Sharm el-Sheik bombings a wake-up call to examine what mosques are preaching and teaching
I cited yesterday a piece in Arab News by Arab writer Dr. Mohammed T. Al-Rasheed calling for striking at the breeding grounds of terrorist "vermin." In the days since the bombings at Sharm el-Sheik many Egyptians are starting to ask just what exactly the breeding ground is and concluding that it just may be Islam itself. Reports the AP's Nadia Abou El-magd, "Egyptians debating if their culture encourages terror." ("Culture" however is being defined in almost exclusively religious terms.)Stunned by terror attacks at a Red Sea resort, Egyptians are having a remarkably frank debate about whether mosques and schools -- and the government itself -- should be blamed for promoting Islamic extremism.As a "professional religous person" I know that religion is not merely believing beliefs, it predominantly what one does because of those beliefs. What is happening in Egypt now, and less overtly among British Muslims earlier this month, is questioning whether Islam itself is leading directly to terrorism committed in its name.Even pro-government media say authorities have created a climate where young people are turning into radicals and suicide bombers.
In a country more used to hearing general condemnations of terrorism, critics on Wednesday were angry -- and specific -- hammering at instances where they say the government allowed mosque preachers or state media to promote intolerance.
At one mosque in Cairo, some worshippers objected to prayers for the dead and missing after Saturday's bombings in Sharm el-Sheik because some victims likely were not Muslims, said the editor of the government weekly Al-Musawwar.
I have in previous writings on my main site, One Hand Clapping, distinguished between historic Islam and present-day Islamism and Islamism's direct offspring, jihadism (here's my latest rendition). All spring from the same roots, but emphasize radically different beliefs and most importantly, what must be done because of those beliefs.
There are definitely enough Jew- and Christian-hating Muslims in the world, especially including in America and Europe, to make me seriously ponder whether the hatred spewed forth by mullahs and Muslim editorialists is in fact the real McCoy of what Muhammed started.This is exactly what prominent Egyptian voices are saying now. El-magd's article continues,
"Islamic preaching institutions are in a very acute need for shake-up," said Abdel Moeti Bayoumi, a theology professor at Al-Azhar University and a member of Al-Azhar's Center of Islamic Research. Al-Azhar, in Cairo, is one of the leading Sunni Muslim institutions in the world. Islamic leaders "need to do a lot of work to enlighten clerics and preachers and educate them about the true religious ideas ... and teach them about the realities of the age we're living in," he said.Back to my 2002 piece.
If what we are experiencing is not the real Islam, then the rest of the Muslims need to get the Islamic house in order. They need to understand that the present crisis is not just that of Islamists against the West, it is the Islamists against everybody who does not tow their line.Several months later Professor Bala Ambati wrote,
When moderate Muslims state terrorist attacks are disconnected from Islam, they ignore the reality that Islamic fundamentalist imperialists act in the name of Islam and Muslims, claiming "true Islam's" mantle from conspicuously absent moderates. . . . Until the realization that theocracies cannot be democracies dawns throughout the Islamic world, saying terrorism is disconnected from Islam is a smokescreen employed to abdicate responsibility to face reality.We may be seeing mainstream Muslims awakening now.
Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, a Lebanese authority in Shi'a Islam, published a fatwa or religious decree, saying: "We forbid barbaric acts against innocents who have nothing to do with the political demands of terrorists." "These are not martyr operations but barbaric suicide attacks and the culprits deserve only God's punishment," he said, urging the world's Muslims to take a united stand against terrorism.It must be noted that such responses have come in strength only since the al-Sheik bombings, when, as the United Arab Emirates' Al-Ittihad newspaper noted, (same link),
More than half of the victims were Egyptians, with some Arabs and very few foreigners, so who was specifically targeted and what issues are they (the bombers) defending?Why haven't such questions been asked about the enormous number of bombings in Iraq by al Qaeda against Iraqi people? There's no good answer, but we probably should be happy to take what we can get at this point. Let us unite in congratulating "a council of Muslim scholars in the United States [that] has issued a religious ruling, or fatwa, against terrorism and extremism."
The Muslim scholars released the ruling during a press conference in Washington, saying that Islam condemns terrorism, religious radicalism and the use of violence.This American fatwa is stouter than the British Muslims, though, because,The scholars serve on the Fiqh Council of North America, an association of Muslim jurists who interpret Islamic law.
The council's chairman, Muzammil Siddiqi, read the fatwa, which says "targeting civilians' life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is forbidden, and those who commit these barbaric acts are criminals, not martyrs.""All acts of terrorism targeting the civilians are haram, forbidden in Islam. It is haram, forbidden, for a Muslim to cooperate or associate with any individual or group that is involved in any act of terrorism or violence," he said.
The fatwa also says it is the "civic and religious duty of Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement authorities to protect the lives of civilians."
The Islamic scholars say the fatwa was prompted by a similar ruling from the Muslim Council of Britain, following the July 7 terrorist attacks in London. ...
The Muslim scholars have called for the fatwa to be read during Friday prayers at mosques across the United States.
British Muslim leaders, for example, reserved the right to commit suicide bombings to fight an occupying power. That could be construed to give approval to suicide bombers in Iraq or Israel.The American fatwa makes no such distinction. There are other voices of prominent Muslims taking a stand. Turki Al-Faisal, newly-named Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, wrote that the terrorists,
... claim to be faithful to Islam and faithful to God but they are not. This is not Islam and these acts are absolutely not the will of God. Their twisted vision is alien to the healthy body of the faith that holds the world's Muslim community together. ...(This piece was co-authored with George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury.) I'll leave the last word to Dr. Ambati, who minces none of them:Imams and teachers who have used Islam to bolster and preach their political beliefs have done so by perverting traditional Islamic texts. Declaring fatwas permitting suicide bombings goes against everything at the heart of Islam. These so-called Muslim scholars must be and are condemned. They are violating the most dearly held principles of Islam. ...
What, then, must be done? The Islamic world needs to acknowledge the cancer within its own community and to root it out. Muslim scholars must come out loudly and strongly against suicide bombings regardless of where, when and why they have happened. We must undertake a global act of collective self-examination. In Islamic terms this is a project of muhasaba, a quest for the authentic Muslim voice that can dissolve the dark forces of destruction and point toward our true human values that cherish life and can bring about true human flourishing.
Moderate Muslims must choose whether to let megalomaniacs, liars, misogynists and murderers hijack societies and religion and pilot them into destruction's abyss. Sidelines are not moral high ground. Unequivocally repudiating and forswearing terrorist methods and imperialist aims of Islamic fundamentalism by moderate Muslims is overdue. This requires calling the present jihad by mujahadeen and martyrs awaiting paradise its name, hirabah (unholy war) by mufsidoon (evildoers) bound for jahannam (hell).Steps are being taken, baby steps for now, but steps nonetheless. We must be watchful and encourage them not to falter.
Welcome to Winds!
Thank you, Joe, for the invite! I'm glad to be here!
I hate to be the pubic hair in the moussaka here, but accorting to the CT blog the American Islamic leaders' fatwa is just smoke. It's good to see the first steps toward serious self-examination being taken, but I remain skeptical.
Whoops, sorry about the botched link. Here.
CounterTerror Blog isn't the only one who thinks the fiqh was just blowing smoke. USMC_Vet concurs, based on the groups' history.
We've certainly covered CAIR here before. When these groups go beyond empty statements that contradict both their previous words and ongoing actions, and start to take active steps to remove such individuals from their ranks, we might consider beginning to take them seriously.
The good news is - we now know that they will respond to ongoing public pressure.
As I understand it fatwahs are only binding within the community where the issuer is considered their religious leader. I guess this takes care of the leetle problem of contradictory fatwahs and no central authority.
Fatwahs issued by the American Fiqh Council are not binding to any Islamic foreigner who enters America for the purpose of destruction. The importance of the Fatwah is to American muslim communities who probably aren't interested in being suicide bombers anyway. Though it may help stem recruitment.
DS: Very well done. Thanks.
My view of the fatwa is that it is needed like a parent's firm rules, to keep wavering youth in line. Sometimes kids don't want to go to extremes, but need a really good excuse to stay in bounds. This is a really positive move.
Could part of the lack of condemnation for terrorist bombings in Iraq be that that country has operated outside of the Islamic world to a large extent, and the bombings are in strict circles seen as something of a 'just deserts' to that country for its straying?
There might be one teenie problem with the fatwa. I don't believe "infidels" are considered as "civilians".
Ruth,
As many in Britain have belatedly realized in recent weeks, once one starts designating certain civilians as "acceptable" targets of suicide bombing, the logic inevitably makes all civilians everywhere acceptable targets.
Also, consider what an America operating "inside the Islamic World" from an Islamic perspective would look like - and whether that would be a place you'd enjoy living. Two clarifying words to look up: Dar-el-Harb, Dar-el-Islam. I hear those burquas get hot in the summertime.
And ultimately that's the crux, isn't it? America will, one hopes, always be outside the Islamic World. The day it ceases being so, it would cease being America. As Wretchard presciently noted:
Which path they choose will ultimately be one of the defining questions of our age. At the moment, there are hopeful signs but all predictions are off.
Yes, Joe, signs are hopeful, and despite the fact it took unspeakable horrors to galvanize internal stirrings within the Islamic world, they are beginning to be evident.
Interesting you should mention that burkas could be uncomfortably hot. In the American West, the Mormons in the past centuries had religious conflict with the traditional Christian and other religious population - and the practitioners, men and women, were required to wear hot, scratchy, uncomfortable underwear, as well.
Mormons waged war with other settlers, and in some cases the survivors were captured and 'integrated' into their society. Little history of this conflict has surfaced, but you can read a little of the echoes of it in Zane Grey's books about the west. The success of the ending of these conflicts - although some will contend it hasn't entirely ended - presages hopeful ending to the Islamic conflict.
(If one doesn't try to figure out where the native population sometimes called Indian fitted in, potentially as an influence that forced Mormon and other western civilizations in the west to band together in conflict against the same, it gives a hopeful view. Maybe we need an invasion from outer space ...)
I didn't condone the choice of Iraq as acceptable target for terrorist bombers, I hope.
Ruth, full accuracy probably requires a rephrasing of that first paragraph:
bq."Yes, Joe, signs are hopeful, and despite the fact it took unspeakable horrors to galvanize internal stirrings within the Islamic world, they are beginning to be evident."
Mmm, more like:
"Yes, Joe, signs are hopeful, and despite the fact it took unspeakable horrors happening to someone other than the Jews to galvanize enough indignation in the rest of the world to begin to cause Muslims inconvenience, and kill enough jihadis, and so generate and encourage internal stirrings within the Islamic world, they are beginning to be evident."
Sorry, goats... but I call bullshoi.
Bullshoi because for every well versed, philosophically progressive professor of Islam, there are a hundred or thousand self-appointed clerics who spout the current virulent form of totalitarian Islam in the pulpit.
Bullshoi because even here the words of reform are guarded, carefully cast to question whether change is needed rather than to demand change. Like I imagine how a lion trainer in the end deals with his lions: feed them well, have a quick exit strategy, and fabricate the illusion of being in control.
Bullshoi because Islam has no active 'moderate' contingent on any scale which is meaningful. Victor D. Hanson said it best: Islam can only reform through civil war. Take a look at his writings over the years: consistently his message (and Berman's and Lee Harris's, and Cicero's recent Ghandi/Churchill piece) questions then answers the same conundra: the method best suited to overthrow the impolitic of the day - must needs be matched to the society committing itself to the reform. And, the Good Perfesser isn't committing himself (at the least) or rhetorically the society (as he should) to a path, a plan, a method of gettin' er' on.
Bullshoi because both historical and modern-day Islam is full of lofty ideals, grand illusions, carefully wrought statements of mission, pooh-bahs in flowing robes, attar of roses on the breast, pass the kababs, would you Amir? I grant that the ideas that spark action in the next generation come in part from the words crafted by the academia of this generation, but though I may shout at the wind, the hurricane has no ears.
Bullshoi because Islam - and the Professor - have not come to grips with the 6 things that doom the Middle East (at the least, and all Islam eventually) to great conflict: overpopulation, ignorance, poverty, bigotry, machismo and fantasy. Does one seriously expect to reform how the converts and indigies see their battle in the world philosophic theatre without addressing these issues? Can one?
Enough of the bull. Islam cannot reform until such time as it absolutely and harshly addresses and reverses its 6 internal impolitic issues. The population bomb zeitgeist alone may well be their undoing. But with it comes the others, in spades. Bullshoi thinking that the Good Professor's reformist words are going to have any effect. There are 6 prerequisites.
GoatGuy
Islam seems to be a very fractious religion. There appears to be no head, no tail, no controlling authority, leaving open the option for any cleric to take their flock in any devious direction they want -- Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is an illustrative example that comes to mind.
I have a question -- How much of the troubles with Islamic radical factions is caused by not having a Pope, i.e. a central authority to keep the religion focused on good not evil?
A second question that follows the first is -- How much of the terror problem with Islam is caused by the ME governemnts wanting it that way. Religion being used for the purposes of the rulers of the state -- or better put, no separation of church and state.
It seems obvious that anyone who wants to can hijack the Islamic faith and turn it for their own purposes. All you apparently need is some willing accomplices in the clergy. Focusing on this nature of Islam may lead to a final solution to extinguishing the sources of terror.
The question is is this the beginning of the Islamic version of the Reformation. If it is it will be bloody and barbaric as the forces of modernity take hold. We need only to look at the constitution making in Iraq. There currently the arguement is how much of the LAW derives from the Sharia of Islam. For the forces of modernity many of which held sway under the Baathists(ironic does not do justice to describe the situation)are under attack especially as regards women rights. Federalism will not be enough to enforce modernity if the Shia Iman's or Sunni Beduion(sic?) do not give up there perogiatives(Can one imagine all the abused wives running to the Kurdish canton(s)).
We can only continue to actively engage all the forces and sects of Islam towards the goal of Reformation. sadly it may often have to be done at bayonet point.
Don't know if that is honest, Joe, it's a different war. I expect like me most of the western world has seen Israel as a match for the rest of the ME, especially since the 7 days war. In that context, the attacks extending to us are really poor planning by the RoME, since it takes the legs out from under any pretext that oppression is something Israel is visiting on the RoME and the reason for the violence. Did I see what you're telling me at last? I think so.
Robert M: Interesting parallels. I'm working on the Inquisition myself, being some one whose extended-family arrangement of renunciation of Jewishness resulted.
Great piece Don though I am more pessimistic.
I think that the dynamic of jihad is only accelerating, as Muslims see jihad and terror as the "magic sword" that cuts through the West's advantages and negates the requirement to adopt the cultural values of the West, principally scientific materialism and secular rationalism, and still remain competitive.
It's magical thinking, no different from Kamikazes, Sioux Ghost Dances, or Charles Taylor's Buck Naked Brigades in Liberia. No need to actually adopt Western modes of thinking, just more "magic."
History suggests only a catastrophic defeat will change this mindset, for me it seems that Sam Nunn is right, we will see a nuclear jihadist attack on a major Western city or two, with the likely massive counterattack that makes a nuclear point about the West's relative advantage.
One thing strikes me over and over: there are no great Islamic Universities, all technical studies take place in the West, rather than Muslim societies. There are no Islamic Nokias or Sonys. This despite the obvious talent and even brilliance of people in Muslim societies. One more indicator if any was needed on magical thinking and the extraordinary resistance to any cultural change within Islam.
There's another excellent editorial in Saturday's ArabNews that sums up at the end with the dawning realization that dead Muslims aren't the only victims of the jihadists, but that the further Muslims victims will be current immigrants and even citizens who will be evicted from Western countries if "moderate Muslims" don't act to expel the Bad Guys among them.
The writer even says that it's not "moderate" to look the other direction and not get involved, which I had never seen before as a reason for Muslims not turning in their Bad Guys to the cops when they see them.
Of course, the writer is also concerned that if that sort of iron curtain comes down between Muslims/Arabs and the rest of the world to the point where all Muslims are deported back to where they came from, there will most likely be a concurrent severe restriction of visa's and passports for all Muslims to any of the good places they like to go to frolic and escape momentarily from the restrictions of the Religion of Peace. And most especially a restriction on any travel for Saudi's except to, maybe, other Middle East countries and even then, I don't know that Iraq, Iran or Turkey would be too thrilled about having them as tourists.
Nevertheless, reading that editorial provoked a yelp of approval considering that three years ago all writers in ArabNews denied that their sons could ever crash planes into buildings, swore that it was all an American/Zionist plot to take over Saudi oil, and where suicide bombers were universally hailed as happy little hero's who were cheerfully carrying out the Koranic mandates they had been brainwashed with. Good Stuff.
Joe -- "The good news is - we now know that they will respond to ongoing public pressure."
I agree they are and will continue to 'respond' in kind. However I believe Islam's response so far is insincere and is crafted to take advantage of the West's soft spot for believing in such overtures. The primary value of these recent fatwahs is to temporarily deflect heat from those Muslim groups who wish to be perceived by the West as moderate.
If one takes a step back, 9/11 or Beslan (or any of hundreds of other such acts) should have resulted in a cries of outrage from 'moderate' Muslims and driven them to action against the perpetrators of such acts in their name. Obviously that did not happen.
More importantly, where are the fatwahs requiring specific and aggressive action against specific terrorists such as Bin Laden? Are any Muslims calling for his head? I believe that if Islam wanted Bin Laden dead, he'd be dead.
Is the American or British fatwah an indication of Islam policing itself or just words to placate the West?
Dean,
A bit of both, I think. CAIR et. al fall into the latter category (insincere words to placate), more sincere from those like the folks in Egypt who are waking up to the fact that most Islamofascist terrorism victims have been Muslims, some of the folks Nahncee described, etc.
It is very clear why Al Jihad chose to attack Sharm El Sheikh, even when most of the victims are Muslim. It is not simply that they have determined from their own measely Islamic scholars that Muslims who are killed in the line of battle (even if actually non-combatants) will be automatically accepted into Paradise.
The message of the group that claimed the attack clearly stated that it felt it needed to protect Muslims from the un-Islamic government and society that it had created in Egypt. Sharm El Sheikh is the distinct epitome of Egyptian split culture where they have created a "decadent" tourist location. Those Muslims that live and work their are not simply "collateral damage" but are apostates living and working in the kufir's world.
In the history of Islam, this is not the first time that Islamists have attempted to purify their religion. As a matter of fact, Mohammed and the immediate successors were the first to do so. Of course, only after the movement had gathered a large number of followers from different backgrounds that brought different cultural and social norms into the Ummah. these often threatened Mohammed's power or the cohesion of the group which, for all its rapid growth through conversion and/or conquest, was still not a direct contender against many other established states and religions.
We see it later as well in the Nazrai (Ismaili) movement which assassinated leaders or massacred entire villages that it considered to be "unIslamic" in order to purify and refine the movement. This went on through almost 200 years in the 11th to 13th century. According to history, it was after this purification that the Islamists were able to consolidate their power and gain additional territory (eg, Salahadin and successive Kaliph's up to the 17th century).
There are serious precedents within Islamic and Arabic history for these types of attacks on "fellow Muslims". To further this issue, it is stated in the Quran and followed by many Muslim Jurists that those living outside of the Ummah in non-Islamic states cannot fully live as Muslims and thus are suspect to the cause and probably apostates.
This is a message that many Muslim communities within western governments, within secular states such as Jordan, Egypt and Syria, and even within "unrighteously ruled" islamic states such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, etc have failed to get and one which we have failed to capitalize on as much as we hear rhetoric concerning the "religion of peace".
These communities are equally if not more in danger, not just from their young or other community members joining such movements, but because there is a special hatred for those that certain sects of Islam deem as "apostates".
Of course, al Qaida and their like never do anything for singular reasons alone. While both the London and Sharm El Sheikh attacks occured in or around predominantly Muslim populations, they also had political and financial motivators. Thus killing three or four birds with "one stone".
In any case, it isn't just George Bush who is going by the "with us or against us" theme, but the Islamists who have taken this stance long before.
Bill: How much of the troubles with Islamic radical factions is caused by not having a Pope, i.e. a central authority to keep the religion focused on good not evil?
Hard to say. Certainly having a Pope didn't prevent Christians from being fractious, both toward each other (witness the treatment of the Pelagians, the Cathars, and countless other heresies; the fate of the Templars; etc.) and everybody else (the multitudinous Crusades). The Inquisition was nothing to be proud of, either. In fact, most of the barbarity took place while Christianity did have a central authority and during the Reformation, when that changed. There was evil done in the extended aftermath of the Reformation, but so far as I know it was exacerbated by the Pope, not eased. (Better historians than me are welcome to take a crack at what ended that bloody conflict -- certainly you don't see many Baptists detonating in Catholic churches).
Note: The above applies to Western/Catholic Christianity. I'm unfamiliar with the history and hierarchy of Eastern/Orthodox Christianity.
In general, placing that much authority in the hands of a single person is problematic. Even if that person is wonderful and good, directing his followers to behave in wonderful and good ways, people change and nobody lives forever. It becomes a position which, sooner rather than later, is going to fall to someone ... not so wonderful and good.
Guerilla wars have long tails. Spain still has problems from the aftermath of their war with Napoleon.
Criminals are usually the best recruits for clandestine warfare. Even France had a large problem for decades post WW2.
This war will go on for a century at least.
Criminals are second best. Sects are best.
ps. Communisme is in my eye a godless religion and as such can behaves sect like.
Achillea: In the historical context, you are quite correct that all religions have gone off in the weeds over time. But I wonder if in modern times it would or could happen. As it now stands the various splinter factions of Islam can just do as they please -- rule of the gun and who has the most gunmen. I think it is that independent action with no accountability that causes the terror problem we have today.
Do you think modern western religions could do today what was done it the past -- doubtful.
Shining the light of truth on the roaches makes them slink away. Modern communications has changed forever the ability to hide in the shadows while committing genocide. If the UN were more effective, the practice could be stopped quite quickly. It is now only a matter of the political will of the world to make it happen.