, unable to find public words for what is happening to us. I desire
interrupting moments of my impossibility to break the silence of my absence from Nous. I
desire to participate in the rites of my mourning. I am about to shift tone.

“This is “Pigshit! All writing is Pigshit [save what are proclaimed to be Holy
Scriptures and certainly this is not one of them]! No more masterpieces, no more masters
(forget Hegel!)…Why? Because our innermost feelings are untranslatable and
linguistically inexpressible”(Perez, 1990: 42). Would you like another reason? Proposed
“literary masterpieces are established by repetition. That is to say, it is the repetition of
reading and performance that establishes the Text as a fixed expression...So why repeat
what has already been said as though one could recapture the freshness of the initial
expression? An expression does not have the same value twice; does not live two lives”
(Perez, 1990: 45). This paper, this scene of writing and its body of letters, words,
sentences and phrases has but one life and is paralyzed by its own economy.
Respectively, it is my intention that the specificities entailed in the discussion of this
economy of a paper are to be expressed through writing once. For now and at this
moment, sitting down, I tell you of a few matters.

As Antonin Artaud, I am insurrectionally in opposition to the rhetoric of written texts.

A rhetoric soldered in repetitive asylums and thus is engaged in the betrayal of creativity
as well as any possibilities of involution. Written texts whose bodies of paper have a
bodily hold on you and I, confiscating our every sense and their every fantasy. Written
texts whose failure in capturing the freshness of spontaneous expressions cuts across and
violently replaces your non-coded gestures, as well as mine, with those “meaningless
repetitions of the Text” (Perez, 1990: 46). I have to say this too swiftly but venture to

8
maintain this firmly: “Texts [at best] are to be read or performed once and then burnt
[including this one]” (Perez, 1990: 45).

Instead of the written text and if I had matters in my own hands, my senses, fantasies
and body would come alive in your midst and no longer become mourned. We would
welcome my becoming as director and not an author/creator. A “director who has
become a kind of manager of magic, a master of sacred ceremonies. And the material on
which [I] work, the themes [I] bring to throbbing life are derived not from [me] but
from” God (Perez, 1990: 36). I would be a shaman, not a Creator or hierarchal figure-
but merely the mediator of magic. That said. Forget the theatre. You here have a factory
and its economy in the theatre’s stead.

All that is left here then is the ushering instead and the offering of an interpretation…

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 Introduction: The Rhizome, Processes of Becoming(s) and Faith

I think she moved away, still with the feeling of lightness

This economy of a paper does not begin with an alliance or a fluid contract, neither

a familiarity nor a fictional friendship, between Muslims/Muslimas and Anarchists

informed by poststructuralist political philosophy. Rather this paper signals the arrival of

an interpretation that seeks to usher an alliance, a familiarity and a non-fictional

friendship between these parties. I ‘speak’ here and now and at this instant and say the

character of my speech is signified as Islamic Anarchistic Becomings.

She found herself in a distant forest, named Bois des Bruyères

In Anti-Religious Classical Anarchisms’ insurrections against ‘the’ theological

authority, God, You – a former Classical Anarchist and now a self-proclaimed Post-

Anarchist -- became, through mere processes of re-inscription, God’s replacement, a

demagogue, a master and a new form of authority. This occurred because You engaged in

an un-statutory process, since the birth of Anarchisms, where You claimed to have

murdered God, while in fact You left the actual place of the divine intact (Newman,

2001: 119). Relatively recently Your deliberate outbursts conveyed that Conventional

Classical Anarchisms have exhibited fragility. A fragility emanating from Classical

10
Anarchisms being linked and attached to as well as emerging from Euro-centric

metaphysics. Euro-centric metaphysics’ conceptions and “concepts of human subjectivity

and human rationality…are implicitly bourgeois and statist; it is [rightly noted, as You

have,] therefore [that it is] extremely difficult, if not theoretically impossible, for such

[Classical] Anarchism[s] to transcend the sociopolitical order” which they purported to

challenge (Call, 2002: 33). You thus announced, created and invited Post-Anarchisms as

a substitute. More easily You claimed that Post-Anarchisms affirm the importance of

difference. You deliberately bless yourself by complimenting yourself on Post-

Anarchisms’ understanding of “the need to draw together different strands of radical

thinking-anarchist, feminist, postcolonial, and so on - into provisional tactical alliances”

(Call, 2002: 42-43). But despite your claim the ‘dead’ Classical Anarchisms still belong

to You and the ‘newly born’ Post-Anarchisms still remain deprived from offering

hospitality, thereby distancing itself and hence yourself, yet again from Religion. I

believe that this has occurred because You, as a Post-modernist Anarchist, have sought to

find your dwelling place not in the past but rather in the future and though You have

reconsidered your stance on various elements pertaining to Classical Anarchisms You did

not offer the same courtesy regarding religions (Call, 2002: 42-43). You, a Post-

Anarchist, are yet still trying to escape a selective and inherited past, performing a partial

excavation, as fast as possible, rather than returning faithfully to the past in order to move

forward; Sankofa1. Religion(s) continue(s) to be exiled, deported, expelled and deprived

from your excavation(s). Throughout Anti-Religious Classical Anarchisms and

continuing through Post-Anarchisms, religion to You, has always been equated with
1
The signifier Sankofa signifies the necessity that “we must go back and reclaim our past
so we can move forward, so we understand why and how we came to be who we are
today”. Taken from www.sankofa. com

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everything that is manipulative and parasitic and this needs to be reconsidered. Your

stance on religions stems from the perception that “God [and God’s fettered religion

hold]… promises…[that according to You are] null and void, since they can only be

fulfilled by ‘man’s’ subordination” (Goldman, 1969: 5-7). But such a stance only

illustrates that You are uncommitted to disarming, as You yourself desire and admit to

be, “centuries of engrained Euro-centrism” that have yet to acquire and require

overcoming(s) (Adams, 2003: 1). In principle it certainly seems that “the importance of

[your Classical and Post] Anarchism[s] …[lies] in its exposing the authoritarianism[s]

within [Classical] Marxism[s], and the unmasking of the place of power within the state”

(Newman, 2001: 159). But in paying attention to and combating Classical Marxisms,

they, Anarchisms, Classical, Post and You, neglected themselves and yourself, and You

both became ‘blind’, consciously and unconsciously, to the “authoritarian tendencies”

within Anarchisms through your exclusion of ‘a non-Eurocentric other’ (Newman, 2001:

159). This ‘non-Eurocentric other’ I am referring to are Islam(s).

Because of such exclusion, Your “[Classical] Anarchisms’ pure place of resistance

against power, its uncontaminated point of departure…was [and remains yet with Post-

Anarchisms and You, un-strangely] somewhat impure, and contaminated with power”

(Newman, 2001: 159). This exclusion not only has the implication of affecting the

theoretical aspects of Post-Anarchisms but has its effects on the constitution of the

Anarchist subject, You, as well. After all, “the identity of the anarchist subject [your

identity] is actually constituted through its subordinated other - the power that it claims to

eschew” over me (Newman, 2001: 119). Respectively, You and “Anarchism(s) [,

Classical and Post, ought to be]…forced to reflect on the authoritarian possibilities within

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[your] own discourses, and develop appropriate strategies of resistance” to your Micro-

Fascism(s) (Newman, 2001: 119). In contesting and disarming such authority, your

authority, rather than submitting to its basic and limited jurisdiction, I engage in ‘super-

seeing’; seeing in the ‘blind’ place of the ‘blind’ Anarchisms, Classical and Post, not to

mention the ‘blind’ You.

She remained sheltered by trees she never knew well

One of Your and Post-Anarchisms’ avowed promises to Yourself and others

includes the absolute disarmament of your abstractions. Ignoring such a promise has left

You and Post-Anarchisms respectively infinitely vulnerable due to your exclusion of

Islam(s) and their different strands without knowing much if anything about them.

You have classified heterogeneous religions under the same name and hence your

abstractly extracted view of them is that they are all the same. Your farce remains, it just

changed sides; from Classical to Post and back again to Classical. You, now, a Post-

Anarchist have followed and still follow Classical Anarchisms’ trajectory towards

religion. You have yet to come to realize, as well, that in choosing such a re-inscription

and the political representation that accompanies it that You have delegated “our”

supposedly deceased God’s power to yourself. Respectively You run the risk of

exploiting, if You have not done so already, and perpetuating that oppression [formerly a

type of theological oppression, now a Post-Anarchistic oppression] onto other groups or

individuals; Islam(s) and I respectively (May, 1994: 47).

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 “How [do You, a now self-proclaimed Post-Anarchist] talk religion, talk Islam?

Of religion, of Islams? Singularity of religion, singularity of Islams today? How dare

[You] speak of [them] in the singular without fear and trembling, this very day? And so

briefly and so quickly?” (Derrida, 1996: 1). The aggregate Islams is not Islamism and

You should not forget that the latter operates in the name of the former and thus emerges

the grave question of the names of Islam(s) that I have come here to unravel. As for I

such names of Islam(s) emerge out of recognizing that “the ‘hyper-orthodox’ & the

ulemocracy cannot...reduce [them] to a hegemonistic/universalistic ideology…to rule out

divergent forms of ‘sacred politics’ informed by Sufism [e.g. the Naqshabandis], ‘radical’

Shia-ism [e.g. Ali Shariati], Ismailism, Islamic Humanism, Sunni-ism, the ‘Green Path’

of Col. Qadafi (part neo-Sufism, part anarcho-syndicalism)…the ‘cosmopolitan Islam of

Bosnia…there is and will not be a single ‘monolith’ of Islam” (Bey, 1996: 7).

Furthermore, these names emerge because “the Qur’an by means of its pulverization of

human language, is…Avant-garde...Post-modern…In its structure, its allusiveness, its

ambiguities, its imagery, and its poetry” (Cheethan, 2005: 122). “The Qurran reveals

human language crushed by the power of the divine word; God’s word unmakes all

human meanings, all the proud constructions of civilization, of high culture, and returns

all the luxuriant cosmic, imagery back to the lowly and the oppressed, so that in their

imaginations it can be made anew” (Cheethan, 2005: 122). Made anew through Ijtihad.

Islam(s) offer Muslims/Muslimas this Ijtihad, a kind of wandering in the vertigo of the

past, present and future. Ijtihad translates to an Islamic right and duty to track, identify,

intercept, pick up, translate, interpret and re-interpret Islamic principles and values to

meet the social conditions of the past, present and future (Esposito, 2002: 159). This

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Ijtihad allows for “the Islamic imagination, [as] Massignon has written, [to testify to

difference and] should not be seen as a desperate regression back to the primitive, the

eternal pagan substrate of all religions-that proteiform cubehouse, the Ka’ba- as well as to

a primitive pre-Mosaic monotheism of Abraham…The Dome is built upon the Rock’”

(Cheethan, 2005: 122). The meaning of this is that “whatever our relation to religion may

be, and to this or that religion, we are not priests bound by a ministry, nor theologians,

nor qualified, competent representatives of religion…as such, in the sense the certain so

called Enlightenment philosophers are thought to have been”, but we simply seek Ijtihad

(Derrida, 1996: 7). I believe that it is through this Ijtihad therefore that the world must be

imaginalized, must be interpreted along with the soul. After all, if the balance between

the visible and invisible worlds and if the balance between the material and the spiritual

is tragically lost, caught in an instant of death, creativity dies. Religion needs to be

conceptualized as a spiritual bond, “a reflecting faith…[and] opposed to dogmatic

faith…in so far as the latter claims to know and thereby ignores the difference between

faith and knowledge” (Derrida, 1996: 10). And for this to happen not only should

interpretation be allowed, but rather these interpretations should be encouraged and

embraced as opposed to Post and Classical Anarchisms’ assumptions that all there is to

know regarding the aggregate Islams is that they are supposedly all dogmatic,

authoritarian and capitalist. For how else can they, Classical and Post-Anarchists,

continue to be silent or not have reconsidered their stance regarding religions? I deny thus

that “there is any a priori reality to the signifier: words, and specifically certain words,

are nothing more than elements within an established semiotic field, and thus we repeat”

(Perez, 1990: 116). And it is because of this denial that I can follow through and say that

15
“there is no universal structure of the mind, of relationships, of sexuality, etc. any more

than there is an eternal essence of Woman-or Man. In the end we together say: we are

becoming…Woman…Man…Animal…all.” (Perez, 1990: 119).

She was never bound to death by my surreptitious friendship

As a consequence of all this it is easy to see how You, now a Post-Anarchist, may

understand my skepticism regarding any gesture of friendship from You. It is because

You have not given the Islam(s) I am about to unleash here infinitely respectful attention

in the past. Even if your friendship and attention came here now, I am skeptical that it is

merely premised on the intention that we may hypothetically have the same enemies. You

ask of my friendship? My friendship came here in the knowing that the differences

between us would never leave anything else for us but friendship. Such friendship further

differs in that it is premised in infidelities that occurred prior to us trying to relate here, if

that is at all a possibility. My friendships with others were and are premised on open

theatres outside this economy of a paper. Open theatres are where the written text is

replaced with the body. After all is the theater, the real world that is beyond the pages of

these written words, not “the only place in the world where a gesture, once made, can

never be made the same way twice?” The theater is the only place where one can escape

the violence of inscription which kills the human spirit” (Perez, 1990: 47). Subsequently I

ask You: How many Muslims/Muslimas have you befriended or at least did you strive to

know, without first assuming that you know everything there is to know about them, in the

open theatre?

16
 Unlike Your unfounded views regarding Islam(s) I am not going to pretend to know

You fully. What I propose to know about You becomes this though. In more ways than

one, You are a Post-Anarchist and a Muslim/Muslima. You are both? Yes you. Why?

You know neither. Even had You ascertained knowledge of both You forget that “any

claim to a universal structure of the mind stems from the reactive desire to make life

mathematical, calculable and simple, as in a story with a necessary beginning and a

necessary end” (Perez, 1990: 112). It is easy to claim that I know everything there is to

know or need to know about the way someone else chooses to live their life, but in reality

relationships between human beings are a lot richer than that. “There are as many kinds

of relationships as there are individuals.” (Perez, 1990: 112). Henceforth if You seek not

the richness of knowing about Islam(s) and Muslims/Muslimas and hence Yourself then

perhaps You do not belong here.

At the moment when the shooting was no longer, but to come…

This economy of a paper is built through language. Language whose “essence is

friendship and hospitality” (Derrida, 2000: 98). But language “is political [as well], and

while it can participate in political domination, it can also be used as a tool against it”,

like against your jurisdiction(s) upon my religion(s), my faith(s), my Islam(s) (Newman,

2001: 106). My intention is then to use Your language, that of Post-Anarchisms, and

introduce to You some of the concepts in Islams’ language such that we can relate to one

another. The points where we are able to relate and which I create here signify points of

resistance; resistance to us engaging in stereotyping one another any further. However

this resistance always comes with the realization that one can never destroy stereotyping,

17
but merely seek to minimize it (Sajida & Irrit interview conducted in Brooklyn). And thus

we can begin the processes of getting to know one another from these grounded points of

resistance that I offer here. For this to happen, though, it is necessary that Post-

Anarchisms liberate themselves from their own self-ascribed authority, from their own

Micro-Fascism(s). This authority and “power must respectively take into account the

kind of resistance that is being engaged in [here, in my economy of a paper], on pain of

repeating that which it is trying to escape”; its authoritarian position regarding Islams in

general and Islam(s) in particular (May, 2004: 73). And…

In the dense forest, suddenly, after how much time, she and I rediscovered a
Sense of the real

So I take it upon myself, here in this economy of a paper, to invoke and draw new

contours of what You perceive as illicit and impossible but fear admitting publicly for if

you did you would be engaged in othering me further than I already am; Islamic

Anarchistic Becomings. There are three nodes of congruence between Islam(s) and Post-

Anarchisms and, respectively, three plateaus or chapters that are unveiled here. I speak of

plateaus that unfold here all three reasoning(s) one might insist that one can be a

Muslim/Muslima and a Post-Anarchist: Anti-Capitalist Islamic Anarchistic Becomings;

Anti-Authoritarian Islamic Anarchistic Becomings; and Islamic Anarchistic Becomings of

Nous. Here, with instances on every plateau, I open and teach You of Islam(s). The first

two plateaus consist of two sacred enemies we, You and I, are averse to; Capitalism and

Authority.

18
 The first enemy then, your enemy and my enemy is Eurocentric Capitalism (Chapter

One). Here I argue that Islam(s) share Classical and Post-Anarchisms’ stance towards

Capitalism and that Islam(s) are Anti-Capitalist. In general, we can say that Eurocentric

Capitalism’s capability belongs to its residual strength, in that it is always adding a new

axiom to the previous ones as it appropriates whatever it finds to be a threat (Perez, 1990:

56). And right now Eurocentric Capitalism is seeking to appropriate the aggregate Islams

and thus my writing here is an attempt at re-appropriating part of that aggregate,

specifically Islam(s), that are in the process of being appropriated. As You can see

Islam(s) are already about to ‘start’ betraying Islams, through my combat against

Capitalism and Authority and my struggle as a writer here to free Islam(s) before they

fall prey to Capitalism and Authority’s vampiric forces. It, Eurocentric Capitalism,

always works and makes others work “by inscribing, coding and re-directing the flow of

desire so that they may correspond with the flows of capital at the stock market” (Perez,

1990: 56). Thus, it seeks to establish an arborescent hierarchical structure, coding our

every intent, our every relationship and our every desire, into relationships and desires

with a material essence, through processes of “de-territorialization (degrounding) and

territorialization (grounding)” (Perez, 1990: 56). And so You ask what would a

relationship without a material essence be like? Would it be 'material' but not have an

'essence'? To which I reply briefly, that we, You and I, would have to talk more about the

‘nature’ of such an essence but that I would picture it void of materialism and whose

vacuum ought to be replaced and filled with obviously something else instead. That

something else, in my eyes, is a form of communal jurisprudence. We, You and I,

Muslims/Muslimas and Anarchists as well as anyone espousing a similar socio-political

19
commitment, would operate and invite/create jurisprudence, such that in each case, in

each situation We, as a collectivity, are not abstractly fighting for the ‘rights of man’ or

an all encompassing abstract impossible global form of ‘justice’ but something that is

more situational, circumstantial and hence more ‘real’.

Eurocentric Capitalism tries always to disrupt that ‘real’ as it makes repetition, a

simulacrum, its end, such that everyone and everything is coded over and over, merely

becoming a copy of a copy, as this economy of a paper is in more than one way a copy of

every other paper. What this results in is Eurocentric Capitalism fulfilling its desire

regarding the destruction of meanings by and through its insatiable appetite for

repetitions as it creates myths “to make people dependent on those myths…[to make]

people feel that they lack, and of course, desire something” (Perez, 1990: 113). It creates

these myths by its engagement with the promotion of its own culture; a culture that basks

in the greed and egoism of money and profits to eclipse and render idolatrous more

authentic concerns, namely, ‘us’ and everything else on earth (Call, 2003: 46). I speak

here then of a Eurocentric Capitalist culture which Islam(s), harmoniously alongside

with Classical and Post-Anarchisms, believe is a cause and not an effect, not a disease but

rather a symptom and which deserves a resistive response from this alliance I am building

here between Islam(s) and Anarchisms, both Classical and Post (Call, 2003: 127).

The second enemy represents itself as Eurocentric Authority (Chapter Two). Here I

testify and show that Islam(s) are not only capable of, but rather they do in fact espouse

Anti-Authoritarian principles that go hand in hand with Post-Anarchisms’ rejection of

Non-Eurocentric and Eurocentric Authority. The former is tactical, hence micro-political

and Micro-Fascist, whereas the latter is strategic, macro-political and Macro-Fascist,

20
like the Eurocentric-ally conceived State. What I refer to as Micro-political authority is a

type of authority that is not necessarily Eurocentric and whose power finds its site in the

“observation that: power does not operate as many people believe from the top down”

(Call, 2003: 66). It is a power whose form is “capillary: it is everywhere, it flows through

every social relation” (Call, 2003: 66). Micro-political power has both its means and

presence in everyone and everything and is not solely constrained, confined, or shackled

to oppressors but to those who suffer under oppressions as well (Call, 2003: 66). In other

words, power passes through the hands of the mastered no less than through the hands of

the masters. Furthermore it is produced from one moment to the next, at every point, or

rather in every relation from one point to another (Call, 2003: 66). What this means is

that there is Micro-political power that is within You and within I. A Micro-political

power that is not utopian or dialectical in its pursuit(s), as it is always becoming

something else, and neither is it confined or locked in definite relationships or Micro-

Fascisms, but rather is spiraling as it creates and re-creates itself. They are always there.

As a result of this; Micro-Fascisms grow “not, perhaps out of the fact that…[they] can

seize power at the macro-political level; any state can do that…[but rather they are

horrific fascisms that penetrate] the smallest nooks and crannies of the social organism”

(Call, 2003: 52). There is “rural [Micro] fascism and city or neighborhood [Micro]

fascism, [Micro] fascism of the Left and [Micro] fascism of the Right, [Micro] fascism of

the couple, family, school and office” (Call, 2003: 52). These Micro-Fascisms rise out of

the positions of privilege we often enjoy as individuals and that we often overlook and

take for granted. These Micro-Fascism(s) require overcoming(s) and resistance on an

individual basis through becomings. I see becoming(s) as connoting and necessitating a

21
“kind of radical personal responsibility” and permanent revolution against our own selves

with every waking moment of every day in retaliations to these Micro-Fascism(s)

(Guattari and Negri, 1985: 116). After all political “organizing signifies first, work on

oneself, in as much as one is a collective ‘singularity’” (Guattari and Negri, 1985: 116). If

these Micro-Fascisms are not fought then their presence will provide the necessary

breeding ground for the germination and conditions of thinking which makes the state

possible in the first place (Call, 2003: 51). This is because Micro-Fascism(s) stand on

their own, then “communicate with other [Micro-Fascisms] before resonating in a great,

generalized central black hole” (Call, 2003: 52). The central black hole is the Macro-

Fascism of Eurocentric Capitalism and intertwined with it the Eurocentric State. The

authority subsumed by and through the modern Eurocentric State and Capitalism, takes

on an abstract and generic form, that is strategic and centered as it is “a prudent

institution [that proclaims that it is for] the protection of individuals against one another”

but at any rate invites the dissolution and enfeebling of the individuals within it; that is its

function (Call, 2003: 50). As Eurocentric Capitalism attempts to exhaust our every

disorderly desire, not allowing us to even lie down as subjects, the Eurocentric State

concurrently collaborates with it and absurdly proclaims that it is there to order the

disorder. The Eurocentric State is a Macro-Fascist institution, an organized bureaucracy,

whose desire is to enforce the creation of a homogeneous political culture, eradicating

difference as opposed to liberating it and repeating everything as opposed to creating

anything (Call, 2003: 46). It is hierarchical and its eco-political frameworks are set up,

put into place and protected by those who cannot lead or obey it themselves (Perez, 1990:

20). The modern state “is infinitely bound up with [Eurocentric] Capitalism…as part of

22
the [Eurocentric] Capitalist machine: capital and the state…[are] a system of signifiers”

that exist within every individual and that shackles the individual through the infinite

debt that the individual owes them (Newman, 2001: 99). They accomplish this hold on

us because both Eurocentric Capitalism and the State, in their most abstract form, are

Macro-Fascistic ‘structures’, in the most fluid of senses, that refuse to be addressed in

any names but ’the holy State’ and ‘God-Capital’, till these names, these signifiers

become, if not almost become, “religious signifiers which individuals are subordinated

to” (Newman, 2001: 99).

The third plateau that will be discussed is written to highlight the necessity for a

multiplicitous, non-fictional and plural Nous, between Muslims/Muslimas and Post-

Anarchists, as a form of resistance to our two common enemies. Despite Western

prejudice that sees Islams, and therefore Islam(s), as necessarily authoritarian, Islam(s)

are committed to their responsibilities towards the declaration that what they desire is to

truly always see ‘any and every other’ live freely. They, at least theoretically, long not to

render ineffective any beauty belonging to anyone or anything else, and accept that ‘the

other’ must declare itself as it desires to be. Islam(s) are required to never insist, never

camouflage, and to never mask the rights belonging to ‘the other’, whether that ‘other’ is

within or without Islam(s). Islam(s) strive, as do Post-Anarchisms, at least in theory, for

Nous; in other words, for a Community. Nous denotes the becomings of a fluid “us”

between these two ways of living, Islam(s) and Post-Anarchisms (Chapter Three). Nous

is a rhizomatic “us” that is unlike trees or their roots. A rhizomatic “us” that connects any

point from You to any other point with I and any point from I to another point with You

(May, 1994: 53). Nous’ attributes are traits not necessarily linked to traits of the same

23
nature, and therefore are always attesting to the beauty of difference. Nous brings into

play not units but dimensions, discovered and undiscovered, or rather directions of

motions, of the You and the I, and hence it is always resigned to fluxes of difference and

thus subject to change as it is interpreted and re-interpreted over and over again. Because

its interpretations are infinite, Nous speaks volumes as it has neither beginnings nor ends,

but always a middle from which it grows and which it overspills (May, 1994: 53). Its

overspilling indicates, albeit even if but temporally, that You and I, have disappeared.

Disappeared not into a colorless and puritanical “one”, rather a hospitable and friendly

multiple. This friendship and hospitality that it offers is made possible because it is

“characterized by a radical openness to an outside…[as it] embraces four characteristics:

connection, heterogeneity, multiplicity, and rupture…[and whose] purpose…is to allow

thought ‘to shake off its model, makes its grass grow-even locally at the margins,

imperceptibly’” (Newman, 2001: 105). As such Nous, is like the thousand flowers left to

blossom and bloom, without organizational slogans and even less an enlightened

prediction, on the terrains of undermined capitalist and authoritarian disciplinarian

regimes of madness and their machines (Guattari and Negri, 1985: 132). And it is through

Nous that the State is compromised because Nous itself “constitutes an outside to the

state…characterized by an absolute exteriority…[and that is] purely conceptual: it is an

image of thought, an idea without an object…a non-place, a space characterized by

pluralities, multiplicities, difference, and becoming…an assault of the physical place”,

the Eurocentric State (Newman, 2001: 108-109). Its invention becomes a ‘system’, not

built upon abstract unifications, but rather new lines of alliances, new lines of co-

operations and new ways of living and thus leads to the birth of new communities

24
(Guattari and Negri, 1985: 127). It becomes a way of living, “that rejects binary divisions

and hierarchies, does not privilege one thing over another, [You over I or I over You] and

is not governed by a single unfolding [governing] logic [but rather innocent becoming(s)”

and hence the continual recreation of relationships (Newman, 2001: 105-106). This is

how the story begins, now lets us discover together how it ends…

Chapter One: Kapital’s Wet Dream: Islam(s) & Post-Anarchisms

No Hospitality

Has it become that easy for you to proclaim that you are just a Classical/Post-
Anarchist? Has it become easy for me to admit that I am just a Muslim & Muslima? What
do you and I know about either? I admit. You proclaim otherwise. Tell me then, what and
who is a Classical/Post-Anarchist? What and who is a Muslim & Muslima? What “is”?
If you are proposing that these signifiers are something to be taught and just “are”, think
again. You are assuming they can be. Taught by whom, You and I? Defined by whom,
You and I for everyone else? These signifiers, Islam(s) and Classical/Post-Anarchisms,
do not signify theories, they are ways of living, ways of being in the world; attitudes
(Perez, 1990: 67). “Sylvere Lotringer is an an(archist). The Italian ‘autonomists’ are
an(archists). And the Rastafarians, with their own language (patios) and lifestyle, are
also an(archsits). An(archy) takes as many forms as there are individuals” (Perez, 1990:
67). If You choose otherwise then Your desire, Your yearning is for a solitary identity.
Your desire would traverse few lives. I on the other hand? I desire a taste for the
grandeur, a desire for addressing those who have come before I, those who will come
after I, or are already after I, a desire of promises interrupted, broken all of a sudden,
and yet still indestructible. A desire where the subjectivities of a “we”, Nous”, the You,
the “tu”, and the I, transgress the “is” and race instead, in haste, with, through, in and

25
out of un-despairing fluxes. Un-despairing fluxes? Yes, un-despairing fluxes of
becoming(s). My movements that I arrogantly presumed were spoken are now speaking…

The only other thing is the opening attack on Eurocentric Capitalism

Islam(s) interpret, unlike Eurocentric Capitalism, that “everything [subject and

object] ultimately belongs to God…Human beings are simply Caretakers, or Vicegerents,

for God’s property [subject and object]” (Esposito, 2002: 165). Therefore You and I and

every other subject are Caretakers of ‘ourselves’; You and I and every other subject are

Caretakers of one another; and we are all equally Caretakers of all of God’s objects. I

will begin this Chapter with a section titled Proudhon’s Second Coming: What is

Property, in which I will discuss the difference between Public and Private conceptions

of Property, according to my interpretation of Islam(s), and compare this to Eurocentric

Capitalism. I will follow this by a discussion, in To become done with the Judgment of

gods: A kind of Deliverance, of how Islam(s) are opposed to not only Eurocentric

Capitalism but to Despotic Eurocentric Socialism as well. This will be followed by an

outline of how Islam(s) envision an alternative economy, and will consist of three

sections: Through an Innocent Child sentenced to death by drowning, An Individualized

Caretaker’s Face wears its emptiness openly and Almost all the witnesses had a different

opinion. But let me briefly say this: The alternative economy that Islam(s) seek is

opposed to the individualistic accumulation of Wealth and secondly opposed to the

Involuntary Labor Relations that are associated with the accumulation of that Wealth in

Eurocentric Capitalism. Respectively I will be introducing and discussing three main

concepts: The first is that of Caretakers, of which there are two types: Communal and/or

Individual; the second concept is what is referred to as “small borrowed firms”; finally

26
the third is Mudarabah/Musharakah. I will then proceed to discuss both practical and

symbolic measures that are forms of Reactive Resistance towards Eurocentric

Capitalism, in the sections titled Rejoice, An Exodus without Enunciations, Class

Struggle already permeates the family and I sacrificed my nights to your business.

Islam(s) use these reactive resistances to ward off Eurocentric Capitalist Wealth and its

accumulative tentacles: interest, surplus profits not ‘profits’, ground rent, inheritance and

taxation. I will conclude the chapter by highlighting three Active Resistances in the last

three sections, which are again of both symbolic and practical value, for the active, rather

than just reactionary restoration of any inequalities in income that may arise between

individuals within a given community.

Proudhon’s Second Coming: What is Property

A Koranic verse emerges to respectively iterate and remind You and I of what this

Chapter proclaimed at the very beginning, that everything ultimately belongs to God: “O

believers, expend of the good things you have earned, and of what We have produced for

you from the earth; and intend not the corruption of it for your expending, for you would

never take it yourselves…Those who expend…night and day, secretly and in public, their

wage awaits them with their Lord, and no fear shall be on them; neither shall they

sorrow” (Qurran: Chapter II, Verse 269). God creates God’s Property, the object, and all

objects that are of this world are available in abundance and God’s intention is that such

Property, such objects, becomes shared in equity (Esposito, 1980: 37). Property signifies

27
then abstractly through Islam(s), unlike through Eurocentric Capitalism, bonds that are

communal, Public, rather than personal, Private. Individuals according to this

interpretation of Islam(s) therefore have claims to at least that which suffices in creating

a decent ‘quality of life’ rather than just a ‘standard of living’ (Esposito, 1980: 37).

Public Objects, through this interpretation of Islam(s), become a collective and

communal concern and access to such objects is a right such that these objects become

divided ‘equally’ amongst the community (Esposito, 1980: 32). “The public sphere [here

then and through Islam(s)]…characterizes the objective nature of Property” as opposed

to the private appropriation of Property in Eurocentric Capitalism (Deleuze & Guattari,

1980: 451). A new non-Euro-centric meaning of Property emerges as a result. Property,

through Islam(s) and with this new conception, is absolutely owned by God and with it a

new type of economic relationship: God-Caretaker(s).

Conversely Eurocentric Capitalism is an idea that appropriates Property solely to suit

the interests and desires belonging to a Master; a capitalist. The capitalist’s desires, which

will be discussed in more detail further in the subsections to follow, are in a continual

quest and thirst for the maximization, hence quantification, of surplus objects and

subjects (Abdul-Rauf, 1978: 17). Islam(s) associate these individualized desires with

“selfishness, cruel individualism, and greed…[and because of that they, these desires, are

always] bound to create an environment of loneliness and isolation” (Abdul-Rauf, 1978:

17). Subsequently Eurocentric Capitalism has no regard for the importance of the

collective and communal caretaking of Property as Islam(s) do.

To become done with the Judgments of gods: A kind of deliverance

28
 Eurocentric Capitalism is “a decentralized system that provides individuals

with…[an] atmosphere of severe competitiveness [through private appropriations, unlike

Islam(s), and which [are]…bound to lead to deep tension[s] and depression[s]…[as well

as acts of] criminality, corruption on a large scale and a [birth of a] deep fear of insecurity

since there can be no limit” of an individual’s discard of the communal (Abdul-Rauf,

1978: 17). This has been rightly noted. There is a dialectically opposed alternative to this

Eurocentric Capitalism. I am speaking of course of Eurocentric Socialism. I am referring

to an unbridled Eurocentric Socialism whose conception of the communal has no limit in

its disregard for the individual, and hence becomes the opposite of Eurocentric

Capitalism. This disregard for the individual is signified through the forbiddance of

desires belonging to that individual. This forbiddance is born through the complete

impossibility of becoming a ‘borrower’ or ‘caretaker’ of any kind, ushering in, instead,

centralizing and regulating mechanisms where infinite desire(s) is/are controlled, kept in

line and bound to nepotism (Abdul-Raud, 1978: 18-19). This nepotism is a usurpation of

an individual’s autonomy, agency, liberties of economic action(s), desensitizing any

potential desires in the process to innovate, to create, to work, all of which could be done

in moderation and without depriving subjectivities of their dignity, through a deprivation

of their multiple desires. Islam(s) are opposed to Eurocentric Socialism on these grounds.

That is, on the grounds that Eurocentric Socialism forgets the singular, the unique, the

always differential and the always ‘other’ in favor of the artificial homogeneous pack of

‘oneness’ in the communal. Eurocentric Socialism then is as destructive as Eurocentric

Capitalism. Islam(s) are in defense of what they perceive to be necessary individualized

desires that ought to be left to flourish so long as these individualized desires do not

29
sacrifice or jeopardize the community’s interests. So what Islam(s) perceive an individual

as being is a unique entity whose desires give rise to the communal but at the same time

Islam(s) see the reverse of this as equally important as well (Abdul-Rauf, 1978: 18-19).

That is, the communal gives rise to the individual too. I ‘speak’ then and say that:

“[Eurocentric] Capitalism and [Eurocentric] Socialism [represent two extremes and they]

have only succeeded in…[subjugating] work to a social mechanism which is logo-centric

or paranoid, authoritarian [through their differential means and in their own ways]…and

destructive” (Guattari & Negri, 1985: 14). Islam(s) suggest, then, a middle path between

both Capitalism and Socialism. This is because Islam(s) believe in neither the necessity

for excess, surplus of subjects and objects, as in Eurocentric Capitalism, nor the

necessity for scarcity, rationing of subjects and objects, as in Eurocentric Socialism

(Abdul-Rauf, 1978: 18-19). As I will continue to illustrate, Islam(s) admit and insist that

“the most important lesson [is that] the construction of healthy communities begins and

ends with unique personalities, that the collective potential is realized only when a

singular is free”, but again never at the expense of the communal (Guattari & Negri,

1985: 17). But to conceptualize what Islam(s) offer in response and as an alternative

economy to Eurocentric Socialism and Capitalism, there lies the necessity of creating

new Non-Eurocentric concepts, ‘Islamicized’ concepts.

Through an Innocent Child Sentenced to death by drowning

In this section I create ‘new’ concept(s), through Islams’ conceptions of an

alternative economy. The first is that of the Caretaker. As I mentioned earlier, s/he has

available two types of economic relationships: Individualized and/or Communal.

30
Abstractly the concept of the Caretaker implies that s/he is a mere temporary

‘beneficiary’, a ‘trustee’ and a mere ‘borrower’ of God’s Property. Such a Caretaker, as I

articulated before, is a ‘borrower’ and not an ‘absolute owner’; that position of the

‘absolute owner’ is left to God (Esposito, 1980: 36). These Caretakers are symbolically

and practically, in accordance with the interpretation I provide here, ‘bound’ by new

forms of relations, amongst You and I, and with ‘this’ and ‘that’, objects. The Caretaker

is not a detached prisoner or a proletariat, both of whom are concepts and signifiers that

are Eurocentrically conceived and premised upon Eurocentric models. Because in

Islam(s) all Property belongs to God, a dual ownership, partnership or what could be

thought of as ‘in between state’ emerges. It, this dual ownership, is a hybrid, and though

seemingly complex is quite simple. It is comprised and takes shape or form between two

parties. A party comprised of a community, Communal Caretakers, and the second party,

God, whose ownership precludes everything. Islam(s) then envision that these

communities of Caretakers operate through de-centralized decision-making processes

that are premised upon consultation or what is referred to as Shura. Shura is not derived

from secondary sources of literature but is derived from the Koran (Choudhury, 1997:

107).

Shura guides these ‘new associations’, this ‘new economy’, that becomes

comprised or composed of “a large number of small [borrowed] ‘firms’ [through

borrowed Property from God]” (Awan, 1983: 30). These associations or ‘small borrowed

firms’ have an essence that utterly “differ[s] from a traditional [Eurocentric] sense of

Ownership” (Awan, 1983: 30). “What becomes then of the difference(s) between these

‘small borrowed firms’ and “self-managed [Monopolistic and Oligopolistic] firms and

31
cooperatives in [Eurocentrically] Capitalist and [Eurocentrically] Socialist economies

[respectively]” (Awan, 1983: 31)? These ‘small borrowed firms’ occupying and occupied

by an Ummah, a community, are constituted by continual temporal ‘states’ of abductions

and transformations as Individualized and Communal Caretakers are always only

occupying temporary states of ownership. That is, these states of ownership are never

permanent. It is important to note that Communal Caretakers have an essence: Shirakah,

partnership in everything, particularly that which subscribes to the economic, and who

“decide freely [Ikhtiy’ar]…[to participate or not] without outside influence…[unlike

those un-consented to and influential visitations by] capitalist suppliers [in Eurocentric

Capitalist Economies and similarly] planning authorities [in Eurocentric Socialist

Economies]” (Awan, 1983: 32). Thus participation in ‘small borrowed firms’ is guided,

unlike Eurocentric Capitalism and Socialism, upon the ‘basis of equality’ and a collective

obligation, Fardh, towards a shared communal responsibility in the decision-making

processes following the establishment of what is referred to as Tawheed. Tawheed, is

anything but a limit, for it is a private recognition and a public declaration that “once the

Sovereignty of God is recognized, the ‘authority’ for [a small borrowed firm’s]

establishment is vested in the whole Ummah (Community) and is to be exercised in light

of the Koran through the ‘democratic’ process of [partial or full] consultation with [in]

the Ummah” (Awan, 1983: 32). Tawheed is a coin with two faces: one implying that God

is the creator, and the other that individuals are equal partners and that each individual is

brother and sister to the other (Esposito, 1980: 31). Pertaining to Public Property, this

Tawheed’s consequence is that the Ummah and hence community becomes built upon

equality and cooperation, as divinity belongs solely to God (Esposito, 1978: 31). A

32
Koranic verse illustrates further: “And they conduct their affairs by mutual consultation”,

through Shura (Qurran, Chapter 42: Verse 38).

Furthermore unlike Islams’ creation of ‘small borrowed firms’, another major

difference between them and Monopolies/Oligopolies and even State-run cooperatives is

that “self-managed [Monopolistic and Oligopolistic] firms and cooperatives in

[Eurocentrically] Capitalist or [Eurocentrically] Socialist economies remain financially

dependent [up]on owners of capital or state bureaucracies” (Awan, 1983: 31). A

resultant “undue influence on the decision-making process [through the ‘state’, through

‘capitalists’ or a hybrid of both] arises” (Awan, 1983: 31). That is, the potential for

coercive influences comes about. Islam(s) are opposed to these coercive forces.

Associations within these ‘small borrowed firms’ become related not to ‘Eurocentric

ownership’, but a ‘dual ownership’, again where individuals and the communal are in

continual processes or ‘states’ of temporary borrowing(s) of Property. The associations

and bonds within these ‘small borrowed firms,’ through Islam(s), are premised upon acts

of participation, involvement, and more importantly characterized in their desire to

become conditionally open to everyone so long as those choosing to be involved espouse

an ethical commitment to the community (Awan, 1983: 31). Thus I ‘speak’ of a radical

openness, through Islam(s), which is conditional upon the assumption that a/the

individualized subject(s) desiring inclusion, through participatory acts within ‘small

borrowed firms’, recognize(s) two matters: First, the importance and necessity of all that

is communal, unlike Eurocentric Capitalism, through an appreciation of all associations

with other Caretakers; Secondly, that a/the individualized subject(s) recognize the

participatory commitments through a becoming ‘borrower’, Caretaker, never an absolute

33
owner themselves. Hence s/he becomes like all other and any other Caretaker(s) equal

and never privileged over others. Ownership is correlated, through Islam(s), solely with

God while caretaking is premised upon community volunteering in the caretaking

processes. Therefore the participatory acts are of a Voluntary essence unlike the

Involuntary Relations born out of Eurocentric Capitalism. Therefore, Islam(s) are in

opposition to coercion. Eurocentric Capitalism’s abuse of labor through surplus labor

through the monopolistic appropriation of labor by the entrepreneur and whom is no

longer the landowner, in Islam(s) then is unacceptable (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 442).

Islam(s) are opposed to Involuntary Relations because Communal Caretakers are

to be born out of Ikhtiy’ar, the voluntary relations and associations (Wilson, 1997: 134),

It is a Fardh, a religious obligation, that there is a guaranteed degree and expected quality

of life amongst the ‘members’ of a community, and for this to happen Caretakers and the

community at large ought to be able to choose and voice their opinions freely. Governing

the relationship, the association amidst Communal Caretakers becomes an ethical

conduct. A conduct that neither perceives a Communal Caretaker, a voluntary worker, to

be in a position of enjoying any innate moral superiority over another voluntary worker

(Esposito, 1980: 44). Communal Caretakers are “accorded a dignity in keeping with

…[their] status as…vicegerent[s] of God on earth…[whose] return[s] can take the form

of wages or a share in the ‘Useful Profit’ of enterprise” (Ahmad, 1991: 37). Islam(s) are

therefore “strongly opposed to [the] exploitation of [Caretakers by one another] and

[they instead] seek to promote the greatest amity between” Caretakers (Ahamd, 1991:

41). A Koranic verse iterates this: “Withhold not things justly due to others” (Chapter 29:

Verse 183). Another reason that Islam(s) are opposed to Eurocentric Capitalist actions is

34
that Capitalism suffocates the Involuntary worker financially, to say the least. In Islam(s)

“wages [to voluntary workers are not] to be determined exclusively by the free play of

market forces” (Ahmad, 1991: 41). In other words the “wage [paid to the workers in

Islam(s)]…[should] not [be] related to the marginal productivity of the worker[s]” as in

Capitalism; hence Real Wage (Ahmad, 1991: 42), Rather the wage paid to any worker or

Caretaker should be related to the cost necessary for the workers/Caretakers to have an

adequate quality of life instead of simply them being provided with a supposedly ‘decent’

standard of living (Ahmad, 1991: 42). Why? Because Real Wages in Eurocentric

Capitalism are not converted to the ‘actual cost of living’ by correspondence and

comparison, and therefore they in reality result in an exacerbation of the differences

between the two sets, owner and owned; entrepreneur and worker (Deleuze & Guattari,

1980: 446). Islam(s) however require that compensation be paid to workers/Caretakers,

unlike Eurocentric Capitalism, before their sweat dries therefore not making the worker

wait for market forces to determine their wages and their fate (Ahmad, 1991: 42).

Therefore Islams’ definition of ‘wage’ and the one I am using here has an essence that is

opposed to the Eurocentric conception of Wages, as well as the Eurocentric Capitalist

and Socialist Conceptions of labor.

An Individualized Caretaker’s Face wears it emptiness openly

“In order to have shit, that is, meat, where there was only blood and a junkyard of

bones…[‘man’] learned himself [or/and herself] to act like an animal and to eat rat

daintily” (Artaud, 1976: 560-561).

35
 As illustrated above, Islam(s) embrace and focus on the collective potential of

community, but hold that such a realization is born only when the singular is free. This

section respectively is dedicated specifically to addressing Individualized Caretakers

their form and their relationship(s) to Communal Caretakers. Although Communal

Caretakers are preferred, Islam(s) appreciate singularity and hence difference, and seek

to make room for both the community and the individual together (Esposito, 1980: 42).

For this to happen, Islam(s) hold that the singular must be free and that desires are

affirmed, rather than negated and dismissed as in Despotic Eurocentric Socialism. Such

individual freedoms and the affirmation of desires that comes with it, however, are left to

flourish only until they override the rights of the communal as I mentioned in the former

section. Thus there is a limit to individualized desires. This way Islam(s) avoid the radical

focus on the individual’s rights, which, in Western Liberalism, dismisses the importance

of communal organizing. Instead, Islam(s) adopt measures, which will be discussed

relatively soon, with the symbolic and practical intent of reducing the conflict of interest

and negotiating between the rights of communities and individuals.

Because Islam(s) embrace individuality they offer spaces where the Individualized

Caretaker, the singular, not Communal Caretakers, not the plural and multiple, can

innovate and bask in difference. This appreciation of difference is critical because one

must find a major field of action for human imaginations. There is always a subject, an

individual, who desires imaginatively to create something ‘new’, which others belonging

to the communal may not necessarily be inclined towards or interested in. Therefore the

essence of desires belonging to subjects, consciously and unconsciously, is not centered

36
nor fixed in ‘states’ of stagnation but rather it always occupies varying intensities and

‘states’ of flux. There are no desires that are centralized. Thus we say together: desires

are infinitely in flux and endlessly becoming. Endlessly becoming something ‘other’ than

what they were and what they supposedly are. Again it is important to re-iterate that the

fact that desires are always becoming is not however to be taken as a justification for

inequality in Capitalist societies. Islams’ subject then may become an Individualized

Caretaker, a ‘small borrowed firm’, but remains subject to specific constraints. How?

Because idealism has no place here and because of the potential for there to be

differences in Mal, money, that rise to the surface amongst Caretakers as a result of

trying to build a compromise between the rights of the individual and those of the

communal, it is important to understand how Islam(s) propose that individualized desires

in particular are kept in check. How are these differences in Mal dealt with? Before I

respond to such a question, it becomes important to note that what I refer to as Mal is

composed differently than what is Eurocentrically referred to as Wealth. Differences in

Mal arise in Islam(s) through “differences in human…[, individualized desires,] for

work,” and not through Property as Property is Publicly owned and belongs solely to

God (Esposito, 1980: 32). Therefore Islam(s) adopt overriding tactics that parallel desires

and that actively denounce disparaging differences of this Mal; aroused through

fluctuating desires. Some of these tactics are specific, like those associated with the

Individualized Caretaker, while others, as I intend on discussing near the Chapter’s end,

are applicable on a more strategic and hence communal level. With respect to an

Individualized Caretaker who may attempt to accumulate Mal or appropriate Public

Property, any desire to claim natural resources as their own becomes constrained

37
symbolically through the principle of absolute ownership by God, which was discussed in

the previous section; Tawheed (Esposito, 1980: 41). “Natural resources [objects] in the

universe, such as land, capital, general circumstances such as shortages for reasons of war

or disasters as well as laws of nature, all these ‘belong’ to the whole of society, and all its

members have equal shares and rights of access to them” (Esposito, 1978: 31). Therefore

no Individualized or Communal Caretaker has the right of claiming a bigger share

(Esposito, 1980: 31). Hence the Individualized Caretaker is not only symbolically

constrained by the concept of Tawheed, but is bound practically through the community

by being only allowed the borrowing of specific types of property (Ahmad, 1991: 34).

The remaining properties therefore must be strictly communal properties, for they are

particularly for the larger community’s interests (Ahmad, 1991: 34). Another practical

tactic is that if an Individualized Caretaker is using or going to use certain resources over

which they may claim ‘priority’, they are required by the community to “give it up to

another member of society [if it is unused] and [thus the Individualized Caretaker] should

not [be allowed to] claim ultimate [absolute] ownership over the…[Mal] produced by that

resource” (Esposito, 1980: 31). Furthermore if an Individualized Caretaker, whose use of

a Property is “in a manner which damages…others” then this is disallowed and again it is

at this point that the community intervenes to prevent the individual from inflicting any

further damages (Ahmad, 1991: 33). Even more so the extra Mal beyond the

Individualized Caretaker’s equal share and “which is due to productivity of those natural

resources that are used” and which does not belong to the Individualized Caretaker to

begin with, are all to be given up, detached and uprooted from a Caretakers’ lust for such

Mal by the community itself, through the abstract measures that will be discussed by the

38
end of this chapter (Esposito, 1980: 31). An Individualized and Communal Caretaker for

that matter is/are encouraged therefore through these measures to never be rooted and

fixated in their lust for money. That is faith and these are the Islam(s) I speak of here. “If

a segment of society is without [a reasonable quality of life which includes] shelter,

clothing, food, and adequate economic opportunity, then societal needs [and thus that

which is communal]…take[s] priority over” these ‘small borrowed firm’ inhabited by an

Individualized Caretaker’s desires.

An Individualized Caretaker is therefore not a creator, but one whose position is

necessary to rightly maintain the conditions for the creativity belonging to the

Individualized Caretaker’s autonomy and desires. Instead of seeing this Caretaker as a

capitalist, it is important that the desires belonging to the former be allowed to become

ignited and subtly kept in line through overriding tactics such as Islam(s) propose. It is

time for You to think in reverse and to suddenly revile your thoughts.

Almost all the witnesses had a different opinion

Because dual ownerships, through Islam(s), “guarantee equal [indiscriminate]

division of initial…[Mal and Public Property] among all members” of a community it

becomes important to ask who ‘supplies’ the initial capital for these ‘small borrowed

firms’, individualized and/or communal (Awan, 1983: 32)? “The answer to this is that

because “the availability of [communal] capital [is] at zero interest rate [, since interest as

I will discuss later is forbidden in Islam(s),]…[there is the guarantee] that an individual

or community would be better off by providing ‘their’ monetary assets for investment,

rather than keeping them in the…banks and paying costs on these assets” (Awan, 1983:

39
32). One might ask why the communal would be inclined to do this? They are inclined to

do this to prevent a Monopoly and an Oligopoly. I discussed this briefly in the former

section distinguishing between small borrowed firms in Islam(s) and

Monopolies/Oligopolies in Eurocentric Capitalism. I proved that Monopolies and

Oligopolies are not permitted, at least theoretically, in Islam(s) and that the growth of

‘small borrowed firms’ cannot lead to a monopolistic control of Caretaker(s)

(Choudhury, 1997: 108). The firms and community, through the tactics described, have a

way of regulating, in one or a combination of ways, the size of these firms such that they

can never get an opportunity to achieve too much economic power. This is because if

Property is temporally used primarily for the service of the community, and if its

availability is through God first, then there are “no artificial obstacles [that] prevent new

[small borrowed] firms from entering or existing [small borrowed] firms from leaving”

(Awan, 1983: 33).

It is also important to note that Eurocentric Capitalism’s Monopolies and

Oligopolies cannot exist because of the presence of Mudarabah/Musharakah.

Mudarabah/Musharakah is an external financial structure, communally established in

Islam(s), completely devoid of Interest, that encourages joint ventures. It calls for the

extension of existing Caretaker relationships and creation of new Caretakers.

Furthermore it commences, or at the very least, provides the potential for, the

commencing of ‘new borrowed small firms’, raising them to the surface as independent

offshoots of existing ‘small borrowed firms’ (Choudhury, 1997: 110).

There are obviously two positive effects of such an impetus,

Mudarabah/Musharakah. The first pertains to the creation of a greater number of ‘small

40
borrowed firms’, more diversified ‘small borrowed firms’, with subsequently greater

effective complementary inter-linkages appearing and hence more adequate resource

allocation amongst these ‘small borrowed firms’ occupying and occupied by an Ummah

(Choudhury, 1997: 110). The second positive effect is a minimization of Israf

(Choudhury, 1997: 110) In other words Mudarabah/Musharakah seeks more adequate

resource allocation by minimizing waste in production, consumption and commodity

exchange value, all of which occur because of stockpiling and which results in what

Islam(s) refer to as Israf.

More plainly Islam(s) desire to minimize the gap of stockpiling, the surplus of object

and subject; to prevent unnecessary depletion or destruction once a threshold, the

threshold in which stock begins to pile, is reached (Deleuze & Guattari, 1997: 440).

Islam(s) seek to minimize the production of shit that you don’t need and that You and I

will never consume. Islam(s) try and do this by proposing that the threshold becomes the

exchange limit, in which exchange is of interest to both parties, consumer and producer.

Therefore it, the exchange limit, is “one of temporal succession[s] because…[it]

preserves itself [from Israf]…by switching territories [of what is produced and what is

consumed in a joint collaboration by both parties] at the conclusion of each period

(itinerancy, itineration)…[and it is] this iteration [that] will govern the apparent

exchange” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1997: 440). Conversely Eurocentric Capitalism desires

such stockpiling to occur, since its law and concern is that of the simultaneous

exploitation of different territories; or, when the exploitation is successive, the succession

of operation periods bares on one and the same territory” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980:

440).

41
 There are other, specifically three, Islamic symbolic effects of

Mudarabah/Musharakah. The first is a desire that belongs to the fact that it illustrates

Ehsan, kindness and generosity to another subject, a member of the community. The

second is that it symbolizes Huquq al-Ibadah, duties to another subject, a member of the

community therefore enhancing the spirit of a community’s cohesiveness. Furthermore it

affirms Huquq al-Allah, duties to God, the absolute owner of Property and which

Caretakers have temporarily borrowed from, through a fulfillment of God’s request of

preserving Huquq al-Ibadah; the caretaking of God’s Property.

The accuser even pretended that it wasn’t the accused but someone else who had
Sung

I am about to ‘speak’ of Islams’ Reactive strategic resistances towards Eurocentric

Capitalist Wealth. Capitalist Wealth is accumulated and hence is comprised from four

apparatuses of capture: Interest, Surplus Profits not Profit, Ground Rent, Inheritance and

Taxation. Islam(s) and this economy of a paper address all these apparatuses of capture,

all these tentacles.

Rejoice

Interest, belonging to Wealth is referred to through Islam(s) as Riba. It, Riba, is

forbidden thrice, at least, throughout the Koran. A verse illustrates this: “Those who

benefit from interest shall be raised like those who have been driven to madness by the

42
touch of the Devil; this is because they say: ‘Trade is like interest’ while God has

permitted trade and forbidden interest…If the debtor is in difficulty, let him [and her]

respite until it is easier, but if you forego out of charity, it is better for you if you realize”

(Surat Al-Baqarah: Verses 275-281).

Riba, and its “collection…was and is forbidden because it served [and serves] as a

means of exploiting” all who experience bare poverty (Esposito, 2002: 163). It, Riba,

takes advantage of an individual’s weak economic position and is repugnant of the spirit

of Islam(s) whose underlying philosophies are those of al-‘adl wa’l-ihasan, justice and

benevolence (Ahmad, 1991: 36). Riba is an apparatus of capture. Islam(s) perceive

Riba’s essence to be anticipation-evaluation-calculation, and as such it offers “an unfair

gain to the lender [of a loan, Qard-e-Hasanah], [and] whom receives money without

working for it” (Esposito, 2002: 166). Therefore it “imposes an unfair burden on the

borrower, who must repay the loan and a finance charge regardless of whether his

[and/or her] money grows or he [and/or she] suffers a monetary loss” (Esposito, 2002:

166).

Islam(s) forbid Riba because its fluctuations perpetuate monetary disequilibrium

and a randomness causing the exchange value itself of money to neither reflect the

properties of store of value in money or stable valuation of Property (Choudhury, 1998:

170). Riba according to Islam(s) results in “monetary aggregates [that] fail to satisfy the

essential conditions of stability, exchange and convertibility of monetary numeraire”

(Choudhury, 1998: 170). Furthermore, Riba is created, hegemonically determined and

imposed by a Capitalist, a self-declared Master of Wealth, as the condition of economic

‘normalcy’ upon which the Slave and temporary recipient of but a portion of that Wealth,

43
a loaned wealth, must subscribe. Riba, Interest, is a Capitalist’s, a Master’s selfless

motive, and offers no hospitality for a Slaves’ tears, sweat (Esposito, 1980: 32). This is

how Riba always has been and always will be a form of guaranteed Wealth power and

privilege for a Capitalist, a Master. Riba therefore denotes “the payment of something

definite in return for something uncertain” and respectively militates against Islamic

values and is differentially different from what Islam(s) allow and refer to as ‘Useful

Profit/Mal,’ Haq Al-Mal, the right to earn a living. Useful Profit/Mal as a worked for

earning is required to be lawful and carries with it due obligations that ought to be duly

discharged to the community (Ahmad, 1991: 39). It, ‘Useful Profit/Mal’, is unlike Riba

because it “is uncertain and [respectively its] actual quantum, positive or negative” is not

predetermined and yet limited within “reasonable bounds in the ‘interest’ of an equitable

distribution of income and wealth” (Ahmad, 1991: 39).

‘Useful Profit/Mal’ is generated by Individualized and/or Communal Caretakers

“through work that should be just, but it need not be strictly,[though Islam(s) always

strives for it to be,] egalitarian” (Awan, 1983: 31). This lack of full equity arises out of

varying “skill[s]…responsibilities…[and desires] of work, [and thus] the share of the

residual” amongst the Caretakers will always be somewhat different (Awan, 1983: 31).

“The principle of social control of production” by Caretakers, Individualized and

Communal, creates the conditions that allow “profit-sharing [to] act as the basis of

distributing equally the resources and output of production and are activated in” Islam(s)

through these principles and obligations (Choudhury, 1997: 107).

Surplus profit is on the other hand, unlike Useful Profit/Mal. Surplus Profit is an

apparatus of capture. Surplus profit accrues exploitation of a subject or/and an object

44
and is premised on comparisons of the ‘two equal’ subjects, ‘two equal’ objects and their

appropriation for the sole monopoly or oligopoly of an owner or owners respectively

(Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 441). Therefore Surplus Profit is excessively constitutive of,

over and above ‘Useful Profit/Mal’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 446).

From discussing Riba/Interest and Surplus Profit to a discussion of the two

remaining apparatuses of capture in the respective sections to follow: Ground Rent and

Inheritance.

An Exodus without Enunciations

“Ground rent, in its abstract model, appears precisely when a comparison is drawn

between different simultaneously exploited territories, or between successive

exploitations of the same territory” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 440). Therefore, “the

earth…the land has two potentialities of deterritorialization: (1) its differences in quality

are comparable to one another, from the standpoint of a quantity establishing a

correspondence between them and exploitable pieces of land; (2) the set of exploited

lands is appropriable, as opposed to exterior unclaimed land, from the standpoint of a

monopoly that fixes the landowner or – owners” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 441). The

second postulate here is the necessary condition for the first. “The worst land (or the

poorest exploitation) bears no rent, but it makes it so that the other soils do bare rent,

‘produce’ it in a comparative way” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 441).

Islam(s) say then that “to receive rent on [God’s property as] land [that has never

been used] or resources is prohibited” (Esposito, 1980: 34). No Individualized and/or

Communal Caretakers within Islam(s) may lay claim(s) to unused resources if they do

45
not put them to use for the community (Esposito, 1978: 36). Contrarily, “ground

[absolute] rent homogenizes, equalizes different conditions of productivity by linking the

excess of the highest conditions of productivity over the lowest to a landowner [whom is

not a Caretaker]” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 441). However, “if [through Islam(s) and

bearing in mind that] the… [Caretaker(s), are never absolute owners but rather

borrowers] of such a property, [that it happens that] God’s property, has ‘improved’ the

land or resources, through labor or other resources, ‘rent’ [never ‘absolute’, never ground

rent] can be levied [only] in proportion with such ‘improvements’”; not in proportion

and through association-comparison apparatuses of capture to other territories

(Esposito, 1989: 34). Furthermore it, ‘rent’, is subject to a conditional ‘if’ and a

conditional ‘can’ as opposed to a ‘must’. Hence there is never absolute ground rent

through Islam(s), rather ‘a possible rent’ and that is not preferred, as opposed to ‘a must

and absolute ground rent’ through Eurocentric Capitalism. Respectively and even in

such a case of a Caretaker’s desire to request ‘rent’, never absolute ground rent, a

Caretaker receives two conditions: an ‘if’ and a ‘can’ to which obligations arise as the

Caretaker owns not property. A/The Caretaker(s) is/are bound and obligated by Islam(s)

that operate and interpret that “many individual ‘needs’ and…any excess…[were and are]

not permissible” (Esposito, 1980: 37). A/The Caretaker(s) is/are therefore bound and

obligated as I asserted formerly in the use of such Property through the requirement that

such Property be borrowed for the benefit of the communal.

Class Struggle already permeates the family

46
 “Islamic inheritance laws are aimed at achieving a wide distribution of wealth

amongst the close relatives of the deceased; at the same time the laws are geared to avoid

hoarding and individualistic discrimination and squabbling within the family unit”

(Esposito, 1978: 35). Therefore Islamic Inheritance laws possess an essence that desires

an emission and a de-centering of the deceased individual, displacing them, for the fabric

of a community is placed “ahead [and above] of the emotional whims of the deceased”

(Esposito, 1978: 35). Islam(s) are concerned with a “dispersal of ‘wealth’ from one to

many, rather than its channeling from many to one” as Eurocentric Capitalism (Esposito,

1978: 35). This is off course unlike Eurocentric Capitalist Societies that desire to

maintain a hold and centralize holdings and thus Wealth.

I sacrificed my nights to your business

Zakat, alms tax, is an act that ‘works’ against any further potential hoarding

desires seeking to worship Wealth: Zakat through Haqq; a preservation of social justice.

Zakat is the third pillar in Islam(s) and on a personal note and just for you to know there

are five (Esposito, 1990: 26). It is a “divinely revealed requirement for those who wish to

believe [in] eternal salvation (Esposito, 1980: 26-27). Zakat acts as an endogenous money

multiplier and involves “the annual payment of alms [a principled tax] in income and

savings, in trade commodities, in crops, and in certain other properties” as an obligation

to the needy. Zakat is the anti-thesis to Taxation.

This is because “taxation...creates money…and it corresponds with services and

goods in the current of that [Economic] circulation…[In it] the state finds the means for

foreign trade, insofar as it appropriates that trade…and which makes Monopolistic

47
appropriation of outside exchange” possible (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 443). On the

other hand Zakat is not merely a conventional source of ‘nourishment supposedly for the

poor’, like that associated with governmental revenue and taxation (Esposito, 1980: 27).

That is, it is not used for the appropriation of an outside exchange as a means for foreign

trade nor could and should it be a source for Monopolization. To prevent the

appropriation of Zakat, Islam(s) demand that it is not to be collected by the state, unlike

Taxation. In other words because Zakat is an obligation to the community as a whole and

therefore is to be made specifically and directly to those in more need of it, it should

never be paid to an impersonalized government nor to it a revenue-collecting agency

(Esposito, 1980: 27). Zakat then becomes a form of strategic resistance to Eurocentric

Capitalism and in a way the Eurocentric State because it is premised on the Islamic belief

that poverty is not normal, all the mean while dismissing even practically the role of

Macro-Fascist state-like agencies. The distortion of Zakat as some sort of free generosity

of some towards others in the hope that the wealth of the rich and the destitution of the

poor may somehow miraculously find a point of balance furthermore is inadequate

(Ramadan, 2004: 178). This is because both symbolically and practically Zakat is a

disassociation of a ‘being’ from ‘their’ accrued ‘Wealth’ and therefore from their

hoarding self; from their Micro-Fascism. Zakat in this way is a full and ethical

conception of human relations (Ramadan, 2004: 178). Zakat is the right of the poor over

the rich and not a privilege being bestowed by the rich over those in poverty. It is for

“those in whose ‘Wealth’ is a right known for the beggar and the outcast” (Esposito,

1980: 27). And it is because of this that Zakat ought to be given willingly, not to be paid

begrudgingly, if the divine law [associated with it] is to be fulfilled” (Esposito, 1980: 27).

48
Because it is a means of reducing selfishness and expiation for past selfishness and a

tomorrow filled with the incentive of having improved oneself, Zakat becomes an act of

having conquered a Micro-Fascism within oneself even if but temporally, until the next

time it is paid again, again and again (Esposito, 1980: 27). A Koranic Verse to support

this is that: “The free will offerings are for the poor and needy, those who work to collect

them, those whose hearts are brought together the ransoming of slaves, debtors, in God’s

way, and the traveler; so God ordains” (Chapter IX: Verse 60). If Zakat is not sufficient

to restore equality then it is ‘repeated’ until the sufficient qualities of life of those who

claim assistance are met (Esposito, 1980: 28). It is in this way that Zakat becomes not

“just a widow’s mite to be paid out of duty and distributed as charity…anything but

that…woven into the very fabric of society, that aims at freeing the poor from their

dependence so that eventually they themselves will pay Zakat [to help others]”

(Ramadan, 2004: 189). Therefore it “demands…knowledge of the environment, the

community, and the social and economic situation” of that community (Ramadan, 2004:

193). In the seeking of such knowledge a sense of communal responsibility is

continuously reborn over and over again, as the community becomes more and more

aware of its own self and its own conditions.

Here you are starting to comprehend what this chapter is pursuing in my place

To put an end, to indicate, to express what I wandered here to do I am left with what

remains: the Active resistances endorsed by Islam(s) and that work not merely as practical

forms of resistance, as the Reactive ones above, against Eurocentric Capitalism but as

complementary measures to each other in the generation of a new economy rather than

49
simply subscribing to the Capitalist one that already exists. These injunctions ‘work’

actively against any further potential hoarding desires directed towards the accumulation

of Wealth.

The first act of resistance is Infaq. Infaq of Sadaqah is the act of voluntary spending

of charity but unlike Zakat it is un-obligated. However, like Zakat it is directed to the

welfare of those in more need and is always encouraged. Then there is the second act of

resistance and which is It’am. It’am is the act of voluntary feeding of, again, those in

need of sustenance. Again It’am is un-obligated, strongly encouraged and acts as a

practical force of resistance launched towards Eurocentric Capitalism (Ahmad, 1991:

42). If You need more of a clarification, more of a stance, more a vengeful act to

illustrate the points I raised regarding Wealth, the Koran offers You and I this verse: “As

for all who lay up treasures of gold and silver and do not spend them for the sake of God-

give them the tiding of grievous suffering [in the life to come]: on the Day when that

[hoarded wealth] shall be heated in the fire of hell and their foreheads and their sides

and their backs branded therewith, [those sinners shall be told] ‘these are the treasures

which you have laird up for yourselves! Taste, then, [the evil of] your hoarded

treasures!” (Chapter 9: Verses 34-35). Another Koranic verse that illustrates the

importance of Infaq is: “as does he [and/or she] who spends his [and/or her] wealth only

to be seen and praised by others…for his [and/or her] parable is that of a smooth rock

with [a little] earth upon it-and then a rainstorm smites it and leaves it hard and bare”

(Chapter 2: Verse 264).

This last verse gets something out that is of vital importance. This attitude, this duty

to be discreet in acting charitably is more important than it appears: “it bears the mark of

50
respect for an individual’s dignity in all circumstances, even the most intimate…to give

before the poor who need to beg...to avoid being seen by anyone so that no one has to be

embarrassed…[to give members of a community what they] are entitled to have”

(Ramadan, 2004: 181). Therefore “to bare faith [in Islam(s)] is to bear responsibility for

social commitment at every moment…to possess is [tantamount] to have the duty [and

obligation] to share” (Ramadan, 2004: 182). Unlike Islam(s) we find that Eurocentric

Capitalism comprises an inhumane economy that organizes, produces, and structures

injustice, discrimination, exploitation and famine” and is a jungle and “no jungle on earth

…[ought to be] home to such horror” (Ramadan, 2004: 182). This represents a

contradiction, for Islam(s) whose pledge is that they believe that the roots of everything

on earth belongs to God alone, and people are only merely entrusted with managing these

belongings amongst themselves. There are two more injunctions, Ramadan and Islamic

Banks. Then what? Then nothing. There is nothing left for I here but these further two

acts.

It is calculation, rationalization, that causes you to fall with open eyes into
other relations instead of reaching a turning moment
in my foreign thought

Ramadan, is a fast, a Sawm, from dusk till dawn for a month. Ramadan is a

symbolic and practical “act of worship in itself…[that is supposed to] lead Muslims to

perceive, and to feel inwardly, the need to eat and drink and, by extension, to ensure that

every human being has the means to subsist” (Ramadan, 2004: 89). Ramadan is a fast

whose end commences with Sadaqat Al-Fitr, “another [obligatory] charity [in addition to

Zakat and all others I mentioned above]…imposed on every Muslim/Muslima who has

51
the means for themselves and their dependents” (Budak, 2005: 93-96). Sadaqat Al-Fitr is

“related to Property and is obligatory on every Muslim/Muslimas that possesses more

than the prescribed amount of provisions after giving the charity…to be given in person

into the hands of those who are eligible to receive…[not] the wealthy” (Budak, 2005: 93-

96). Ramadan is practical because it reduces surpluses and hence excessive consumption

and respectively production, discourages the extravagant spending and wasteful use of

resources even if but temporally for a month. I ‘speak’ of Ramadan, a disruptive

resistance to a god, Eurocentric Capitalism.

Now, lastly, Islamic banking is a resistance that does not allow unrestricted access

and use of the financial resources of the banking system primarily with reference to the

criterion of ‘creditworthiness’ (Ahmad, 1991: 46). It is a resistance that rose to

Eurocentric Capitalism’s banking institutions, “established in the mid-nineteenth

century…end of the twentieth century…funding trading activities…saving accounts with

no interest…whose patrons [credit worthy or not] participate in investments and either

earn a share of the profit on the return or suffer a portion of the losses sustained by the

bank” (Esposito, 2002: 168). Islamic banks aim at “[socially] empowering grass-root

levels by extending their social funds towards developing a diversity” of ‘small firms’ to

generate a rhizome, inter-linkages, to benefit and uplift the grassroots (Choudhury, 1997:

178). They developed to bring forth and about inter-communal economic cooperation,

participation and restoring agencies back to whom these agencies belong to, You, I and

the rest of the community (Choudhury, 1997: 178). Transactions involving risk, the use

of equity sharing, “rather than debt financing…a [new un-colonial] means” of offering

hospitality, a way out to impoverished communities (Esposito, 2002: 168). The rise of

52
alternatives to a god’s whose Inflations and deflations militate against Islam(s) ideals of

giving fair measure of value in all transactions (Ahmad, 1991: 46).

The Other Trial

I tell you this I deny altars. “The disinherited (and the rest) will not be mobilized by
just any form of Islam(s); what above all needs to be offered to them, with or without
Islam(s), is a future prospect that means progress in the conditions under which they
live” (Rodison, 1973: 230). I tell you this again I deny altars. There needs to be a
mobilization of Islam(s) under the anti-capitalist conditions and concepts proposed
above. These Islam(s) would operate where the above links, ideas, become forces, where
a new zeal to mobilize commences once more, making Islam(s) ready to sacrifice
immediate interest, individual interests, to the collective once more. I ‘speak’ of a
psychologically individualized ‘agenda’ armed with steel and borrowed from if not
enforced by a god, Eurocentric Capitalism, and whose values and injunctions offer
powerful corruptive forces of possessiveness and love for Wealth, particularly among the
ruling and influential classes in Islams. I ‘speak’ of a psychologically individualized
agenda, starting with the introduction of the dynastic concepts in the aggregate Islams,
“concentrated power and corruptive influences among certain families and their
entourages” and now inherited by succeeding generations after generation (Abdul-Rauf,
1978: 13). I ‘speak’ of a psychologically individualized agenda brought forth by Mongol
wars and the Crusades (Abdul-Rauf, 1978: 13). I ‘speak’ of a psychologically
individualized agenda brought forth by European Colonialism causing a fragmentation
of Islams, the abandonment of traditions in favor of European institutions and a gradual
transition towards nationalism (Abdul-Rauf, 1978: 13). The former two are not
justifications worthy of attention any more for the becoming Anti-Capitalist Islam(s), for
they have been used as excuses for far too long, a blaming game, a sobbing game and a
tautological game. The sacrifices required of these Anti-Capitalist Islam(s) require
neither an evasion of nor a profiting from the sacrifices made, neither a boasting nor a
glorification of such a virtue or piety when made. For Anti-Capitalist Islam(s) to ‘return’
to their lost yet not forgotten essence, for Anti-Capitalist Islam(s) to confront reality,
rather than a mere augmented past, that neither could return nor become redrawn. There
needs to be something new that is translatable into specific, clear and combative slogans
and actions. “Through these slogans, each individual would have to see himself [and
herself] confronted with an immediate duty to perform, each in his [and her] place…all
this might be associated with a denunciation of the privileges of wealth and power
identified with those who had distorted Islams” (Rodison, 1972: 230). “This revolt and
these micro-revolts against the current shapes of Islams have to be linked with the
proclamation of [these] new [Anti-Capitalist] Islam(s)…in which the enemy of this
construction can be denounced as an adversary of the highest values to which these
ideologies appeal” (Rodison, 1973: 231). Even if this adversary becomes the ‘clergy’
themselves. I ‘speak’ of ‘clergy’ who and whom Muslims and Muslimas who supposedly
choose this faith and supposedly follow one form of it or another, have become too

53
reliant on, too attached to, and worshipping of. I’ speak’ of ‘clergy’ who “with the
coming of [nationalist] independence…gradually…[rose] on the social
scale...[alongside] the (more or less exploiting) upper strata [and who] increasingly
proclaim their ‘attachment to Islam[s], in a frenzied search for an ideological guarantee
for their social and material advantages” (Rodinson, 1973: 226). “The more successful
the ‘clergy’ become in raising their standard of living, or even merely in becoming
integrated in the nation, the less will Islam[s] serve as… slogan[s] for the disinherited”
(Rodinson, 1973: 226). For now, despite a few, Islams’ ‘clergy’, the meek, have inherited
this faith and I offer them like the god I ‘spoke’ of here, Eurocentric Capitalism, no
hospitality. Now I speak of authority and now I am becoming Anti-authoritarian and so
are Islam(s).

Chapter Two: Pedagogical Juridical Orders: Decentralized & Anti-Authoritarian

54
 Movements of Speaking

Pleading with you, I ask you once more, tell me what “is”? “Is” signifies what
you are? “Is”, present indicative and singular. “Is” this, not that. “Is” not that, “is”
this? “Is”, an un-litigated totality. “Is”, the presumption of a firm metaphysical ground,
an essence. “Is”, the presumption of a fixed being, and center, where the meaning of
your life remains constantly unchanged. “Is”, an oppression (Call, 2003: 50). “Is”,
exclusionary of everything outside it. “Is”, a negation unparalleled to affirmation. “Is”,
a propositioned mandatory un-porous membrane, a way of life that permits no
movement(s). “Is”, a solitary haven from “Nous”, “us”, everything and everyone
dispersed. Dispersed from that which we do not know and have not experienced, would
not like to know and experience and that which we refuse to know and experience. “Is”,
a demarcation of a You and an I. “Is”, a “state” between the You and I and any potential
propositions towards becoming(s) of “Nous”. “Nous”, a symbiosis, an alliance that
brings to play parts of a you and a me, varying in degrees and intensities, and void of
accompanying possibilities for filiations. Look for a ‘Nous’, a “third party”, here, in this
factory of a paper, and in the theater (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 238). I am not
suspending my demystifying of “Nous” yet. Deleuze and Guattari propose that “tu”, you,
have two axes within a social space, significance (surface) and subjectification (depth).
You, “tu”, have very different semiotic systems (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 167). What
does this imply for “Nous”? Picture your face no longer an “is” but exhibiting
possibilities of becoming(s) part(s) of something and someone “other”. Your self-
proclaimed beautiful face, mine, infinitely wretched. Our skin, a canvas, a surface but
really maps comprised of colors, facial traits, wrinkles, lines, different shapes, fonts and
sizes. Any scars? Forgive my indecency. No scars. Recall now your face “is” a self-
proclaimed beautiful. I ask you. Has your face not become an “other” between today and
yesterday? Or have you witnessed no signs of aging yet? Or have you achieved
immunity? You resist, I know. You desire your face to always remain an “is”, for
temporarily your “is” is most beautiful. It protects you. I? Wretched, yes, but never
mourned my face. I, unlike you, never greeted farewell what I saw in the mirror. I felt no
despair. Instead I wrote its eulogy and buried it. I, unlike you, embrace my distance from
your beautiful face. I unlike you bask in the difference of my ugliness. I unlike you bask in
difference, period. I, unlike you, bask in organic deepening separations, through my
facial maps and coordinates. I, unlike you, value my face in its incompleteness even more
than for its fragmentations, and even more for its pronounced incompleteness, for its
punctuated yet open interruptions. I desire my face to always remain as becoming(s). You
propose a singular. Absurd. Singular implies ‘is’. I propose multiple upon multiple. I
propose ‘Nous’ in steps of hospitality…

55
 History of the Lie: Prolegomena

I ‘speak’ now in this Chapter of Authority. The Islam(s) that I conceive of here

were, are, and shall continue to remain, determined -- like Post-Anarchisms -- to

“undermine structures of [Eurocentric conceptions of] authority and [Eurocentric

conceptions of] hierarchy…[through the employment of] a war model of writing to

expose the suppressed antagonisms and differences within…[Eurocentric] discourse

whose claims to universality, wholeness and lucid self-reflection have been sounded

since the time of Plato” (Newman, 2001: 115).

Posed in these terms, the abstract question ‘What ‘is’ Authority?’ would already be

caught up in a series of presuppositions that demand dismantling. This proposed oneness,

this inaccessible ‘is’ in the question posited above, “envelops a web, as there is always a

surprise in store for the anatomy or physiology of any signifier [, here, Authority,] that

thinks that it mastered ‘the game’, deluding itself, creating its own myth, wanting you to

look at it without touching it (Derrida, 1972: 63). There are two ‘types’ of Authority: the

first is tactical, that is, Micro-political and hence engages in Micro-Fascisms, while the

second is strategic, that is, it is Macro-political and hence engages in Macro-Fascisms.

The Micro lies inside all subjects, the You and the I, the he and the she, the us and the

them, while Macro’s origins are Micro-Fascisms themselves, set into resonances that

multiply their powers and points of applicability. I am speaking then of two Fascisms

though I would have longed for a “collapse of distinction between the Micro and Macro-

political spheres, seeing one as always referring to the other-seeing a transformation in

one area as always having implications in others” (Newman, 2001: 98). Micro-Fascisms’

essence neither necessitates their becoming conceived of Eurocentrically or/and non-

56
Eurocentrically because they take place in private or secret events, inside subjects

themselves. In other words they take place inside all of us. Macro-Fascisms, on the other

hand, become visible as they take the form of public events and are Eurocentric, as it is

Eurocentricity that has given birth to them. I am of course referring to the public events

abstractly known as the Eurocentric State and Capitalism. I will repeat this statement

soon enough: You and I owe our Micro-Fascisms to the Macro-Fascist Eurocentric State,

but the Eurocentric State owes its inception from our thought and hence the relationship

between Micro and Macro-Fascisms becomes important to examine. From this point on

Authority becomes The Other Trial.

I will first begin this chapter by discussing Micro-Fascisms in the first section titled

Secret Events, only to follow this with a very brief account of Macro-Fascisms in the

section titled Possible Beyond of Public Events. I will then proceed, in Assalam Alikum &

Salut to You, with a discussion on why Post-Anarchisms possess Micro-Authoritarian

tendencies within them; very briefly, this is due to their negligence and silence on the

discussion of religions, and specifically Islam(s), that conceive Macro–political Authority

in a non-Eurocentric light. It is this conception that may have respectively contributed to

the growth of Post-Anarchisms themselves but instead was ignored. The final section is

titled Without an Alibi, sans délai, and it will discuss how the Islamic interpretation used

here is Anti-authoritarian and thus very much in line with Post-Anarchisms. In this

section I will introduce again new concepts like Ijma, Shura and Maslaha, in an effort to

acquaint you with them, as well as carry on with an extensive discussion of the concept

of Khalifah in Islams and its re-interpretation in Islam(s).

57
 Secret Events

I begin then and say that what I denote as ‘secret events’ represent the spaces that

are occupied by Micro-Fascisms. I posit that these Micro-Fascisms rhizomatically emit

two significations, though not necessarily constrained to such significations: A first

signification, a being’s, the You and the I as well as any other subject, intent(s) of

worshiping ones own self. This intent takes on dramatic form(s) of growing egoisms

struggling with one another and that wage war on one another resulting in the birth of a

subject’s paranoia and the subject’s subjugation of others (Levinas, 1987: 4). I ‘speak’ of

Micro-Fascisms exhibiting the state of always wanting the resurrection of themselves and

hence “the very egoism of the ego” (Levinas, 1987: 137-138). The second signification

and which is a result of these Micro-Fascisms is that the individual always pushes them-

self to the forefront without a regard for anyone or anything else in their path. It is ‘the

war of each against each’ and this becomes the rule of surviving in today’s world. This

rule comprises the most fundamental principle to being a Capitalist, a lord and prince.

And as this happens an individual’s feeling of “responsibility for the freedom of others”

disappears (Levinas, 1987: 136). It disappears because the individual no longer really

comprehends the necessity or importance for bearing responsibility towards anything and

anyone but themselves. Individuals who love themselves so much tend to feel that

responsibility is a burden; a poisoned limb that ought to be severed at any cost so that the

rest of the body does not become contaminated. But responsibility is “far from being a

limitation or negation of…[a being’s] freedom, [as] the freedom of [a being’s] neighbor

is instead its precondition and confirmation” (Bakunin, 1916: 151). It is these two

significations that result in Micro-Fascisms within us, Micro-Fascisms where “the weak

58
[egos] have conquered, where the strong [human spirits] are contaminated, where the

slave who has not appeared prevails over the master who has stopped being one: the reign

of law and virtue”; all this gives rise and birth to Micro-hierarchy, a genesis and rule;

Micro-Fascisms of Micro-hierarchies (Perez, 1990: 17).

Possible Beyond of Public Events

The second type of Authority is Macro-Fascism. Macro-Fascisms mark, evoke

and commence a Meta-hierarchy built upon making the “Church, morality and the State

the masters and keepers of all hierarchy” (Perez, 1990: 18). Macro-Fascisms collect all

the Micro-Fascisms that are willing and dedicated to making themselves visible, as well

as their Micro-hierarchies only to recompose them into a Meta-hierarchy. The Meta-

hierarchy that I am speaking of here is the “hier(archy) of institutions and eco-political

frameworks set up by those who cannot lead or obey themselves: of the weak and the

slaves and of those who need an outside hier(archical) authority in order to act” (Perez,

1990: 18).

Wailkum Assalam unto & Salut to you!

Before I proceed further it is important that one calls oneself to judgment, that one

evaluates ones choices and decisions and the implication of all the above on others. But

what happens when one does not garner the courage to do so? Your thoughts as a Post-

Anarchist, your way of living through Post-Anarchisms, as it stands safely here and now

unfortunately are both complicit in state domination, as they remain to varying degrees

state philosophy and you have not called yourself fully to judgment. How could I refrain

59
from presenting such a claim: ‘Post-Anarchisms as State Philosophy’ when you, a Post-

Anarchist, and Post-Anarchisms, have become blind to religions, particularly Islam(s),

and thus they face a ‘state’ of obscurity in your inventions as You vanish them from all

the schemas that constitute your Post-Anarchisms. The annals of Eurocentric State

philosophy signify a way of thought characterized by and through Western metaphysics:

a rational, calculable foundation of order premised on identity, truth, justice and

negation (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994: 99).

That said, Post-Anarchisms never greeted Islam(s), premising this lack of hospitality

to Islam(s) on the same foundations and themes that resided in Anti-Religious Classical

Anarchisms: religion is possessed by possibilities of domination. Post-Anarchisms

continues to be silent regarding Islam(s), though they claim to dismantle Eurocentric

metaphysics. However strange this priority may appear, the first aim of your audacious

‘re-interpretation’ of Anti-Religious Classical Anarchisms to Post, I had thought, for

You, was to posit even if but by expression and make necessary, through any means

necessary, contact with Islam(s). This contact would be with the intention towards it of

taking some pleasures from it, through your appreciation of différance. What I thought

You desired was to become in continual movement, prepared to co-exist along with

“multiple ideological dimensions, all the while developing an analysis and a

confrontation which, without trying to overcome specific differences, nevertheless tries to

prevent them from degenerating into passive and mute divisions” (Guattari & Negri,

1985: 111). Once more I ponder how such an arrangement may commence subsequently

if Post-Anarchisms and you have not killed, or at least sought or had the intent to kill,

your inner Micro-Fascisms regarding both of your presumptions, expressed or

60
unexpressed when it comes to religions, particularly Islam(s), and without any delay.

Your single minimal limit has not yet opened up incomprehensibly vast vistas of

becoming. The nerve of my argument becomes that there are surely a billion ways to

fulfill this prescription; a prescription of comprehending, thinking of, and resisting

Hegemonic Authority, Micro and Macro-Fascisms that impose limits and constraints

upon individuals. Consequently You, now a Post-Anarchist, have not acknowledged nor

given adequate respect to singularity: “a respect for what is different [with respect to

Non-Eurocentric conceptualizations and interpretations], for what is singular” (Newman,

2001: 170). The consequence of which is that you have not risen alongside, let alone

greeted with the slightest gesture, a kindness, a hand lifted or laid on shoulders or

foreheads of Islam(s) (Derrida, 2004: 313).

It is then in this respect that Post-Anarchisms become a rational thought, become a

coded thought, and become penetrated by state thought and whose “dependency [lies]

upon rational discourses for its legitimization and functioning, while, in turn, making

these discourses possible” (Newman, 2001: 99). Here I wish to segment albeit briefly and

characterize a distinction, for it is a thing with value, as You will undoubtedly see. I wish

to clarify something for You.

I despise authority, Micro and Macro, but if I do then it becomes a duty for me to
seek a different way of living that merely becomes a way and never the shortest way. A
necessity arises then for me to discover the answer to these series of questions: Am I to
become content with a single line of flight, an Interpretation here in this economy of a
paper towards an Islamic Anarchistic Becoming premised in its singularity to Resisting
based on becoming and acting as an Anti-Capitalist Muslim? Should I be content with
that line of flight as the only maxim of importance or relevance here between Post-
Anarchisms and Islam(s)? Ought this maxim become where I want to ‘be’, as a Muslim
because I can’t fly anymore? Is it deceitful to say that there is no appeal to claim an Anti-
Authoritarian Islamic Anarchistic Becoming before trying? It would become a crime I
say to extricate myself from difficulty now, for my maxims here throughout this economy
of a paper and which I never could or would expect to be complete nor be held as a

61
universal law, as that would necessitate them destroying themselves, would have been
made in bad faith; without the intention to fulfill promises I promised to fulfill. I could
proclaim that I did not lie but that instead my promises were misstatements. But such a
claim would be taking refuge in the shorter path to your houses, the shorter way to
potential hospitable hosts to Islam(s); Post-Anarchisms, and off course equally
hospitable hosts, Islam(s), to Post-Anarchisms. I am here to fulfill my promises foregoing
any accusations by anyone that they were made in haste and are deceitful.

Without an Alibi, sans délai

A mutual consultation was referred to earlier in Chapter Two, during my discussion

of relationships and associations amongst Caretakers; I signified such a consultation

using the Islamic signifier Shura. But Shura cannot be considered merely a signifier as it

occupies an entire Chapter, Surat Al-Shura, in the Koran and therefore it is of the utmost

importance if I am to discuss Authority and in particular Macro political Authority; the

State. Shura counterattacks authority and hierarchy, if they exist, and both have been

historically condemned in Islam(s) (Esposito, 1996: 25). Shura is a practical process

comprised of mutual consultation amongst Muslims/Muslimas and which is

complemented with two new creations and significations: Ijma, community consensus,

and Maslaha, public interest (Esposito, 2002: 159-160). Because Muslims/Muslimas

perceive themselves to be in a temporal ‘state’ of existence in this world, as if they are

strangers or are traveler(s), their decisions alternate, with degrees of difference, and are

always in flux. Hence mutual communitarian decision-making processes are dependent

upon the community’s circumstances and environmental conditions. These temporal

‘states of existence’, then, in Islam(s), are bound by principles of Tawheed, Ijma,

Maslaha, all of which require always-evolving ‘states’ of Ijtihad that are unbound by

ideological or literal interpretations of day to day life. There are two Koranic verses to

62
illustrate this: “Not all of them [beings] are alike” (Chapter 4: Verse 113) and so “unto

every one of you We [God] have appointed a different law and way of life and if God had

pleased, God would have made you in a single Ummah [community], but that God might

try You in what God gave you. So vie with one another in virtuous deeds. To God you

will all return, so that God will inform you of that wherein you differed” (Chapter 5:

Verse 48). Both these verses affirm the divine decree that the Ummah’s essence is

difference. The consequence of this is that Muslims/Muslimas are reminded that they will

always become something different than what they perceived themselves to be. This

occurs as they begin once more to embrace the heterogeneity that comes with basking in

difference regardless of whether that difference comes from within the Muslim

community or ‘outside’ it. Islam(s) then occupy temporary ‘states’ of traveling as

Muslims/Muslimas exhibit both nomadic and migrant traits. The nomad is the one who

enjoys both autonomy and a path of their own, as every point is a relay and exists only as

a relay (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 380). Muslims/Muslimas adopt on the surface a

seemingly contradictory identity that “cannot…belong to one person alone, and no one

belongs to a single unity…every identity comprise[s] a multiplicity of elements” (Day,

Citizen, Nomad & Smith Political Spac, 2003). Every identity in part is a nomadic

identity like that of barbarians who ‘sow not, nor have any tillage…[are] without

habitation, having no dwellings but caves and hollow trees” (Day, Citizen, Nomad &

Smith Political Spac, 2003). Nomadic identities have a trajectory that “distributes people

(or animals) in an open space” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1980: 380), or even distributes

Divine attributes upon viceroys, in this case Muslims/Muslimas who are opposed to

Fasasd-Al-Ard, the blasphemous act against God by destroying God’s creation, cutting

63
“asunder what God has bidden to be joined” (Qurran, Chapter 2: Verses 26-27). But as

highlighted, Muslims and Muslimas are migrants as well. “A migrant identity [is one]

that goes from one point to another, even if the second point is uncertain, unforeseen or

not well localized” because they, Muslims/Muslimas, rely solely, first and foremost, upon

God for everything (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 380). “Nomads and migrants can mix in

many ways, or form a common aggregate; their case and conditions are no less distinct

for example, from those who joined [Prophet] Mohammed [, SAW,] at Medina, those

who had a choice between a nomadic pledge, and a pledge of Hegira [, migration,] or

emigration” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1980: 380). All this illustrates that at the Micro-

political level, Muslims and Muslimas are not fixed, revolving around a single axis in

their identities or the ways in which they live. Therefore they are anti-authoritarian

towards their own selves, performing Ijtihad as they try and ward off their Micro-

Fascisms.

Further proof, but now on the Macro-political level, that Islam(s) are anti-

authoritarian is that the Koran “envisages the…[Ummah] as a perfectly egalitarian, open

society based on good will and cooperation” (Esposito, 1996: 28). The Koran furthermore

“laid down the principle of Shura to guide the community’s decision-making process”

(Esposito, 1996: 28). I do not ‘speak’ of a “classical doctrine of Shura, as it developed,

[and that] was in error…[as] it viewed consultation as the process of one person, the

Khalifah, asking other people for advice” (Esposito, 1996: 28). Quite the contrary, “the

Koranic understanding of Shura does not mean that one person ask others advice, but

rather mutual advice through mutual consultation” (Esposito, 1996: 28).

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 The signifier Khalifah, is a Non-Eurocentric signifier, that historically has

undergone “traditional and modern debates, over…[its nature and viewing] in

monarchical terms” (Esposito, 1996: 26). Now this signifier could and ought to be

interpreted differently because understandably adherence to the classical meaning of the

term would obviously undermine the anti-authoritarian practices like Ijma, Maslaha and

Shura and that were highlighted above in Islam(s).

Therefore, this new conception of Khalifah “is [of] a profoundly different meaning

of the term [, than what that term signified historically and now signifies, as it has]

received [and continues to receive] increasing attention [during] the second half of the

twentieth century (Esposito, 1996: 26). “In addition to the connotations of ‘successor’

that the Arabic term Khalifah involves there is also a sense in which a Khalifah is a

deputy [or] representative” and hence a ‘caretaker’ of sorts (Esposito, 1996: 26). The

Khalifah is no Malik, no king, but rather someone whom is supposedly chosen by the

community as their representative (Ramadan, 2001: 148). ‘Classically’, the ‘choosiness’

may have occurred “by means of elections, a representative system or any other original

ideas…[provided that] all the conditions that allow one the opportunity to choose with

full knowledge of the facts [are present]” (Ramadan, 2001: 148). The other criteria for

such ‘choosiness’, is that “any pressure or attempt at Coercion, to influence public

opinion,” is unacceptable (Ramadan, 2001: 148). These two criteria however assume that

people within the community are capable of participating in the decision making process

of choosing itself having had knowledge of all the ‘facts’ regarding those who are

candidates to be ‘chosen’ in the first place. However with ignorance, illiteracy, corruption

and misery which are many social phenomena very much predominant in contemporary

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societies this assumption cannot be fulfilled Islamically, and thus obstructs the real

participation of the grassroots in the decision making process of choosing someone

supposedly to lead (Ramadan, 2001: 148). What becomes even of more importance is

that in no way do Islam(s), through the Koran or otherwise, justify or endorse strictly this

‘Classical’ interpretation of having a Khalifah. This is because only “general principles

were given in the field of politics and social affairs…but the Koran does not mention

details and particulars which have been left for the Ummah to formulate to the needs of

the time and space” (Ramadan, 2001: 148). Given therefore the lack of the conditions

necessary for the choosing of the Khalifah and the non-binding nature of the idea of the

Khalifah itself there have been more ‘radical’ interpretations posited. The interpretation I

choose is the one bound with my former discussion about the necessity that all beings of

the Ummah are bearers of God’s trust. Hence, they, all beings, are all equally

Caretakers whether pertaining to God’s Property as I argued in Chapter One or the

Ummah’s political associations amongst one another; themselves. In other words

Muslims and Muslimas are Caretakers of one another; God’s vicegerents and therefore

bear a responsibility towards one another. “It is possible to interpret…sections of the

Koran as identifying human beings [, the Ummah,] in general as God’s vicegerents

[Khalifahs, multiple, as opposed to its singular form, Khalifah,] on earth and human

stewardship over God’s creations” (Esposito, 1996: 26). This is because this reading “lets

us now consider [further that] ‘Khalifah’, which according to the Arabic lexicon, means

‘representation’…the representation of God on earth…required to exercise divine

authority in this world [is] within the limits prescribed by God” (Esposito, 1996: 26).

“The implications of this [is that] after subscribing to the principles of Tawheed,

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subscribing only to God’s Absolute Authority, Muslims/Muslimas in the Ummah are then

collectively and as a group ready to fulfill their responsibilities of representation towards

one another (Esposito, 1996: 26). “Such an…Ummah…carries the responsibility of the

Khilafah...each one of its individual[s] shares the divine Khilafah…every person in an

Ummah enjoys the rights and powers of the Khilafah and in the respect all individuals are

equal” (Esposito, 1996: 26). The identification of Khilafah with humanity as a whole,

rather than with a single Khalifah or political institution, is affirmed even further in

Islams’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These rights are defined in “a document

[, that emphasizes that the objective of the Ummah]…is to ‘reach the level of self-

governance’” (Esposito, 1996: 26) Thus “this perception of ‘Khilafahs’ becomes a

foundation for concepts of human responsibility and of opposition to systems of

domination…[providing along the way] also a basis for distinguishing between

democracy” through Eurocentric traditions and that of Islam(s) (Esposito, 1996: 26). Re-

iterating then, it is possible to see that the obligations of bearing the communal right to

self-govern and which “do[es] not fit into the limits of Eurocentrically based

definition[s]…[is premised in]…consultation (Shurah), consensus (Ijma) and

independent interpretative judgments (Ijtihad)” (Esposito, 1996: 26). This interpretation

however is not merely theoretical but practical as well. It is visibly identifiable that in

some Muslim communities there has been a “growth of …and the gradual formation of

legislative assemblies” (Esposito, 1996: 27). This indeed “constitutes a…step…[in] the

transfer of power of Ijtihad from individual representatives of schools [of thought] to

Muslim legislative assemblies which in view of the growth of ‘opposing’ sects [and] is

the only form of Ijma (Esposito, 1996: 27). A form of Ijma that “will secure contributions

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to…discussion[s] from [lay individuals]” who desire, have a right to and are keen in

participating in the political decision making processes and which are necessary in

Islam(s) (Esposito, 1996: 27). Therefore and as illustrated with Inheritance there is

always the desire within Islam(s) whether regarding Wealth and even more so with power

and hence authority, Micro and Macro, that there be a dissipation from the singular to the

plural.

In summary then if the conditions pertaining to the ‘choosing’ of the Khilafah fail,

as they do in contemporary society, and the fields pertaining to the political are

unspecified, as I proclaimed above, then the political ought to be replaced with a form of

organizing outside the adopted conception of Eurocentric-style democracy and certainly

the Eurocentric Fascist State. Islam(s) see that “there are significant problems with

Eurocentric-style democracy…as every Muslim/Muslima [is/are required, in accordance

with their individualized abilities]…to give a sound opinion on matters [pertaining to

Islam(s)], [and]…entitled to interpret the law of God” (Esposito, 1996: 25). “The theory

that the influential persons could represent the general public was [and still is] operative

in [Islams]…but in view of changed circumstances and in consideration of the principles

of consultation…it is essential that this theory should give place to the formation of an

assembly…[a] real [representational] of the people” and this is what Islam(s) advocate

for (Esposito, 1996: 25). “People are the rightful bearers of the trust…within this

framework…the absolute sovereignty of God makes any human hierarchy [theoretically]

impossible, since before God all humans are equal” (Espostio, 1996: 25). It is important

to note that theologically speaking every “hierarchal, dictatorial system has been

condemned as non-Islamic” (Esposito, 1996: 25). Furthermore “the label ‘king’ (Malik) [,

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in the past, has and continues till this day within Islam(s) to be regarded as] a negative

term for arbitrary personal domination” (Esposito, 1996: 25). Because there is no proof of

the necessity for a Eurocentric Civil Society in Islam(s) and because God is the sole

Authority based on Tawheed, the interpretation I posit here insists that there are Islam(s)

that ideologically espouse Anti-authoritarian tendencies. These Islam(s) recognize that

Authority is a problem and thus upon this recognition there is an effort on their part in

finding and seeking ways to minimize the domination effects of Authority both on the

Micro and Macro level.

There are two more brief matters pertaining to Islams’ perspectives on Authority

that require addressing. You may approve of what was and has been claimed above but

call to question Prophet Mohammad’s (SAW), my Prophet’s ‘Authority’. I tell You

without hesitation that a prophet signifies prophecy. He, the prophet in Islam(s), is

neither a Malik nor God, as opposed to what exists with Isa, Jesus, often interpreted as

‘The King of all Kings’, at least in the majority of contemporary forms of Christianities.

Furthermore the signifier prophet itself does not necessitate its association with your

Eurocentrically conceived Authority. A prophet through Islam(s), is “nothing but a Rasul,

a messenger, for a religious call, purely for the sake of religion, unblemished by any

[necessary] tendency to rule or call for the formation of a nation [or state]” (Abdul-Al-

Razeq, 1978: 44).

As with regards to the second matter it is critical that I reiterate that although Anti-

Religious Classical and Post-Anarchisms may contest and detest God’s Absolute

Authority it is important to realize that Islam(s) advocate that there is la ikrah Fi’d-din;

“there is no compulsion in religion” (Qurran, Chapter 2: Verse 26). In other words, “God

69
has not been completely usurped…as has always been claimed [in Anarchistic

discourses]…God has only been reinvented in the form of essence” (Newman, 2001: 6).

Just because you claimed that God is dead does not imply that you have annihilated God

or that ‘that’ God does not exist any longer; you have no proof as such to your claim.

Therefore “as long as [Anarchisms, Classical and Post, as well as Anti-religious

Anarchists] continue to believe absolutely in grammar, in essence, in the metaphysical

presuppositions of language…[Anti-Religious Anarchisms, Classical, Post and] You

[will] continue to believe in God” (Newman, 2001: 6). God is not dead and Classical as

well as Post-Anarchisms have “not ousted God …[but rather] the place of authority of the

category of the divine remains intact, only re-inscribed in the demand for

presence…Atheism changes nothing in this fundamental structure” (Newman, 2001: 6).

So I tell you this: If it had not been found in one way or another that You, a Post-
Anarchist, are justified in certain matters then your existence to me would have been
nothing more than an abject drifting. But all of those who know You including I over the
course of the years would agree with this assertion in mind: When I began to know of
You, You Classical Anarchist becoming Post, I learned about the unbelievable difficulties
in which you found yourself and which finally caught up with you. No one would have
wanted and still no one wants to be in your place. It is then that I began thinking of
myself and I too felt the same regarding Islam(s). In a sense I felt pitiless for you. I had
wanted to see both our existence intertwined like grapevines, even though and let me be
frank I knew You to be guilty of certain charges and perhaps you felt the same regarding
I, though it must be admitted on your end that you have never ever ‘justly’ justified such
charges. I did not feel pity because like you I continue to find you and I very ‘strong’,
always up to the ordeal, without wondering to much where we both found our strength.
But a quick look into your resolved eyes, with the quick assurance of what was needed
from us both, and any doubts that I had were put to stop, though I must admit that the
curiosity remains, at least on my part, to everlastingly and strangely wander about for
Nous…

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 Chapter Three: Nous

Step of Hospitality

An “us”, “Nous”, is unavoidable. The passion, the endurance, the patience of work
towards an emanation of a referent, “Nous” is recorded here. Together forever. I am a
Post-Anarchist and a Muslim/Muslima. Contrary to your wishes, our faces, “Nous”, the
You and the I, are not “states” confined solely to difference. Let us assume an open
theatre. You walk past me and I past you. You merely capture a surface me. If you believe
in chance, and I decide to stand still, you may watch me, as the spectacle you seek. If not
by chance then you are blessed. Your captured image of a surface I, begs me to think that
you think me, hideous, indecent and wretched? But you are the starting point for such a
reflection and judgment upon me. You recognize me as an infidelity and betrayal of you.
Here you opened, naively, the prospect for an “us”, “Nous”. On the other front, I am too
wretched for you so I blind you. There remains a discreet means for you to interrupt my
radiations or ugliness. My eyes. My eyes are hollow black holes. My eyes are doctrines
that testify to something beyond my surface and stand for depth. A depth inaugurated by
interpretations without beginnings and without ends. A depth that irrupts with
unconditional hospitality; A depth that desires an “us”; An unconditional hospitality that
consists of welcomes without reservations and calculations to all new arrivals. You
picked me out. You singled me out. You think me an anomaly in your equation for
believing in religion? You have not come here to be friends. You know nothing of my
depth. You know nothing of Islam(s). You know nothing of Post-Anarchisms. You, a
becoming Post-Anarchist, have treated me, a becoming Muslim/Muslima, as a receptacle
and allowed me to be treated as a receptacle for others through your prescriptive merely
surfacing and cryptic, at best, reservations on Islam(s) (Perez, 1990: 63). You see no
“Nous”, no us. Now I tell you of my discovered depth and “Nous”, an “us”.

A Different kind of Friday Morning

From the beginning of this economy of a paper and throughout this text I reminded

You that if anyone including You insisted on replying to the subject matter ransacked

here, that it ought to be taken into consideration more or less that “there are friends to

71
whom one abandons the ‘empirical’ and friends to whom one confides the essential”

(Blanchot & Derrida, 2000: 84).

You need to account for any mute witnesses in your Classical and Post-Anarchisms

without speaking for them, in place of them or drawing all sorts of consequences in truth

from an abandoned or inadequate search of them. As for I, I ‘speak’ with the pretext of

sparing You this former complaint of You upon I. Let us not forget what I had come to

do. The testimonies addressed here, make clear that your complaint that Islam(s) confine,

bind, are unceasingly dogmatic and seek to torment everyone and everything outside their

understanding does not stand. Despite Your perceptions of Islam(s) and

Muslims/Muslimas it is ironic that I am the one incidentally going far to associate with

You, a formerly Classical and present Post-Anarchist because I feel that I am bound to

You. Unlike your excommunication of Islam(s), either as an intentional activity of your

Micro-Fascist ego or your unintentional and somehow involuntary belief that somehow

your castle of a dwelling place is vulnerable if it decides to approach Islam(s), the fact is

that we need to build something here together. You have not benefited from knowing

Islam(s) and I, but instead placed Islam(s) and I at fault and expect an impossible

redemption of what in your eyes connotes a sin and an illegitimate temptation because of

our passion and belief in God. But in condemning Islam(s) You have given rise to every

passion that I espouse here and that is indeed now resulting in my desire to relate to You.

In Post-Anarchisms’ rejection and staunch opposition to Eurocentric Authority and

Eurocentric Capitalism I seek that Islam(s) be there as well. I am not dreaming for them,

Islam(s), to have priority or proclaim themselves as more self-righteous than Post-

Anarchisms but rather for them to be with it, not before and not after it, as that would

72
suggest a privileged order, a prioritizing of one over the other. And it is this passion for

Post-Anarchisms that has led me to my transgressions into Post-Anarchisms’ sacred

space(s) in search for an us, a Nous. Respectively and abstractly this Chapter exists for us

to begin thinking about how we can build a community together and for me to show You

that Islam(s) affirm differences within themselves and without. These two matters:

building and acceptance of the other are intertwined. Why? Because for any building to

be realized it would be difficult for Islam(s), to regard themselves as wanderers and to

free themselves, as they prepare to build with others something creative, without them

formally recognizing first that there is a possibility that others, those choosing to remain

as non-Muslims, ought to reserve the right, as they have, to translate the world in their

own ways and through their own eyes; and that such a world indeed could be a

profoundly beautiful world.

Therefore I will begin in When my gaze meets you, our Bodies are in touch by

discussing what I call elective affinities. In other words, how Islam(s) perceive their

associations to be with what I refer to as plurality without is; those who do not identify as

‘being’ Muslim/Muslimas. I will then proceed, in In a silent instant…the Touch of

promise, with a specific discussion that addresses the logical and contextual practical

corpus or voice of Nous as well as addressing the difference between it, Nous, and

elective affinity. I will conclude by discussing Nous and justice in An Echo of my

Incarnation.

When my gaze meets you, our Bodies are in touch

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 At the beginning and in the instant when Muslims/Muslimas and Post-Anarchists

begin to discuss anything with one another they begin the processes of seeking to

understand one another. It is this will to understand one another that permeates what may

appear to be a hegemonizing vacuum or ‘space’ between both these communities. This

vacuum or space between them is alive and hence its power lies in it ability to distance

both communities, under the illusion that they do not belong together. The result of this

distancing is that ideological differences and similarities are feared and as a result

egoisms associated with Micro-Fascisms begin to incubate and foster themselves within

both communities. This occurs because both communities begin to presume to know

everything about one another when in fact they know really very little if anything of one

another at all. Islam(s) do not believe that these fears ought to exist and they demand that

there be an affirmative desire to always characterize and examine any depth – thus, not

merely the surface – but rather everything that is different, inside its own selves and

outside them. Therefore Islam(s) proceed from the affirmation of difference individually

and communally. A Koranic verse that illustrates this is: “We have created you tribes and

nations so that you may know one another. In the eyes of God, the noblest among you is

the one whose is the most virtuous” (Chapter 49: Verse13).

But what does to ‘know one another’ mean and entail in the verse highlighted

above, bearing in mind as I said at the beginning that there always have been and that

there always will be varying degrees and intensities associated with any form of

understanding? What it entails and means is that there are infinite processes and ways

that are involved in one getting to ‘know’ someone and something else. In other words

‘knowing’ is not an instance of elective affinity and hence finite. Rather, it is infinite and

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hence involves movements on behalf of any party involved in always seeking and

striving to know the ‘other’ someone and/or something. Elective affinity’s occurrence is a

consciously or unconsciously motivated relation or connection that You and I share and

whose instance is created when the rhizomatic You intersects and is capable of

accommodating the rhizomatic I or vice versa. That is, it occurs when paths cross, like

when people first meet, whether people meet because of fate or luck. But Elective affinity

is ‘elective’ in the sense that it is selective of the traces, the points of relation that it

chooses to relate through. In other words at the instance when people first meet they

either see or seek a theme reflected in each another or not. If the theme exists the

relationship may survive but if it does not, then in all likely hood the relationship will

fail. But this is problematic because it assumes that relationships are simple and that if at

first glance nothing supposedly appears on the surface to be common then efforts into the

building of the relationship subside all together. But as I highlighted earlier, Islam(s) seek

depth and not merely the surface. Therefore any acts directed towards the choosing of

themes on which individuals and communities relate to ‘others’ outside them involve the

setting up of hierarchies. These hierarchies are not only established by selectively

choosing what can or cannot be considered as a point and/or points of relation but how

one knows whether that that point and/or points of relation can exist or not. This is

because elective affinity seeks the acknowledgment that ‘I have something common’ or

‘of interest to You’ and that You and I share. Elective affinity is premised upon judging

the surface without going much in depth. This causes misleading assumptions as those

associated with Anti-Religious Classical and Post-Anarchisms’ perception that there are

no points of relation or intersecting nodes between Islam(s) and themselves, and which

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evidently this economy of a paper is seeking to prove otherwise. Ought this imply

therefore that efforts towards building a ‘real’ relationship between Islam(s) and Anti-

Religious Classical and Post-Anarchisms not have been attempted because on the surface

things appeared a certain way, when if one looked at matters more in depth one would

find enough to at least see that Islam(s) do share with Anti-Religious Classical and Post-

Anarchisms enough for a relationship to happen? This notion of ‘stopping’ at elective

affinity is therefore problematic because it is limited in its imagination. In elective affinity

You are supposedly endowing upon I the privilege of ‘knowing’ something of You or I

am endowing upon You such a ‘privilege’. But this endowment is premised on the

assumption that somehow we ‘own’ what we know and are privileging someone else by

the disclosure of such knowledge. This only leads again to Micro-Fascisms that re-

enforce the spaces and distances that already exist between individuals and communities.

Islam(s) disagree with this perspective with regards to the ownership or endowment of

knowledge. This is because everything upholds its testimony to God again through the

concept of Tawheed. Therefore Islam(s) see You and I as Caretakers that are occupying

places of autonomy, of choice, of a will if such a will exists and God opens and binds our

hearts together, towards us knowing one another. This could be illustrated in this

Koranic verse: “And if God had pleased, God would have made you in a single Ummah

[community], but that God might try you in what God gave you. So vie with one another

in virtuous deeds. To God you will all return, so that God will inform you of that wherein

you differed” (Chapter 5: Verse 48). Regardless of whether it is God or not who binds

hearts together, there are two points that I wished to illustrate here by using this verse.

The first is that there are no single homogenous communities and thus there lies the

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necessity and acknowledgment of difference existing within and without Islam(s). The

second is that with an affirmation of such difference every community espousing

particular ethical and political principles and commitments is required to vie with every

other. But for this to take place communities need to get to know one another and the

doors to a potential relationship between them ought not be shut. This is because the

potential for a point of relation and the processes involved in getting to know never really

end. Hence there will always be the possibility for relating. We need something that goes

beyond just isolated instances of elective affinity. There needs to always be a continuous

movement of understanding for a community to be built, something that goes beyond

simply chosen parameters of possible commonalities.

Elective affinity then is where You, as a Post-Anarchist, and I, as a Muslim/Muslima,

meet. It is also where you and I find similarities as well as differences. Elective affinity

carries with it the initial advent and the opportunity for the discovery and perhaps the

partial emergence of a line of flight towards a fictional friendship between You and I; a

fictional friendship that is not yet Nous and therefore not yet a community. Thus elective

affinity is not sufficient, it is merely a beginning and denotes only a form of initial contact

between You and I, premised upon the common themes above: Anti-Capitalism and Anti-

Authoritarianism. But now what a community, our community, requires is a never

exhausted yet always exhausting line of flight or processes of always getting to know one

another so that Nous can emerge. It is important to note however as I mentioned above

that this implies that the building of Nous does not imply that anything goes. This point

will be discussed in the final section An Echo of my Incarnation. Thus fictional friendship

does not go far enough to give it the status of Nous.

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 In a silent instant…the touch of a promise

Nous is not selective. Nous is not elective. Rather, Nous is a negotiation. Nous

requires the lengthening, prolonging and relaying of its line of flight. Nous is not

aggravated solely upon lines of alliance between You and I, as that denotes You and I

becoming selective or elective of what You and I specifically desire from one another.

Nous is not built solely upon an intent, for You and I, to ‘meet and greet’, supposedly

uniting in ‘solidarity [in] every struggle against [Eurocentric] Capitalist/and or

[Nepotistic] Socialist [or even Eurocentric Authoritarian] orders” (Guattari & Negri,

1985: 19). Nous therefore from a “molecular point of view [is not premised upon places

where] each attempt [becomes] at [achieving] ideological unification” for such a desire

“is an absurd and reactionary operation” (Guattari & Negri, 1985: 108-109). We can’t

agree on everything so we teach our selves and one other to negotiate. Why? Because

“desire, on a social terrain, refuses to allow itself to be confined to zones of

consensus…why ask a feminist movement to come to a doctrinal or pragmatic accord

with ecological movement groups or with a communitarian experiment by people of color

or with a worker’s movement, etc…” (Guattari & Negri, 1985: 108-109)? Therefore it is

not necessary as the Koran testifies that individuals share everything in common for a

community to be built: “If your Lord had willed, all those on earth would have believed

78
together. Would you then compel people to become believers?” (Chapter 10: Verse 99).

And so “ideology shatters; it only unifies on the level of appearance [as fictional

friendship]…[but] what is essential [conversely] is that each movement shows itself to be

capable of unleashing irreversible molecular revolutions” (Guattari & Negri, 1985: 108-

109). Perhaps I should insist on this difficult and decisive point: These molecular

revolutions undeniably request, abide, believe in and appreciate everything that is

infinitely plural and multiple.

Nous then becomes a pluralistic form of affinity that requires that Anarchists,

Classical and Post, and Muslims/Muslimas ward off fear, egoism and vanity within them,

particularly regarding all that lies outside them. It requires that both communities turn

their abstract love for humanity into a concrete act directed towards flesh and blood

individuals (Dostoevsky, 1989: 224). It requires not pretending to know and not just

wanting to know someone else but actually getting to know someone else without any

malicious intent behind this act of knowing. Such an act, necessitates that the act itself

becomes void of self-righteousness and thus requires a process of honesty with oneself

and the other. Nous’ act is void of any intent to coerce or compel someone else and

therefore is respectful of the other. Acts of debasing, degrading, coercion and conversion

exemplify compulsion and are Micro-Fascisms that ought to be fought. That is why “the

Koran…does not look at faith in terms of what divides and disperses, ignoring the

wisdom of diversity and objectives of having faith to begin with” (Esack, 1997: 171).

“Righteous deeds… recognized [in Islam(s)] are not the monopoly of any single

competitor…as the judge God, has to be above the narrow [and divergent] interest of

participants…claims of familiarity with the [sole] judge [God] with any particular ‘team’

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will not avail the participants” (Esack, 1997: 175). As the Koran highlights: “Unto us our

works and unto you your works; let there be no dispute between you and us. God will

bring us together and to God we shall return” (Chapter 42: Verse 15 & Chapter 2: Verse

139). To exist, to indulge upon such an existence through not yielding and proclaiming

the right of way to other dignitaries of God indeed denies God’s sole Authority according

to Islam(s). That is why Islam(s) pronounce that “no Authority, no leader, no

government, no assembly can restrict, abrogate or violate in any way these rights”; rights

ordained, asserted and which belong solely to God not demagogues (Arkoun, 1994: 106).

“Contempt for [the] other, the Koran suggests, was [, is and continues to become]

rooted in notions of being the chosen [ones] of God” (Esack, 1997: 158). Therefore

Islam(s) cannot themselves claim that Muslims/Muslimas are the chosen ones, at least

theoretically. This is because, according to the Koran: “Nay, but it is God who causes

whomsoever God wills to grow in purity; and none shall be wronged by even a hair’s

breadth” (Chapter 5: Verse 49). Therefore a new concept emerges in Islam(s): Al-Haqq,

‘the just’, and which “applies to God as a transcendent being to whom [any]one as [a

human] being has not a privilege of accessing but rather a right to” access (Esack, 1997:

158). The idea behind Haq is that it “takes on the movement from the singular

transcendental form to a pluralistic one on this earth through its multiplicitous form;

Huquq” (Esack, 1994: 175). Muslims/Muslimas would be acting as demagogues

therefore if they deprive rights established by God unto others. This is why Islam(s)

cannot as social entities display superiority over anyone because only God grants

everyone’s Huquq. Anything otherwise would mean that Islam(s) and their parochial God

are above everyone else (Esack, 1994: 175). Such a claim, if it were to occur by Islam(s),

80
would place Islam(s) in the same positions as certain hegemonic individuals and

communities that were encountered historically and whom have monstrously exaggerated

their crimes of vanity in the name of their God; those whom plunge in a savage and

solitary desire to appropriate and negate God all together for their individual or

communitarian indulgence (Esack, 1994: 175).

Inclusiveness in Islam(s) becomes superior to exclusiveness. The proof that I have

here lays with the Koranic verse: “Freedom from (all) obligations (is declared) from God

and God’s Messenger (SAW) to those of the Mushrikûn (polytheists, pagans, idolaters,

disbelievers in the Oneness of Allâh), with whom you made a treaty” (Chapter 9: Verse

1).

An echo of my Incarnation

Islam(s)’ are not naïve to request the “[dissolving of all] power relations in the

utopia of perfectly transparent communication…but to give one’s self the rules of

law…the ethos, the practice of self, which would allow these games of power to be

played with a minimum of domination” (Foucault, 1987: 129 cited in Day, 2001: 30).

Islams’ roles become directed instead towards the cultivation of a spirit in respecting ‘the

others’’ customs and practices as they accept that the faithful adherents of all traditions

will also attain salvation and that “no fear shall come upon them neither will they grieve”

(Qurran, Chapter 2: Verse 262). Conversely an unjust desire on part of Islam(s) would be

for them to strike fear upon and thus transgress another community that supposedly does

not testify to or pledge allegiance to Islam(s) because this would be an absolute brevity

upon Tawheed; upon God. This is illustrated in these Koranic Verses: “O you who

81
believe! Let not a group of you be-little [and hegemonize] another; it may be that the

latter are better than the former… Nor let some women belittle other women; it may be

that the latter are better than the former… Nor defame one another, nor insult one another

with nicknames… How bad it is to charge someone with iniquity after they have

believed… And whosoever does not repent, such are indeed transgressors…O you who

believe, avoid much suspicion; indeed some suspicions are sins. And spy not, nor

backbite one another” (Chapter 49: Verse11). The root is here made clear, a root of

tireless responsibility for ‘the other’; a “‘responsibility without limits’ in the face of the

other” (Derrida, 1992: 22 cited in Day, 2001: 27). “The infinity of this demand means

that, justice cannot be reduced to any particular system of injunction – it remains always

to come (à venir)” (Derrida, 1992: 26-27 cited in Day, 2001: 27). This commitment to

social justice and even more precisely social jurisprudence, so long as particular ethical

and political commitments to Anti-Capitalism and Anti-Authoritarianism, becomes

apparent because in Islam(s): “if two parties or groups are inclined to fighting, then make

peace between them both, but if one of them rebels against the other, then fight you (all)

against that which rebels till it complies with God’s command for justice; then if it

complies, then make reconciliation between them justly, and be equitable. Verily! God

loves those who are equitable”(Qurran, Chapter 49: Verse 9). Therefore it is not a matter

of anything goes. It is a matter of negotiations.

Without an interest but to attest to God’s creativity, the Koran invents and does

not prevent Islam(s) from engaging if not competing with ‘others’ and each other

themselves in the spirit of that which is just and that which recognizes the mutual benefit

of neighboring communities (Esack, 1997: 179-203). Nous for Islam(s) “is not based on a

82
vague and undefined desire for peace and quiet…rather it is based on a struggle against

injustice and for the creation of a world wherein it is safe to be human and people are

freed from enslavement” (Esack, 1994: 179-203). Such non-elective affinity with the

“oppressed, furthermore, implies the recognition of them as agents of their liberation with

their own resources to draw own” (Esack, 1994: 179-203).

If one day I dared

Nous is then not where You and I ‘fictionally’ conform through abstract

associations but where everything is and always continues to be done, lived according to

the principal: ‘to know one other’. It, this principal, is where with each episode we

become drawn closer to one other. This ‘knowing’ ought to be complemented un-

regrettably with the conscious impossibility that we shall never be one another and

accordingly Muslims/Muslimas and Post-Anarchists are always seeking the decay of the

space or vacuum and hence the distance between them. Post-Anarchists,

Muslims/Muslimas and perhaps Classical Anarchists through this interpretation and

based on their shared commitments need therefore to long and work together for the

“creation of a ‘community with neither presuppositions nor a State’” (Agamben, 1993: 82

cited in Day, 2001: 35). Through these coming communities, comprised of Nous, there

comes a challenge to “the false dichotomy between the ‘ineffability of the individual and

the intelligibility of the universal’ by appealing to [the] singular rather than mass poles of

identification” (Agamben, 1993: 81 cited in Day, 2001: 35).

83
Chapter Four: Infinite Thoughts as The End becomes a Beginning becoming an
End

Mourn Nous, not these words whose analytic show that both Your understandings
and imaginations have entered into a contractual agreement constituting your judgment
and taste regarding this economy of a paper? A ‘beautiful exposition’ is here, certainly
not for “I” but perhaps for You, and that you insist in destroying through this infinite
hold on its language and which is always retractable. You leave no imagination on the
other hand for the extraordinary violence, not of language, not of the word, words,
striated segments, but rather for any flights of thought that accompany this economy of
paper. I could take leave forever from that which has been ‘spoken’ here; what you think
to be and believe is my voice. But that which has been thought can never be said again
(Agamben, 1982: 108). Language was never my voice here, rather my voice here
accompanies my thoughts and that belongs to an “I”. An “I” that is neither fascist nor
paranoiac; an “I” that is rhizomatic and anarchical; an “I” that requires… no… no…it
creates without even needing to demand Nous; a rhizomatic ‘us’. You came as close as
possible to language, but never to “I”, though you almost brushed against it,
encountered it but turned back. You could though reach the ‘depth’ of “I” as opposed to
merely trying to correspond with the ‘surface’. In a further move undeniably You could
alternatively take the shortest way, walk away towards your home untroubled. That
would become pity and an act of terror, but I desire that you flap your wings and think
like a pheasant lifting off and then disappears instantly among the trees, as a porcupine
buries in the thick underbrush, and dry leaves crackle as a snake slithers away
(Agamben, 1982: 108). There is something that is ‘said’ here in your flapping, as it does
not communicate through language with the porcupine or the snake that slithers away yet
somehow has a voice. A voice that is something else, not language for that “is not my
voice”, but rather infinite thoughts and which are here, and that require you to go
beyond your limits, to think beyond, to over-think (Agamben, 1982: 108). You need to
understand why you and I came here and why I rose from depth only to surface to tell you
of my depth. You need to think why it was “I” whom initiated this and what “I” initiated
here. Was there a distant proximity occupying the spaces between You and I, that I was
not aware of, or was there a negative secret animosity, upon unfounded foundations, that

84
made you remain in your infantile dwelling place while “I” became and am still
becoming a you and “I”; Nous? This is not mysterious and sacrificial wisdom that I am
trying to make you conceive of here and bestow upon myself. “I” initiated this. “I”
initiated this noise, I chose and choose noise oriented towards and for you to reflect
upon, while you remain in your ever yet infantile dwelling, your looking glass; glace. It is
worth being reminded that again a noise, a noise I say, castrated your glace while you
covered your ears. Now you are delirious and for a start you recognize that to this debate
there is no side to take, but the declaration of Nous. Everything else becomes cinder.

Keep it in the family

Formally speaking I am a Muslim/Muslima and Post-Anarchist. I am not an

assassinating imposter transformed “into [an] incendiary projectile”; I am not a neo-pilot

(Badiou, 2003: 141). When the Towering cements temporarily departed on 911 a

movement within me became realized; an overcoming, an always becoming, became

initiated, conjured up from under the rubble’s depth.

Yesterday the word terror was associated with abuses associated with “the exercise

of State power[s]” (Badiou, 2003: 144). Now, terror has come to mean something else. It,

terror, is no longer associated with ‘the state’ but rather it is now invented with a

relentless faceless invisible enemy. The towering cements departed and terror now has

come to “designate…from the position of the dominant, [the State,] all those who engage

in a combat [militant or any other] using whatever means at hand, against a given order

which is judged to be unacceptable” (Badiou, 2003: 144). “Anti-Nazi resistors for Pétain

and his militia” [are terrorists]; “Algerian patriots of the NLF for every French

government without exception between 1954 and 1962” [are terrorists]; “Chechens for

Putin and his clique” [are terrorists]; an always becoming terror (Badiou, 2003: 145).

85
Terror now is a spectacular performance; a play whose predicate and habitual dwelling

place, from the perspective of many, has become, at least for now, Islam or should I say

Islams or better yet Islam(s)? Terror’s point(s) of departure have become the aggregate

Islams and the extraordinary complex relations they have to the “manna of…[black

gold]” in a Monarchy of Meccan Kingdoms of Sheikhs (Badiou, 2003: 149). But what is

truly interesting is that terror’s motif signaled and announced that I, a Muslim/Muslima

and Post-Anarchist, can never again become excluded. Rather I am now emancipated.

This is because, and I have recently come to realize this: If I am signified abstractly with

a given name that I ‘carry’ and which can always become replaced with another name by

imperial machines, Eurocentric Capitalism and State, when they don’t like it, doesn’t suit

them, then what holds the space of my name intact? If these imperial machines dare to

take another name and place another in its place then the space occupied by my first

name, and that has now come to be known as terrorist, was always inhabited by symbolic

positions determined by supposedly imperial machines. Then where is my name? Has my

name resigned to these imperial machines on pain of returning to its habitual dwelling

place or has it become indifferent to such a ‘being’ being referred to as a terrorist?

Surely, if my name chose to hide then I would not hold its choice as being far from being

innocent. But I believe that my name that now signifies terrorism has never and could

never become threatened, because it and what it signifies remains anonymous to imperial

machines. My name, I say, was always an emancipated name. It was free to be what it

desired to be in all its ferocity, in all its Terror from itself and unto itself.

A Testimony Already Forgotten: Invading Oceans by Becoming Planters

86
 We, You and I, are becoming acquainted and I feel there is a need for Nous to take

action, to grow roots, not for fun but to incapacitate two uninvited guests, Eurocentric

Authority and Capitalism. Islamic and Anarchistic practices require that

Muslim/Muslimas and Anarchists, Classical and Post, surface, to discuss their depths, to

accept, to receive, to invite Nous. That is my wish. One might as well say that I came here

not to assimilate with Anarchisms, while others believe that I am already an Anarchist.

Instead I say I came here in away to alienate Post-Anarchisms from themselves, and thus

You a Post-Anarchist from yourself, so that it and You lament back at Your beginning,

Anti-Religious Classical Anarchisms and to respond to Islam(s) and what I have written

here. I came here to say that in this economy of a paper and following this, the next, and

every other I write, that throwing Your head first, like your former Classical Anarchisms,

is very near alienating and offer instead that You always remain immediately conscious;

for you to be light on your feet; for these blows here to create us both. I without question

came here, instead of staying with my secret, to this supposedly inaccessible place; War

of Dreams: Becoming(s) of a Redeemed Circle A with an Eye and a Redeemed Eye with a

Circle A. I do not belong here though, in this economy of a paper, nor am I interested in

worshiping just the boundaries of its supposed nodes of elective affinities; Anti-

Capitalism, Anti-Authoritarianism and the creation of Nous. Like you, I am engaged both

individually and collectively, both in theory and praxis, in re-creating myself like when I

was first born, becoming human.

In this re-creation I believe that I am becoming what I will call for now and without

settling in them individually or collectively an Anarcho/Anarcha-Muslim/Muslima. I have

tried to elaborate non-figuratively and literally giving Islamic Anarchism(s) through Nous

87
a way, a practice, an alternative, another painting, a clarification and explanation. I did

this through rigorous points belonging to both ways of life being related to one another;

thereby even giving myself a new way to live. I have tried to remind You that every day

on any street corner we suffer as prisoners to imperial machines; Eurocentric Capitalism

and Authority. I told You of matters partially belonging to my depth instead of merely

giving You a surface effect. I have tried to bring You to admit that You yesterday, an

Anti-Religious Classical Anarchist, have historically and politically exiled all religions

and here particularly Islam(s). Islams’ testimonies therefore are absent from both your

Classical Anarchisms of yesterday and Post-Anarchisms of today. Each time throughout,

I tried to illustrate that “in order to think religion abstractly, we [You and I collectively]

will [have to] take these powers of abstraction as our point of departure, in order to risk

eventually, the following hypothesis: with respect to all these forces of abstraction and of

dissociation, ‘religion’ is at the same time [always] involved in reacting antagonistically

and re-affirmatively [always thus] outbidding itself” (Derrida, 1996: 2).

Therefore it does not serve You or I right to classify religions under the same name

because there is no right, no concept, nor even a word corresponding to perhaps the last

two monotheisms, Islam(s) and Judaism(s), that does not “revolt against everything that in

the Christianizing of our world, signifies the death of God, death in God, two non-pagan

monotheisms that do not accept death any more than multiplicity in God…two

monotheisms alien enough at the heart of Greco-Christian, Pagan-Christian Europe”

(Derrida, 1996: 12).

I also admitted that the “surge of Islam(s) will be neither understood nor answered

as long as the exterior and interior place…have not been called into question,” and this is

88
my life long promise to You (Derrida, 1996: 20). That is, to conduct such questioning

(Derrida, 1996: 20). This passageway would require ‘an other’ already absent here, in this

economy of a paper, the interior, and out there, in the open theater, an exterior. What I am

talking about is ‘an other’ that is personal and that involves an establishment of social

connections through our commitments to values towards obstructing the two imperial

machines in the real world, not here in the written word. Correspondingly I have tried to

interest and tempt You to looking for such opportunities. I tried to give these thoughts

and their bodies some flesh. Our values, our inferential structures, and our daily

engagements as Anarchists have to reflect the principles we purport to espouse. To what

exemplary competence will they, these Imperial machines, and without difficulty sustain

such a will over Nous; my moves towards Post-Anarchisms; Your moves towards

Islam(s). It is a unique place, at the indivisible instant when Nous is brought to an

Imperial machines’ attention in so far as the Imperial machines’ difficulty in

territorializing, de-territorializing and capturing Nous increases. After all it is the Imperial

machines that seek to expand the distances and spaces between us. Nous is manifested in

Nous, inscribed within itself from itself, and whose birth brings with it a thought by

Imperial machines whose only insight regarding Nous upon seeing it is that ‘there is

something more to them [Nous] than what is seen’. Nous’ carries with it two affirmations;

simultaneously it plays two sides. An affirmed offering in that it can only be understood

from within, by those whom choose to circulate ‘through’ it; I could be saying that I

relate to You here ‘through’ You, to be more precise, a part of You for You are becoming

You and I becoming I. You and I, our individualized always becomings, are always

89
released in an affirmation of differences, a separation, belonging to You and I; a

resistance to assimilation.

The other affirmed offering could be conceived of as a protection against the danger

of incorporation whereby our Nous is never identical to another Nous elsewhere, due to

the formers’ affirmation of becoming; no two friendships are identical. It is in this way

that Nous encrypts itself from itself and others, amounting to a fusion of ties within itself

haunting any instants for introjections made by imperial machines. Nous is a negotiated

relationship of clinging detachments.

To a blind ‘we’ that ‘we’ become

“The playing of transgression and being is fundamental for [the construction and] constitution of philosophical
language…[a language folded onto itself]- as if it were nothing more than a small night lamp that flashes with a
strange light, signaling the void from which it arises and to which it addresses everything it illuminates and touches.”

Michel Foucault

Contrary to your expectations this body of text has taken time, shuttling between

thoughts and now that I am nearing ‘the end’ I utter that all this creation, this

interpretation from origin to its in between, is but a stray hair denoting a line of flight.

The disturbance that took place in both traditions, in these ways of living here

began at the instant in which both these traditions were born from thoughts that work;

working thoughts. Thoughts un-appropriated by claims like that associated with property

and thoughts that do not take up residence in neither You or I. You, like I, are merely

introduced here as strangers and wanderers, always legible and always there. By fate or

luck, You desire Nous as parts of yourself betray yourself.

90
 In a step beyond me now, Islam(s) and Post-Anarchisms are the discovered and

surfacing becoming(s) which I have chosen to testify to thus far. But it is, as often the

case is, that there is no prohibition against me copulating like an animal and thereby

recognizing that these two conjoined modes of living are merely discovered becomings.

And it is so that I remind myself before You that “animal copulation leaves behind itself

no monument, no burial place, no institution, no law that opens and assures any history”

(Derrida, 1974: 12). Respectively I am not naive to think that I am passively confined to

these discoveries and therefore as I must, attest to ‘being’ associated with all that resides

yet undiscovered, impatient to be discovered and all that is beyond discovery.

I possess no abode to hide now so as to remain a secret, nor would I desire for such

an abode’s possibility. Such a wish corresponds to an avowed desire to distance Nous and

to attest to all the manufactured oppressions that I feel I detest. Such a wish, even if but

for an instant, in principal renders that I possibly belong to imperial machines and that

somehow this interpretation ‘belongs’ to me. On the contrary, my name, and I believe I

myself, am free. I believe only in God and for me to testify to an Imperial order, my own

self or even someone else would imply that I have contradicted Tawheed. I am only left

with mourning solely God’s absence from our, God’s and mine, Nous. And so the End

becomes the beginning becoming an End.

As such the taste of the lemon and the words have coursed my veins…As such I

ate the words and lemon and spat the seeds…for when yesterday I supposedly ‘woke’ up I

found myself sucking what you and they might call a ‘lemon’…now a dried

‘lemon’…whose seeds are like these words which I just spat…perhaps now they, the

seeds and their company of words may sprout into inverted trees of half red, half green

91
and partially rotted black apples…As such my duty for now, but for now, becomes

fulfilled…As such my infringement upon good tastes comes to a temporal beginning of

something new…This was the vision I had sometime in the afternoon…call it poetic

terrorism if you like….all I propose to know is that it was but a combat-like portrait of

two dreams, redeeming one another, because they are never complete and hence always

partially rotten…

If you don’t admire something, if you don’t love it, you have no reason to write

about it. But there are No castles on the Rhine to be enshrined here. Read this once. Read

this once. Read this once, tempt Nous, cry Brûle then Burn it.

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Lang.

On Silence…

The duty of the writer, of the poet is not to shut himself and/or
herself up like a coward in a text, a book, a magazine
from which s/he never comes out but on the contrary
to go into the world to jolt, to attack the mind of the
public, otherwise what use is s/he ?
And why was s/he born?

…the concepts that have come to pass here…that were given a voice are not

particularly nor strictly due to the supposed creativity of an individual ego or even two –

( I am no one)…’rather’ like deleuze I believe that there is a privileged role unaccounted

for; whose testament to is currently lacking in the world today…the role due to every

creation around this I (& everyone)…that which always resists the present…it is due to

all that which was created around me that Islamic Anarchism(s) was started up…the

thought… this open declaration of the infinite responsibility I have for any and every

‘other’…this open declaration that I am an Anarcho Anarcha Muslim(s) &

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Muslima(s)…& this open deceleration that I am always an other to everyone including

myself.

… as for what formerly happened here?

A mediation of magic…

and, “it is by magic that the abominable institutions which enclose us: country, family, society, mind, concept,

perception, sensation, affect, heart, soul, science, law, justice, right, religion, notions, verb, language, don’t

correspond to anything real”…they no longer mean shit… as for those who propose to be descendents of literary

intellectual tribes that conjured these institutions…you are all rubbish-mongers… i prefer humbleness and organized

anarchy.

Antonin Artaud & i

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