Islam does not teach killing people. Islam does not teach crime. Islam does not teach violence or terrorism. That is not Islam....

Well, at least he says he's a Muslim. And he attends a mosque. That apparently is not enough -- not for one Philadelphia police officer, nor for Muslim "leaders" in the area:

"He's someone who says he's a Muslim. There's a difference between a Muslim and a practicing Muslim," said police officer Kenneth Wallace, a Muslim.

Wallace grew his beard beyond the department's quarter-inch regulation length in observance of Islam and was ordered home until he trimmed it. Following the example of the Prophet Muhammad, many Muslim men wear beards, and some scholars say it is a religious obligation.

Wallace is now in a standoff with the department, waiting to be told if he is fired. Johnson is not backing him, just as he did not support a female officer who wants to wear the hijab, the traditional Islamic head scarf, with her uniform.

"You don't wear religion on your face," the commissioner said. "You wear it in your heart and mind."

The stance has not won him friends among some Muslim leaders.

"He seems determined to show he's not going to favor Muslims," said Isa Abdul Mateen, imam at the Masjid al-Quran in North Philadelphia.

What most bothers me about this flap is the idea that Johnson is not a Muslim.

If he's not a Muslim, then what is he? We've reached a point where we cannot communicate, because so many words mean so many different things to so many different people that conversations are impossible except between those who either agree with each other, or are at least openminded enough to discuss terminology. I mean, what can be said to someone who thinks that a Muslim is not a Muslim because he disagrees on beard length? How could I or anyone else hope to have an intelligent discussion with such a person?

For that matter, no matter how logical I try to be, how am I to evaluate these conflicting claims? I am not a Muslim, but I'll try. There are two men, both claiming to be Muslims. Let's call them Muslim A, and Muslim B. Muslim A claims that both he and Muslim B are Muslims, but Muslim B claims that he is a Muslim but Muslim A is not. Obviously, they do not define the word the same way, which makes it doubly difficult for me, an outsider, to make any determination. Much as I'd like to believe that human beings should be free to select their own religion, how I am to weigh the fact that often these religions are defined by others?

But who is in charge? There is no Caliphate or Pope, and no official registry of who belongs to the religion called Islam. If someone claims to be a Catholic, that status is at least possible to determine by certain objective criteria (baptism, confirmation, communion). Murkier, though, would be the claim of being, simply, a "Christian." While I'd prefer to let people call themselves whatever they want and take their religious descriptions of themselves at face value, there's a growing chorus of people who will not. Frankly, I cannot imagine why I would dispute anyone's claim to be a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Pagan, Hindu or whatever. It seems that for the most part, the people who would dispute such things belong to certain cults or sects which desire to take over the larger body to which their cult or sect belongs. In particular, fundamentalists would often decry non-fundamentalists as not "real."

There's also the troublesome question of whether someone must "practice" a religion in order to be allowed to avail himself of the label he chooses to bestow on himself. What is "practice" and how often must it occur? It would seem to vary according to the religion. Christians believe in the teachings of Jesus, and many varieties of Christianity require at least baptism, while in general, Judaism requires only birth to a Jewish mother regardless of any religious practice (except in cases of conversion, of course). Islam requires at least the claim to be a follower of Muhammad and adherence to five basic beliefs:

* Belief that there is only one god, namely Allah.
* Belief in Allah's angels.
* Belief in Allah's revealed Scriptures.
* Belief in Allah's Messengers.
* Belief in the Day of Judgement.

A similar phenomenon can be found in politics. One can become a Republican or a Democrat by joining either party, but both parties contain partisan ideologues who will argue that those who disagree with their views are not "real" Republicans or Democrats. It's tougher where it comes to generalized political terms like "liberal" and "conservative" because the meanings change over time, and there aren't any Papal of Caliphate-style guardians over meaning. When I was a kid, Barry Goldwater was a conservative, and John F. Kennedy was a liberal. Today Goldwater would be a libertarian, and the anti-Communist, tax-lowering Kennedy would be a conservative.

Then there's liberalism of the classical variety.

Sigh.

Don't even get me started on "values." I'd rather return to the problem at hand. For the sake of my sanity, and for ease of argument, I must treat Police Commissioner Johnson's claim to be a Muslim as true. I may wish there were more Muslims as moderate as he apparently is, but that does not mean that the louder, less moderate Muslims should have the right to define his Muslim status out of existence.

I'm taking Johnson at his word.

Besides, if we assume that others have the right to define or redefine him -- each with their own, differing definitions, such definitions eventually render themselves as imaginary as the definition in each definer's imagination. (Which means there's no duty to take any of them more seriously than any of the others.)

AFTERTHOUGHT: I started this post with three questions on my mind:

Unfortunately, there don't seem to be answers -- at least not in the absolute sense -- on which all can agree.

(And the problem is, I find relativism to be emotionally unsatisfying! Damn! Where does that leave me?)

MORE: Jeff Goldstein argues that tyrannical control over definitions is being achieved by those who have "proprietary control over their culture’s representation":

—a maneuver that allows them to argue that outside critiques of said culture are somehow inauthentic. This idea, which allows for a kind of critical immunization and for linguistic provincialism, is the lasting legacy of politico-linguistic thinkers like Edward Said.

But the fact is, such cultural relativism is structurally provided for in a linguistic system that refuses to allow intent to govern the utterance, relying instead on individual interpreters to give signs their meaning—and so by extension, allowing groups of individuals, by consent, to settle on a particular meaning and to claim an authenticity for that meaning that needn’t answer to outside criticism, because “meaning” has become relative. That is, because one culture adopts a particular interpretation as an article of faith, our hermeneutic relativism commits us to accepting their interpretation as equally legitimate to our own. And in fact, we have no philosophical ground left on which to fight it, having ceded control of language to whomever can make their own meanings from a given set of signifiers.

As to the idea that "outside critiques" are "inauthentic," this obviously means that only Nazis should be allowed to criticize Nazis. If all nonsense is equal, then I'll just stick with my own.

MORE: The problem Jeff identifies is typified by the fallout over Jesse Jackson's inane remark about Katrina flood victims:

"It is racist to call American citizens refugees."

Why give Jesse Jackson power over the meaning of words, when he has demonstrated how clueless he is?