Take Fear of Takfir...

Shmuel Bar

Foresees Kulturkampf?

Better than a Clash of Civilizations

(Image from Herzliya Conference)

Shmuel Bar, whom I mentioned yesterday as the author of "The Religious Sources of Islamic Terrorism," Policy Review (June & July 2004), has in that same article noted "the disinclination of moderates to confront the radicals" and has offered an explanation:

[This] has frequently been attributed to violent intimidation (which, no doubt, exists), but it has an additional religious dimension. While the radicals are not averse to branding their adversaries as apostates, orthodox and moderate Muslims rarely resort to this weapon. Such an act (takfir -- accusing another Muslim of heresy [kufr] by falsifying the roots of Islam, allowing that which is prohibited or forbidding that which is allowed) is not to be taken lightly; it contradicts the deep-rooted value that Islam places on unity among the believers and its aversion to fitna (communal discord). It is ironic that a religious mechanism which seems to have been created as a tool to preserve pluralism and prevent internal debates from deteriorating into civil war and mutual accusations of heresy (as occurred in Christian Europe) has become a tool in the hands of the radicals to drown out any criticism of them. (Bar, "Religious Sources," 'The dilemma of the moderate Muslim,' paragraph 5)

We may take fear of takfir, then, as based partly on the traditional fear of fomenting fitna in the Islamic community. Bar thinks that moderate Muslims nevertheless need to pursue a Kulterkampf:

Only by setting up a clear demarcation between orthodox and radical Islam can the radical elements be exorcized. The priority of solidarity within the Islamic world plays into the hands of the radicals. Only an Islamic Kulturkampf can redraw the boundaries between radical and moderate in favor of the latter. Such a struggle must be based on an in-depth understanding of the religious sources for justification of Islamist terrorism and a plan for the creation of a legitimate moderate counterbalance to the radical narrative in Islam. Such an alternative narrative should have a sound base in Islamic teachings, and its proponents should be Islamic scholars and leaders with wide legitimacy and accepted credentials. (Bar, "Religious Sources," 'Fighting hellfire with hellfire,' paragraph 3)

For the skeptics, Bar adds a footnote:

Here the pessimist may inject that, today, all the leading Islamic scholars in the Middle East who enjoy such prestige are in the radical camp. But there have been cases of "repentant" radicals (in Egypt) who have retracted (albeit in jail and after due "convincing") their declarations of takfir against the regime. In Indonesia, the moderate Nahdlatul Ulama led by former President Abdurahman Wahid represents a genuine version of moderate Islam. (Bar, "Religious Sources," footnote 11)

Straws in the wind? Presage of a storm on the way? Perhaps, but this coming Kulturkampf might take a little time unless the moderates receive some ammunition. Probably, the cultural battle within Islam itself will need to be prompted both by 'infidels' challenging Muslims to clarify their positions and by 'unpleasantries' such as the Fitna stinkbomb that Geert Wilders has tossed into the Muslim camp as well as by developments within the Muslim world itself as mainstream Islam grows weary of Islamist attacks on other Muslims and begins to critique Islamists interpretations of Qur'an, hadith, and shariah.

I'd probably have more to say about these points, but I'm still under the weather...