Further on René Girard and Violent Sacrifice in Islam

René Girard Speaks Out

(Image © 1999 Dietmar Regensburger/Innsruck)

My pursuit of René Girard's views on Islam and violent sacrifice have led me to the website for the Italian paper Chiesa, which offers an article first posted on June 23, 2003: "The Innocent Victim Has a Defender. And He Is in Jerusalem."

This Chiesa post provides an English translation of the original article, "Il Dio dell'apocalisse" ("The God of the Apocalypse"), an interview with Girard conducted by Attilio Scarpellini for L'Espresso (No. 25, June 12, 2003) in which Scarpellini raises the issue of Islam and violence:

Scarpellini: And Islam?

Girard: "Islam has problems with violence. But we must avoid confusion. Islam cannot be classified as a primitive religion: it is a monotheistic religion that belongs to the religious family of Abraham, and it has been profoundly influenced by both Judaism and Christianity. Islam, too, contains the seed of a critical stance toward violence. Human sacrifice is not part of the Muslim tradition, and no orthodox or authoritative religious current of Islam justifies it. Islam is not sacrificial."

Scarpellini: But there are the suicide bombers.

Girard: "That's true. Fundamentalist terrorism is sacrificial. But it is a contradiction that plays upon the ambiguity of our relationship with religion and the sacred."

Scarpellini: The philosopher Jean Baudrillard says that the behavior of the suicide bombers is an assertion of moral superiority, in that they are capable of sacrificing themselves and others, a symbolic challenge that westerners are no longer able to accept.

Girard: "I haven't read much by Baudrillard lately. But in this case I would be tempted to agree with him. We are not capable of accepting the terrorist's challenge to sacrifice because the logic of suicide-homicide is unacceptable in a moral context permeated by Christianity; because we do not believe that the mechanism of the sacrificial victim has any value. The act of the suicide bomber who immolates himself and his enemy on the same altar may draw our attention -- as does in fact happen -- but it doesn't convince us. But to think that the refusal of this sacrifice weakens the West is merely a way of reviving Nietzsche's criticisms of Christianity."

I wonder who the "we" is in Girard's words that "we do not believe that the mechanism of the sacrificial victim has any value." Many Westerners still speak unselfconsciously -- though in a thoroughly secular sense -- of soldiers who die in battle as "sacrificing" themselves for their country. Or do only American Westerners think this way? Now, if Girard means specifically the suicide-homicide sort of 'sacrifice', then I'd agree that Westerners today generally reject any sacrificial understanding of a terrorist's mass homicide, even if the terrorist 'sacrifices' himself -- though I suspect that some Americans in WWII may have employed a secularized use of the term 'sacrifice' to describe the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (but I'm just guessing).

More to the point, I cannot quite see how in a "moral context permeated by Christianity ... we do not believe that the mechanism of the sacrificial victim has any value." Is this a general principle that also applies to religious concepts of forgiveness? Do Girard's words imply that sacrifice is an ineffective mechanism for the forgiveness of sins in Christian soteriology? I don't quite understand this. Perhaps "Islam is not sacrificial," but Christianity certainly is. Christian soteriology puts the self-sacrifice of Christ at its center and claims that the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament points toward this self-sacrifice. Moreover, it understands Christ's self-sacrifice not only as effective in enabling the forgiveness of sins but even as necessary and sufficient for the final purification from all sins. Perhaps this is Girard's point, that Christ's sacrifice makes any further sacrifices otiose?

Be that as it may, Girard's main point about Islam is that "Human sacrifice is not part of the Muslim tradition, and no orthodox or authoritative religious current of Islam justifies it." In short, "Islam is not sacrificial." If Girard is correct, then the Islamist exaltation of the suicide bomber is an Islamic heresy. Some Muslim scholars have, in fact, argued this, but a lot of others have defended the human sacrifice that they call "martyrdom operations."

Concerning this issue of human sacrifice in Islam, one might wish to read a couple of my earlier posts on the shahid as Islamic redeemer.