Islam as Religious-Political Ideology

Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Wikipedia

In a recent post on Islam - how to conceive of it and how to deal with it - my cyber-friend Bill Vallicella notes that some who undertake this task mistakenly assume:

that Islam is a religion like any other. Not so. It is a hybrid religious-political ideology that promotes values inimical to the West and . . . [the West's] flourishing. Sharia and the West do not mix.

Bill emphasizes that Islam is not a religion like any other, that it's a hybrid religious-political ideology. My view differs little from Bill's view, though I would add a point.

Not only do I find Islam a hybrid religious-political ideology, I would describe it as a throw-back to an earlier stage of religious development, the religion of the priest-king, a figure with both a religious role and a political role to fill. Think of the Caliph, who fills both of these roles, and recall the recent Caliphate, which attempted to install shariah as the law of the land that it occupied.

In Islam, there is no separation of mosque and state. The mosque is, in fact, an extension of the state, which clarifies why Islam restricts all other religions wherever it gains political power, for other religions are suspect, potentially, as extensions of some other state's power, and the adherents of other religions are, technically, considered to be foreigners.

Just some things to consider in considering Islam . . .

Ibn Taymiyyah might justify, but what radicalizes Islamists?

Infidels?
Memri

In the MEMRI Daily Brief No. 62 (October 20, 2015), Alberto M. Fernandez describes the "Antechamber Of Jihad: The Media Space From Which ISIS Is Nurtured":

Despite the prolific nature of the ISIS propaganda machine, most media worldwide (even in Arabic, and even that of Islamists) is hostile to the Islamic State. But this is not to say that this ostensibly hostile media does not unintentionally provide a larger framing for ISIS's much more focused and targeted messaging. ISIS adventitiously adapts and uses material from mainstream media, as well as left-wing or fringe anti-American material, extreme sectarian content, and Salafi Islamist material, as part of a witch's brew of arguments and images forming an antechamber for jihad, a prepping for takfiri Salafi jihadism. This is non-ISIS content that shapes the environment for the Islamic State's own special brand.

In case anyone is baffled by such expressions as "takfiri Salafi jihadism," the term "jihadism" means those Islamists committed to holy war, "Salafi" means those Islamists who follow Ibn Taymiyyah in looking back to Muhammad's companions for the proper sort of Islam, and "takfiri" means those Islamists who are so fanatical that they label as "infidel" any Muslim whose ideas diverge from their own. How ironic, then, that the Islamic State relies on so much non-Islamist media for framing its message:

ISIS videos are referential of the media of others, whether mainstream news media or other mainstream sources. In 2012, before it entered the most polished, current phase of its original media production, the Islamic State used news clips from pan-Arab media, from CNN (i.e. a 2007 documentary on human rights abuses by the Iraqi government) and from the BBC (i.e. a 2010 exposé on a fake bomb detector) to make its point. Direct and indirect references to Hollywood movies and video games are still relatively common. Clips from the 2005 Ridley Scott film "Kingdom of Heaven" have been used several times. And, of course, while ISIS is indeed prolific, viewers of all sorts, even potential ISIS recruits, are more likely to see material about, say, a particularly notorious Assad regime massacre of Sunni Muslims or a story involving mistreatment of Muslims from the Western media itself.

In other words, the Islamic State draws its rhetoric from wherever it can - left-wing, right-wing, even from Hollywood . . . . not that any of these were anything other than adventitious excuses. Much of the hatred against infidels comes from various Islamists:

An even more important ingredient in the ISIS Petri dish is the extreme sectarianism promoted by a wide range of (non-ISIS or even anti-ISIS) Islamist voices. These can be antisemitic, anti-Christian, or anti-Shi'a sentiments, images, and videos which complement the antisemitic, anti-Christian and anti-Shi'a rhetoric of the Islamic State.

For specifics, see the report . . .

Michael Totten Interviews Ramez Atallah on Christians and Muslims in Egypt, Part II

Ramez Atallah

General Director

The Bible Society of Egypt

Photo from Urbana

On November 17th, I posted an entry about Michael Totten's interview with Ramez Atallah on "The Christians of Egypt, Part I" (November 15, 2011). Totten has since posted part two: "The Christians of Egypt, Part II" (November 27, 2011). As I noted with my first posting on Ramez Atallah, he is a Protestant Christian and the General Director of the Bible Society of Egypt, and he has some interesting things to say, several of which were counterintuitive to me.

The most surprising thing in part one was his assertion that the West should not focus on human rights specifically for Christians, despite their oppressed condition as second-class cititzens, for Muslims would think that Christians were being favored over Muslims. He also stated that the Christians of Egypt could live with the Muslim Brotherhood, but not with the Salafists, a surprise to me since I figured that both Islamist types were bad for Christians, but Atallah made a distinction. Go read that first interview if you want to know more.

In part two, Atallah also has some interesting things to say. Particularly noteworthy is his remark about the difference between Islam in an Arabic and in a non-Arabic country:

Islam in an Arabic-speaking country is very different from Islam in a non-Arabic country . . . . Like I told you before, Islam is very close to people's identity, like your gender is for you. This is most true in Arabic countries because Islam is Arabic. They are intertwined. The language and the religion are intertwined. Arabic is the only language in the world that has been frozen for 1400 years. If you ask any child here what his hardest subject is in school, invariably he will say Arabic. You as a Westerner may scratch your head and wonder how Arabic can be the hardest subject in school in an Arab country, but it's because the language we speak and read in Egypt is so different from classical Arabic . . . . Exactly. And how many kids did you know who liked Latin in school? . . . And it's only a written language now. That's exactly what kids are doing when they study Arabic. We have this old language that is very far from what we read and speak every day. It is imposed on us. There is this mystique about it, that we have to know it and live it. Arabs are more closely aligned to Islam because their language, their culture, and their faith are all one.

Atallah picks up on a point that he made earlier, in part one of Totten's interview, and clarifies that the West should support human rights in Egypt rather than focusing on the rights specifically of persecuted Christian, and he explains why:

My point is, what will the government listen to more? Will America get a better result by pressing for freedom for Christians or freedom for Muslims? If you pressure Egypt only for Christian rights, Muslims here will say, "if they're your people, take them with you." But if Americans care about my Muslim friend's wife, the Muslims will be tongue-tied. They won't know how to argue with you about that.

Atallah makes some interesting points, and since he's a Christian Egyptian who's lived in both the West (Canada) and the Islamic world (Egypt), he's a man whose opinion should be carefully considered, particularly when he tells us:

I need you to please understand that Muslims hate it when the West speaks up for Christians. They absolutely despise it and we become the victims.

That is a crucial point that would never have occurred to me, and knowing it would make reading this interview worthwhile even if Atallah had said nothing else of importance.

But, of course, he does say other interesting things . . .

Michael Totten Interviews Ramez Atallah on Christians and Muslims in Egypt

Ramez Atallah

General Director

The Bible Society of Egypt

Photo from LinkedIn

Yesterday, I posted about Islamist attacks on Christians in Nigeria and alluded to the fact that such attacks occur elsewhere as well. One of these places is Egypt, where Muslims -- presumably Islamists -- have attacked Christians and burned churches. The author and blogger Michael J. Totten, unable to obtain an interview wiith a Coptic Christian leader, recently interviewed a prominent Protestant Christian in Egypt instead, the General Director of the Bible Society of Egypt, Ramez Atallah, who had some interesting things to say, several of them counterintuitive, at least for me. Totten's interview, "The Christians of Egypt, Part I" (November 15, 2011), reports this surprising point of view from Atallah:

The issue in Egypt isn't Christians, it's Muslims. Christians are incidental to the issue. There is too much focus in the West on the Christians here . . . . The real limitations on human rights in Egypt's future will be focused on Muslims. The people here who are most afraid are the Muslims, not the Christians. If we get an Islamically-biased government -- and I’m being optimistic by describing it that way -- Christians won't be persecuted. The Muslim Brotherhood is moderate at least compared with the Salafists. They won't persecute Christians. They will limit Christians, but they won't persecute Christians. The people who will be persecuted are Muslims . . . . Not just secular Muslims. Not all religious Muslims are with the Brotherhood. I just heard a speech from a religious Muslim woman -- she's veiled -- and she said, "please don't take my country away from me. Don't take my freedom away from me" . . . . She was saying this very strongly. A large number of Muslims are intellectual, educated, and liberal-minded. You have to understand that for a religious Muslim, Islam is as closely entwined with his identity and his being as your gender identity . . . .

Westerners think religious freedom in Egypt means Muslims can opt out of being Muslims. But it's a completely false supposition. No Muslim doesn't want to be a Muslim. It's part of their being. So when Egyptians talk about freedom and revolution, it has nothing to do with Islam. No Egyptian wants to be free of Islam. This is the most religious country in the entire world. According to a Gallup poll, between 99 and 100 percent of Egyptians say religion is very important to them.

So Islam is not the issue. What is the issue is the interpretation of Islam. Over the years, a large group of Muslims in Egypt have contextualized Islam in the modern world. They can practice their Islam and live as 21st century citizens. Women can dress modestly, yet also fashionably. They can go the beach in swimsuits. Maybe not bikinis, but swimsuits. They can drink alcohol from time to time. They are modern people.

Muslim society here as a whole has become more religious, but that does not mean they have all limited their lifestyle. So if and when the Muslim Brotherhood takes over, they'll say "Muslims are not allowed to show their body, so the beaches are only for Christians and foreigners." So if Muslim women want to swim, they will have to swim fully dressed. These women will be horrified to have these sorts of restrictions put on them.

Then the Muslim Brotherhood will say, "women will have to do such and such, and men will have to do such and such." Islam is a way of life as well as a belief, so if you don't interpret it in an open-minded way, your life will be very hard.

The Salafist movement is violent. Imagine if the Amish ruled America and used force to make everyone else live just like them. They wouldn't, of course, they are peaceful people, but imagine the Amish using force to rule America and require everyone in the United States to adopt their lifestyle. That's the Salafist movement. They’re the extremists. They adopt old-school Islam and also the old-school Islamic style. The Muslim Brotherhood is less extreme. They will let men wear a tie. But when it comes to women, the Muslim Brotherhood are much more conservative than the average educated Muslim would like. They also impose a lot of restrictions on men . . . .

The problem is that the Muslim Brotherhood will make more restrictions, but they will be tolerable. If the Salafists take over, they will start butchering us.

This is very interesting. Ramez Atallah considers the Muslim Brotherhood relatively tolerable -- compared to the Salafists! I hope that he's right -- and being Egyptian, he ought to know -- but I can't forget that the Muslim Brotherhood was for decades a violent organization that owes its ideological impetus to the anti-Western intellectual Sayyid Qutb, who also inspired Al-Qaeda and some other Salafist groups. In fact, I would consider the Brotherhood to have Salafist elements. At any rate, they are Islamists, and I don't think that Islamists are genuinely peaceful individuals. I think that their 'peaceful' methods -- when they are peaceful -- are merely tactical and that they would turn to violence again as quickly as they claimed to have renounced it.

Atallah has the opinion that if the West wants to defend human rights in Egypt, then it should focus not on the restricted Christians but on those far-more-restricted Muslims who want a more liberal Islam. Otherwise, Muslims will consider the West biased and the local Christian favored. Not a good scenario.

Incidentally, Michael Totten is an independent journalist, so keep in mind that even though he blogs for free, a donation to support his work will always be appreciated, as you'll see if you read the entire article.

Lafif Lakhdar: Against the Salafi 'Worship' of Ancestors

Lafif Lakhdar

(Image from the Arab Washingtonian )

In light of recent posts on the problematic issue of theocracy -- and with an eye to the current political events in Tunisia -- there's an interesting article by the Tunisian expatriate reformer Lafif Lakhdar, "Moving From Salafi to Rationalist Education," in The Middle East Review of International Affairs (Volume 9, No. 1, Article 3, March 2005). Lakhdar very cleverly designates Salafi Islam as predicated upon the worship of ancestors, the Salaf (predecessors) having been the first three generations of Muslims, especially Muhammad's companions, those whom current-day Salafi Muslims are enjoined to pattern their lives after:

This worship of ancestors has been strongly present in the collective Islamic sub-conscience, and it prevented the acceptance and comprehension of the sciences, and especially the humanities, as well as the values of modernity. Moreover, the text [-- a salafi religious textbook used in Saudi Arabia --] instructs pupils to reject the right of disagreement. Muslims other than salafis are treated as heresiarchs or deviators; thus enemies. A student therefore becomes ripe for the execution of all sorts of symbolic and bloody violence; he can burn others with fire as Omar allegedly did, and behead those who disagree with him as Khalid beheaded the faqih al-Gaad Ibn Derham (a ruler of Damascus under the Umayads, known for adopting ideas of Mu'tazela, which was a movement proposing the interpretation of faith through rational thought). This shows how education could lead to an incitement for terror.

Lakhdar is clever here because he knows that for Salafis, the greatest sin is shirk, i.e., associating with God that which is not God, namely, the sin of idolatry. By making the Salaf, the ancestors, into perfect role models that one may not deviate from, one is, in effect, being idolatrous. Lakhdar doesn't state this explicitly, unless I missed it, but it's implied in the expression "worship of ancestors." The alternative to an idolatrous Salafi Islam -- and Islamism generally -- is a rational approach to Islam:

[A]n educational project aimed at preparing new generations properly must produce citizens equipped for the contemporary age, who think independently of their forefathers and who are good at using logical reasoning instead of leaning on the authority of the text. They should accept, without any complication or feeling of guilt, the rational and human institutions, sciences and values of their age, even those which contradict with their ancestors' heritage and tradition.

To accomplish this, Lakhdar suggests a number of reforms: separation of religion and state, comparative study of religions, critical thinking, historical readings of religious texts, acceptance of human rights, and so on. But how does one get there? Lakhdar suggests:

A new reading of Islam has to be adopted in school curricula and religious discourse. It should recognise, as its starting point, that the spiritual message of Prophet Muhammad was confined to preaching: "But if they turn their backs, verily unto thee belongeth preaching only" (Surat 3). That the Prophet's message was restricted to preaching is shown in 13 verses, all of which were in the Koranic chapters revealed at Medina. The concept was expressed in different ways in many verses such as: "Wherefore warn the people; for thou art a warner only" (Surat 88). Thus the spiritual message of the Prophet of Islam was limited to reminding. As for domination or governance, it is the mission of earthly rulers. Verses of spiritual Islam, based upon preaching and reminding, converge with the Biblical verse which was the foundation of separating the temporal and the spiritual in Christianity: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's." But after migrating to Medina, Muhammad became a prophet, an army leader, and a chief of a core of a confederation he called Umma (nation), a Hebrew word meaning tribe. Consequently, Muhammad's political and military practices as well as the Koranic verses which codify them are not trans-historical but temporal and limited to the era which produced them. Verses on jihad, war, physical punishment and earthly dealings were temporal and are no longer consistent with Muslims' and non-Muslims' needs and interests or with present-day requirements and values.

This sounds fine . . . so long as the "needs and interests or . . . present-day requirements and values" call for a peaceful Islam, but what if Islam in the world today is comparable to Muhammad in Medina? What is to prevent an Islamist from arguing that Islam today has emigrated to the modern world and therefore must -- like Muhammad in emigrating from Mecca to Medina -- strive to achieve temporal power and remake modernity in the image of Islam?

Salafis will undoubtedly argue that this is the case, i.e., that Islam's aim is not only spiritual but also temporal, and how does one prove them wrong?

Anwar al-Awlaki: Moderate Terrorist

Anwar al-Awlaki

(Image from New York Times)

Scott Shane and Souad Mekhennet have a recent, interesting article, "Imam's Path From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad" (May 8, 2010), published in the New York Times. Though the headline speaks of "path" in the singular, this imam seems to have been on a dual path all along, or at least was long an ambivalent figure. He first shot to national attention immediately after 9/11:

In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, the eloquent 30-year-old imam of a mosque outside Washington became a go-to Muslim cleric for reporters scrambling to explain Islam. He condemned the mass murder, invited television crews to follow him around and patiently explained the rituals of his religion.

"We came here to build, not to destroy," the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, said in a sermon. "We are the bridge between Americans and one billion Muslims worldwide."

At first glance, it seemed plausible that this lanky, ambitious man, with the scholarly wire-rims and equal command of English and Arabic, could indeed be such a bridge. CD sets of his engaging lectures on the Prophet Muhammad were in thousands of Muslim homes. American-born, he had a sense of humor, loved deep-sea fishing, had dabbled in get-rich-quick investment schemes and dropped references to "Joe Sixpack" into his sermons. A few weeks before the attacks he had preached in the United States Capitol.

Nine years later, from his hide-out in Yemen, Mr. Awlaki has declared war on the United States.

"America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil," he said in a statement posted on extremist Web sites in March. Though he had spent 21 of his 39 years in the United States, he added, "I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad against America is binding upon myself, just as it is binding on every other able Muslim."

So says Mr. Anwar al-Awlaki, but there's another story, one beginning with a youthful interest in jihad and a salafi interpretation of Islam (see the article) and leaving tracks in Colorado, San Diego, and Falls Church, Virginia, all before 9/11:

A contrasting version of Mr. Awlaki's story, explored though never confirmed by the national Sept. 11 commission, maintains that he was a secret agent of Al Qaeda starting well before the attacks, when three of the hijackers turned up at his mosques. By this account, all that has changed since then is that Mr. Awlaki has stopped hiding his true views.

There's at least a bit of circumstantial evidence that Awlaki already supported suicide bombing even prior to 9/11. According to Shakir Muhammad, who attends a mosque in Fort Collins, Colorado and listened to the CD sets that Awlaki started recording in 2000, one passage gave him pause. Mr. Awlaki was discussing suicidal violence but did not explicitly condemn it. Mr. Muhammad recalls thinking, "This guy may be for it . . . . It bothered me."

There's more circumstantial evidence, concerning some overlap between the end of his time in San Diego and the beginning of his time in Viginia:

One day in August 2001, Mr. Awlaki knocked at the door of Mr. [Lincoln W.] Higgie, his neighbor [in San Diego], to say goodbye. He had moved the previous year to Virginia, becoming imam at the far bigger Dar al-Hijrah mosque, and he had returned to pick up a few things he had left behind.

As Mr. Higgie tells it, he told the imam to stop by if he was ever in the area -- and got a strange response. "He said, 'I don't think you’ll be seeing me. I won't be coming back to San Diego again. Later on you’ll find out why,'" Mr. Higgie said.

The next month, when Al Qaeda attacked New York and Washington, Mr. Higgie remembered the exchange and was shaken, convinced that his friendly neighbor had some advance warning of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Merely circumstantial, of course, but rather troubling. There's more such evidence, and some of it goes back further:

In fact, the F.B.I. had first taken an interest in Mr. Awlaki in 1999, concerned about brushes with militants that to this day remain difficult to interpret. In 1998 and 1999, he was a vice president of a small Islamic charity that an F.B.I. agent later testified was "a front organization to funnel money to terrorists." He had been visited by Ziyad Khaleel, a Qaeda operative who purchased a battery for Osama bin Laden's satellite phone, as well as by an associate of Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheik, who was serving a life sentence for plotting to blow up New York landmarks.

Still more disturbing was Mr. Awlaki's links to two future Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi. They prayed at his San Diego mosque and were seen in long conferences with the cleric. Mr. Alhazmi would follow the imam to his new mosque in Virginia, and 9/11 investigators would call Mr. Awlaki Mr. Alhazmi's "spiritual adviser."

The F.B.I., whose agents interviewed Mr. Awlaki four times in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, concluded that his contacts with the hijackers and other radicals were random, the inevitable consequence of living in the small world of Islam in America. But records of the 9/11 commission at the National Archives make clear that not all investigators agreed.

One detective, whose name has been redacted, told the commission he believed Mr. Awlaki "was at the center of the 9/11 story." An F.B.I. agent, also unidentified, said that "if anyone had knowledge of the plot, it would have been" the cleric, since "someone had to be in the U.S. and keep the hijackers spiritually focused."

I'm surprised that the FBI and other investigators didn't follow up more on this guy after 9/11, especially since the world of Islam in America isn't all that small, given that there are several million Muslims, nor were Alwaki's encounters with the 9/11 perpetrators merely random, since he was seen in long discussions with at least two of them, serving as spiritual advisor to one of the two. Again, circumstantial, but very troubling. At any rate, whatever the path Awlaki was really on, we know where it led him, namely, to hatred of all kuffar, or non-Muslims, as caught on video in London, where he moved in 2002 before returning to Yemen in 2004:

"The important lesson to learn here is never, ever trust a kuffar," he said, chopping the air, his lecture caught on video. "Do not trust them!"

The unbelievers are "plotting to kill this religion," he declared. "They’re plotting night and day."

If he had the same knowing tone and touches of humor as in earlier sermons, his message was more conspiratorial. You can't believe CNN, the United Nations, or Amnesty International, he told his students, because they, too, were part of the war on Islam.

If Awlaki had been radicalized solely against America because of its putative ill treatment of Muslims in the wake of 9/11, then he wouldn't have been preaching already in 2002 against all non-Muslims.

That alone suggests an obscured but radical path long trod, whatever ambivalence Awlaki might sometimes have felt.

Abu Taha 'Abdallah Al-Miqdad: "democracy . . . is an infidel regime"

Sada Al-Jihad

Pro-Jihad Islamist Magazine

(Image from MEMRI)

I recall explaining to a skeptical Korean audience on September 11, 2002 that the 9/11 attacks of the previous year were not merely a consequence of America's foreign policy but also an expression of Al Qaeda's hatred for American democracy. I even quoted one of Al Qaeda's spokesmen, Suleiman Abu Gheith:

America is the head of heresy in our modern world, and it leads an infidel democratic regime that is based upon separation of religion and state and on ruling the people by the people via legislating laws that contradict the way of Allah and permit what Allah has prohibited. (MEMRI: Special Dispatch No. 388)

Anti-American sentiment in Korea was peaking at that time, so my words didn't go over particularly well, but most Islamists still seem to hate democracy, for Abu Taha 'Abdallah Al-Miqdad tells us:

Though our clerics [i.e. salafi jihadi clerics] have spoken of democracy and clarified that it is an infidel regime, I will cite for you Wagdi Ghneim, who is known for his affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood movement, who are the greatest proponents of democracy in our time. He stated in his book Divine Shura and Manmade Democracy (Rabaniyyat Al-Shura wa-Wadh'iat Al-Dimuqratiyya): 'Democracy is erroneous from its foundation. Allah's religion [i.e. Islam] considers it wrong, and anyone who believes in it, promotes it, confirms it, accepts it, or acts according to it . . . is an apostate, even if he has a Muslim name and falsely claims that he is a believing Muslim -- because in Allah's religion, Islam and democracy are absolutely incompatible.'" (MEMRI: Special Dispatch No. 2434)

Abu Taha 'Abdallah Al-Miqdad is a hardcore Salafi Islamist who dislikes even the Muslim Brotherhood's flirtation with democracy and cites one of the Brotherhood's intellectuals to demonstrate the inconsistency. I suspect that the Brotherhood's interest in democracy is purely instrumental, a means to power and not an end in itself, but even that instrumental concession goes too far for Abu Taha 'Abdallah Al-Miqdad.

Why is he so opposed to democracy? He tells us the fundamental reason:

"The dangers of democracy are clear for all to see, since it directly impairs tawhid [the belief in Allah's unity]."

By this criticism, he means that a Muslim should live only for Allah and follow only his laws, an imperative contradicted when Muslims submit to manmade laws, for this means that Muslims are submitting both to humanity and to Allah simultaneously, an insult to Allah and a division of Allah's unity through the sin of shirk (i.e., associating something nondivine with the divine Allah).

This shirk -- this democracy -- leads to moral deterioration:

"Human history has never known villainous massacres such as those of the era in which democrats emerged. World Wars I and II are evidence of the extent of the democrats' moral deterioration and their failure to take into account the simplest of [moral] principles of life customary among people in past eras."

I suppose that Abu Taha 'Abdallah Al-Miqdad would have preferred the nondemocratic regimes to have emerged victorious in those conflicts . . . even though those same nondemocratic regimes were also not Muslim. And if they had won, he might have decided that they, too, were full of democrats, for he sees democrats everywhere:

[On the one hand] are piled up all the democrats -- Christians, Jews, atheists, Hindus, Shi'ites, Zoroastrians, apostates, hypocrites, Murji'ites, and Ash'arites -- and [on the other hand are] the ranks of the Muslims clinging to the path of Allah.

Abu Taha 'Abdallah Al-Miqdad includes an image of Ayatollah Khamenei casting his vote in the recent Iranian election as evidence of that Shi'ite regime's democratic apostasy, but perhaps he will have softened his criticism on that since the election seems to have been less than fully democratic.

Be that as it may, the continuing hatred of most Islamists for democracy is useful to know as a reminder of one primary motive for the jihadist terrorism that the world confronts.

Speaking of Saudi Arabia . . .

"Rock the Casbah"

The Clash

(Image from Wikipedia)

Music from The Accolade isn't the only sound emanating from Saudi Arabia these days. We also hear remarks about fighting terrorism.

For example, in its Special Dispatch Series, Number 2130 (November 26, 2008), MEMRI informs us that on October 2, 2008, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Na'if bin Abd Al-'Aziz -- who happens to be a 'Prince' -- spoke in his Jeddah home to senior officials of the Saudi Ministry of Interior about terrorism: "I appeal to the clerics, the intellectuals, and to all my compatriots -- each according to his position and ability -- to help [fight terrorism]."

A couple of weeks later, on October 15, 2008, Prince Na'if spoke at a symposium on "ideological security," stating that "in combating ideological extremism, the Saudi mosques had failed to fulfill the task expected of them -- that is, preaching tolerance. He contended that the global increase in crime demanded close cooperation between security [apparatuses] and educational institutions."

About a week later, Prince Na'if described "the damage that terrorists had caused Saudi Arabia, explaining that not only had their activities harmed the country's reputation worldwide, but that terrorism had come to be regarded as an integral part of Islam and to be attributed to all Muslims." He added "in this regard that various crimes, including bombings, kidnappings, and terrorizing people in the Saudi Kingdom, were crimes of haraba. Such crimes, defined in the Koran as acts of 'spreading corruption and chaos around the world,' are characterized by the shari'a as especially grievous, and as punishable by death."

I suppose this Na'if's remarks should be welcomed, but he's truly a 'naif' if he thinks that a substantially more tolerant form of Islam can be fostered through Saudi Arabia's normative Wahabism, for Wahabi Islam is one of the world's most intolerant forms of Islamism. At best, Wahabism can be made only marginally more tolerant.

I know, I know, I ought to provide evidence for my harsh judgement, but that would take too much time this busy morning (though readers can search my blog for more on Wahabism, and Salafism generally), so I'll leave my judgement dangling without a support net below.

Meanwhile, I'm placing my bets on cultural phenomena linked to the younger generation to which that girl band The Accolade belongs. Incidentally, one of this blog's regular readers, "Conservative in Virginia," reminds us that The Clash predicted way back in 1982 that music would "Rock the Casbah":

Now the king told the boogie men
You have to let that raga drop
The oil down the desert way
Has been shakin' to the top
The sheik he drove his cadillac
He went a cruisin' down the ville
The muezzin was a standing
On the radiator grille

Chorus

The shareef don't like it
Rockin' the casbah
Rock the casbah
The shareef don't like it
Rockin' the casbah
Rock the casbah

By order of the prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy casbah sound
But the bedouin they brought out
The electric camel drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar pickin' thumb
As soon as the shareef
Had cleared the square
They began to wail

Chorus

Now over at the temple
Oh! they really pack em in
The in crowd say it's cool
To dig this chanting thing
But as the wind changed direction
The temple band took five
The crowd caught a wiff
Of that crazy casbah jive

Chorus

The king called up his jet fighters
He said you better earn your pay
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Down the casbah way

As soon as the shareef was
Chauffeured outta there
The jet pilots tuned to
The cockpit radio blare

As soon as the shareef was
Outta their hair
The jet pilots wailed

Chorus

He thinks it's not kosher
Fundamentally he can't take it.
You know he really hates it.

Yes, yes -- more of this, please. If you missed it, try You Tube.

Jihadi 'dialectic of enlightenment'

Osama Bin Laden

"Now look, this charisma thing has gone far enough!"

(Image from Wikipedia)

In "Anatomy of the Salafi Movement," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 29, No. 3 (2006) 224-225, Quintan Wiktorowicz distinguishes among three types of Salafis: 1. purists; 2. politicos; and 3. jihadis.

One can arrange these three on two opposing scales, either from most knowledgeable to least knowledgeable (purist --> politico --> jihadi) or from most radical to least radical (jihadi --> politico --> purist).

As one might surmise, the distinction between expertise and activism could lead to questions concerning the legitimacy of jihadi actions. Because jihadis often felt that especially purists but even politicos did not understand the requirements imposed by the battlefield, they found themselves stymied by traditional sources of authority and began to look beyond those sources for others, as noted by Dr. E. Alshech, of MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), in his intriguing article for Inquiry & Analysis (Nr. 446, June 2008): "The Emergence of the 'Infallible Jihad Fighter': The Salafi Jihadists' Quest for Religious Legitimacy" (pdf):

For example, the jihadi Salafis sanctioned the use of extreme violence, and hastened to engage in takfir (i.e., to accuse other Muslims of heresy) -- positions that the politicos explicitly denounced. (5b)

Three ideologues present three different and increasingly radical positions:

Yousef Al-'Uyairi Al-'Uyairi then argues that a jurisprudent who wishes to rule on matters of jihad must consult the mujahideen, regardless of his own knowledge and qualifications. In fact, the article [that he wrote in 2003] presents the mujahideen as the only legitimate source of information on matters of jihad, and implies that in the absence of such information, the jurisprudent's ruling would be less well-grounded. (6b)

Here, the Salafi scholar, perhaps a purist, retains authority but must consult with the jihadi on matters of jihad. Some jihadis, however, are dissatisfied with this view:

A more radical opinion is presented by Sheikh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi, a Jordanian scholar of Palestinian origin who is greatly respected by the mujahideen (and regarded as Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi's mentor). He does not only characterize the mujahideen experts on the reality of jihad, but claims that they posses divinely inspired insight. "The faithful mujahideen," he writes, "are among the most knowledgeable of persons, and possess superior insight. This, because the mujahid is forced to study the reality . . . around him [i.e. the circumstances of jihad] just as he masters the [theoretical religious] laws pertaining to jihad. [However, even] if he does not [adequately master the laws of jihad], but is faithful in his [efforts to wage] jihad, Allah grants him insight as a reward for his jihad . . . [and as a result,] his comprehension, knowledge, and grasp of the truth are much greater than [those of] other people [italics mine -- E.A.]." In support of his view, Al-Maqdisi cites Koran 29:69: "Those who fight for Our cause, We will surely guide [them] to Our path." He explains that in this verse, "Allah indicates that he bestows upon the mujahideen the ability to receive guidance to the truth, to prosperity, and to the right path to Him, [as well as] an understanding of Him and His way."

In Al-Maqdisi's view, then, the mujahid is not just an indispensable source of information on the facts and realities of jihad -- he is also endowed by Allah with special jurisprudential insight superior to that of other human beings. (6b-7a)

The jihadi thus receives divine perspicuity in Islamic legal rulings concerning jihad, according to Al-Maqdisi, but Hossein Ibn Mahmoud goes even further:

[I]n a highly influential article from 2003 by Sheikh Hossein Ibn Mahmoud, a respected legal scholar and prolific contributor to Islamist websites . . . takes Al-Maqdisi's argument one step further by describing the mujahideen as infallible.

In setting out his argument, Ibn Mahmoud first explains that the "enemies of Islam" use three methods to divert the Muslims' attention away from jihad: they arouse the Muslims' desire for this world and its pleasures, they cause them to fear death, and they plant doubt in their minds. Ibn Mahmoud then explains why these schemes will never work against the mujahideen: "With respect to the doubts, whoever . . . devotes his soul to Allah, Allah will render him immune [ya'simuhu allah] to the lies of the deceitful... For Allah said: 'Those who fight for Our cause, We will surely guide [them] to Our path [Koran 29:69].' This indicates that it is the mujahideen who are most likely to agree on the correct [view] . . ."

The reference to "agreeing on the correct [view]" in this passage is very revealing. Islamic tradition (hadith) maintains that the Islamic nation as a collective can never agree on a mistaken view, since the Prophet Muhammad said, "My nation will never agree on an error." Ibn Mahmoud, however, attributes this inability to err exclusively to the mujahideen, who, in his opinion, are uniquely invulnerable to deception and spiritual weakness. Accordingly, he maintains that the mujahideen have privileged access to "the truth."

Ibn Mahmoud reiterates this argument in a 2004 article titled "Resolutions and Ideological Principles of Jihad." In discussing the question of scholars who disagree with the mujahideen, he states: "Undoubtedly, whoever risks his life and rushes towards danger for the sake of his religion has total faith in the truth of his path and in the validity of his course of action . . . Whoever wishes to contradict the mujahideen in matters of jihad should first visit the fronts himself, witness the conditions [there], and taste the taste of [divine] grace [karama] on the battlefield for a few moments. Then he can issue a fatwa [based on] the inspiration he receives from Allah . . ."

According to this view, it is not erudition and scholarship that provide access to the truth, but the willingness to sacrifice one's life for the sake of Allah on the battlefield. (7b-8a)

What is happening here is something described by Max Weber nearly 100 years ago:

In essence, the texts cited above, and other like them, present a concept of authority that is grounded in charisma, defined by Max Weber as "a certain personal quality by virtue of which an individual is considered extraordinary and regarded as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least exceptional power or quality." The mujahid's authority, as presented in these texts, is not based on his scholarship or intellectual credentials, but is essentially metaphysical: it is anchored in a unique relation with Allah, which grants him at least some immunity from the human propensity to err. (8b)

As Alshech notes, this is a controversial development that even Bin Laden has protested against. But who can persuade these charismatic jihadis that they are wrong since they are . . . well, infallible?

Do not kill . . . yourselves? . . . one another? . . . your people?

The Inestimable Qur'an

(Image from Wikipedia)

In yesterday's post, I quoted Quintan Wiktorowicz's remark stating that "Islam explicitly prohibits suicide" (Wiktorowicz, "A Genealogy of Radical Islam," (Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 28:75-97, 2005), page 93).

Although Wiktorowicz supplied no quotes from the Qur'an or the hadith, I had no reason to doubt the accuracy of his remark, for I've read this sort of statement before. Still, I like to know for sure, so I asked readers to direct me to original sources . . . in English translation, of course. An old friend from my hometown, Jeanie Oliver -- daughter of my old math teacher and surveyor extraordinaire, "the Magnanimous Mr. Jim Scott" -- supplied the directions:

There is only one verse in the Koran that contains a phrase related to suicide: "O you who believe! Do not consume your wealth in the wrong way -- rather through trade mutually agreed to, and do not kill yourselves. Surely God is Merciful toward you." (4:29)

Everything, however, depends on translation of the original Arabic and I had -- after posting my entry -- uncovered an ambiguity:

Thanks, Jeanie. I happened across that one myself after posting this entry. I may blog on it tomorrow, for there's apparently a grammatical ambiguity that jihadis use to their advantage.

But the hadith ought to settle the issue...

I haven't yet come across the hadith against suicide, although I'm assuming that such hadith exist, but I did look into the Qur'anic ambiguity far enough to discover that three different translators have rendered the the expression in Qur'an 4:29 quite differently:

Yusuf Ali: O ye who believe! Eat not up your property among yourselves in vanities: But let there be amongst you Traffic and trade by mutual good-will: Nor kill (or destroy) yourselves: for verily Allah hath been to you Most Merciful!

Pickthal: O ye who believe! Squander not your wealth among yourselves in vanity, except it be a trade by mutual consent, and kill not one another. Lo! Allah is ever Merciful unto you.

Shakir: O you who believe! do not devour your property among yourselves falsely, except that it be trading by your mutual consent; and do not kill your people; surely Allah is Merciful to you.

These variant translations from the "An-Nisa (Women)" sura of the Qur'an can be found online at the USC Muslim Students' Association website, hosted by the University of Southern California.

I don't know Arabic, unfortunately, but I take it that the ambiguity lies in whether to read the verbal expression as Yusuf Ali's reflexive, Pickthal's reciprocal, or Shakir's transitive. This ambiguity would seem to allow the jihadis some hermeneutic space within which to elaborate a defense of what they call "martyrdom operations" and what we call "suicide bombings."

That still seems odd, however, for most jihadis these days are Sunni Salafis, who usually take as an indisputable point the view that innovation (bid'ah) is utterly forbidden (haram) -- and suicide bombings are surely a radical innovation.

But I suppose that the tactic is useful enough for even Salafis to agree that a little bid'ah never hurt anybody . . . at least, not anybody who matters.

After yesterday's ridiculous, today's sublime...

Pope Benedict XVI and Turkey's Religious Affairs Director Ali Bardakoglu

(AP Image from Yahoo! News)

(Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press)

(Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc.)

Pope Benedict appears to be trying to soothe relations with Muslims, shaking hands with Ali Bardakoglu, head of Turkey's Religious Affairs Directories and stating:

"Peace is the basis of all religions."

Let's hope that it is. Bardakoglu, anyway, doesn't object to greeting the Pope and shaking his hand, unlike this fellow who blogs at The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge and who would refuse to shake hands with a Christian, as explained in his November 27th entry "Shaykh 'Azzam: Let Them Find Harshness In You":

[T]hey said to Ibn Hajar al-Haythami: "Is it allowed for the Muslim to extend his hand when greeting a Christian, so that he could shake it?" He answered: "No, because the Christian will feel at peace when he is shaking your hand. So, it is not allowed for you to extend your hand for him to shake." ... It was narrated to me by the leader of the Islamic Movement in Jordan -- our teacher, Muhammad 'Abd ar-Rahman Khalifah....

Not knowing anything about the teacher Muhammad 'Abd ar-Rahman Khalifah nor about Muslim views on this issue of refusing a handshake -- though it sounds Salafi to my ears -- I'll ignore the missing pieces of my knowledge in this puzzle and leave the research to others.

Why?

Because I've got other fish to fry ... such as to finish grading, by classtime this morning, the final three of those hundred essays that I've been busy with for over a week now...

Mustafa Akyol: 'Deleting' Sexism in Turkey

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey

(As Depicted at Wikipedia)

If only deleting sexism were as easy as deleting hate email. Nevertheless, this is a good development for Islam in Turkey.

The Turkish writer Mustafa Akyol, in his article "[Sexism Deleted] in Turkey," written for the Washington Post (registration required), reports on a recent "step toward reforming Islamic tradition ... [by] Turkey's religious authorities."

Reform in Islam? Isn't that considered innovation (bid'ah) and therefore a form of heresy? There is, after all, a report of Muhammad's words in Sahih Bukhari, Volume 3, Book 49, Number 861:

Narrated Aisha: Allah's Apostle said, "If somebody innovates something which is not in harmony with the principles of our religion, that thing is rejected."

For Salafist Muslims, who interpret this passage narrowly, the clause beginning with "which" would probably be set off with commas in the English translation:

"If somebody innovates something, which is not in harmony with the principles of our religion, that thing is rejected."

The comma before the word "which" would make the clause a nonrestrictive relative clause and thereby imply that every innovation is to be rejected. Not knowing Arabic, I'll have to leave this translation issue to the experts.

At any rate Turkish Islam is not Salafist Islam and might well be termed "Kemalist Islam" after the gentleman whose photograph you see above, Kemal Atatürk.

Atatürk was a Turkish nationalist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who emphasized Turkish tradition over Islam and who came to political power after Turkey's defeat in WWI and set up a secular state that tightly controls Islam ... although these controls have loosened considerably in recent years.

Despite the loosening, the Turkish state still controls Islam and official religious scholars have recently declared hadith such as the following to be inauthentic:

"Women are imperfect in intellect and religion."

"The best of women are those who are like sheep."

"If a woman doesn't satisfy her husband's desires, she should choose herself a place in hell."

"If a husband's body is covered with pus and his wife licks it clean, she still wouldn't have paid her dues."

"Your prayer will be invalid if a donkey, black dog or a woman passes in front of you.

One sees what is at stake here, namely, the denigration and control of women, and one must applaud the efforts of Ali Bardakoglu, the liberal Muslim theologian who has for three years served as president of the Diyanet Isleri, Turkey's highest Islamic authority, and who has led it to declare that a new collection of hadiths free of misogyny will be ready by 2008.

Concerning this reform, Akyol makes an interesting point:

These reform-minded Muslims [such as Bardakoglu] are not [extreme] secularists who want to do away with religion. On the contrary, they want to reinterpret Islam because they believe that its divinely ordained, humane and generous essence has been eclipsed by mortal man's erroneous traditions and ideologies.

This is crucial because only such godly reformists have a chance to appeal to more traditional members of their faith. Since the 19th century, traditional Muslims have felt forced to choose between their faith and modernity -- a dilemma that has been fueling a reactionary strain of radical Islam. The Islamic world needs an alternative -- a path between godless modernity and anti-modern bigotry. With its revision of the traditional Islamic sources and with its rising Muslimhood that embraces democracy and open society, Turkey may just be opening the way. The West should be taking notice -- and encouraging other Muslim countries to take inspiration from Turkey's moderate course.

In effect, Aykol is arguing that Islamic reform will only work if pious Muslims reform it through arguing that the innovators are precisely those who have accepted as authentic the manifestly inauthentic hadith such as the misogynistic ones quoted above. The burden of proof is shifted from the reformers to the traditionalists. In effect, the reformers as challenging the traditionalists by asking them how they can consider hatred of women to be something that Muhammad authentically taught.

The traditionalists reaction to this challenge should prove interesting to observe, and I hope that Aykol will keep us posted, for if this reform takes hold in Islam, so can other reforms.