The WSJ is hosting a discussion among some “leading thinkers” about what moderate Islam looks like. First up is Anwar Ibrahim, a Malaysian opposition leader taking a break between sodomy trials:
The vast majority of Muslims already see themselves as part of a civilization that is heir to a noble tradition of science, philosophy and spirituality that places paramount importance on the sanctity of human life. Holding fast to the principles of democracy, freedom and human rights, these hundreds of millions of Muslims fervently reject fanaticism in all its varied guises.
Yet Muslims must do more than just talk about their great intellectual and cultural heritage. We must be at the forefront of those who reject violence and terrorism. And our activism must not end there. The tyrants and oppressive regimes that have been the real impediment to peace and progress in the Muslim world must hear our unanimous condemnation. The ball is in our court.
No argument here, whale away at that ball.
Next at bat is Princeton’s professor emeritus Bernard Lewis, who has written movingly and effectively about the great advances the world owes to Islamic science and medicine in such scholarly texts as “What Went Wrong?“:
A form of moderation has been a central part of Islam from the very beginning. True, Muslims are nowhere commanded to love their neighbors, as in the Old Testament, still less their enemies, as in the New Testament. But they are commanded to accept diversity, and this commandment was usually obeyed. The Prophet Muhammad’s statement that “difference within my community is part of God’s mercy” expressed one of Islam’s central ideas, and it is enshrined both in law and usage from the earliest times.
This principle created a level of tolerance among Muslims and coexistence between Muslims and others that was unknown in Christendom until after the triumph of secularism. Diversity was legitimate and accepted. Different juristic schools coexisted, often with significant divergences.
Sectarian differences arose, and sometimes led to conflicts, but these were minor compared with the ferocious wars and persecutions of Christendom. Some events that were commonplace in medieval Europe— like the massacre and expulsion of Jews—were almost unknown in the Muslim world. That is, until modern times.
Well, yes, although the professor does rather gloss over a millennium worth of conquering by the sword, disenfranchisement and dhimmitude. Spain, the professor will remember, had to be “reconquered.”
To be entirely fair, it’s difficult to protest that Saladin and his heirs were especially cruel. By the standard of their times, they were less noted for their barbarism than for their successes. Successes enabled, as much as anything else, by a vigorous tendency towards intramural murder in the “Christian” West.
Who as a consequence of which got so very good at killing that the former conquerors became in time the colonized. But all of that was quite some time back, and does rather pose the question of, “what have you done for us lately?
Ed Husain, who founded the Quilliam Foundation to combat extremism and would prefer to be called a “normal Muslim” rather than a “moderate” one, can answer that question:
The claim, made today by the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia, that they represent God’s will expressed through their version of oppressive Shariah law is a modern innovation.
Ay, there’s the rub.
Reuel Marc Gerecht gets to play the Western beard for this otherwise Oriental discussion, and has a charming personal anecdote that really adds little of substance, while Tawfik Hamid offers up the sensible prescription that one cannot entirely discount all of those horrible Koranic injunctions:
Moderate Islam must not be passive. It needs to actively reinterpret the violent parts of the religious text rather than simply cherry-picking the peaceful ones. Ignoring, rather than confronting or contextualizing, the violent texts leaves young Muslims vulnerable to such teachings at a later stage in their lives.
Finally, moderate Islam must powerfully reject the barbaric practices of jihadists. Ideally, this would mean Muslims demonstrating en masse all over the world against the violence carried out in the name of their religion.
Yes, that would be ideal. It would doubtless set the re-interpreters up for charges of apostasy that are punishable by death, but apart from that, ideal indeed.
Finally, Akbar Ahmed provides us a useful categorization scheme between the mystics, modernists and literalists. The good news is that it’s only the latter category that wants to kill whomever they cannot convince.
It’s an interesting read by some deep thinkers.
In other news, 21 American soldiers have died in Afghanistan over the last 48 hours. And four Jews – including a pregnant woman – were murdered on the West Bank yesterday on the eve of peace talks. Three thousand Gazans spontaneously gathered in celebration, even as Hamas’ Qassam Brigades took credit for the “heroic” attack.
Hamas, the alert reader will recall, is the terrorist organization that the Ground Zero Mosque’s Park51 Project for inter-faith learning’s Sharif el-Gamal cannot quite come round to condemning.
Terrorism being a “very complex question.”
And the beat goes on.
I worked for years in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in addition to Qatar and Pakistan. The muslims I met and worked with every single day were the soul of hospitality and were friends of the USA. If I was staying in a hotel and appeared in the dining area for breakfast I was always treated to tea by someone grateful for what the USA did before during and after ODS. Unfortunately, those that would openly befriend us would be secretly murdered by the terrorists and the terrorists have given them all long enough and enough examples to be sure that all of them know it to be true.
To be able only to watch the destruction of the fabric of an entire society by the networks; mosque and state, that seek to impose a new definition of muslim is sad.
Curtis -
I had the same experience in Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait and most recently Afghanistan. I have many Muslim friends who are horrified at the miscreants who are held up as the “leaders” of their faith.
We need to understand that those who use any religon for political gain are the true Infidels. We need to continue to oppose their shameful actions with all due force necessary….If it takes a few well placed GBUs, so be it.
Like all issues, I would rather “persuade” the donkey to get moving by gentler means, but if all else fails, I have no compunction with picking up the two-by-four with the rusty nail driven through it and whacking the stupid Arse in the rump as many times as required to get the desired outcome….In dealing with the idjits on the other side of this issue, I say ” Fire for full effect.”
In order to win this war we need to do two things. We must defend, support, and amplify moderate Muslim voices like these and we must muffle those that encourage violence.
Right now we’re doing neither. Our promotional efforts have been captured by the likes of CAIR and Park51. The strongest sources of violent Islam are Iran and Saudi Arabia. The geographical realities prevent us from doing anything about Saudi Arabia while Iran is still belligerent, and we’ve been negligent with dealing with Iran for decades.
The road to peace starts in Tehran.
Well…since the road to jihad started there in 1977 it would be a fitting end to it.
Oh, the fall of Tehran won’t be the end. It will be the beginning of the end. Once the eastern portion of the Gulf is in friendly hands we’ll be able to apply pressure (economic, diplomatic, and military) to the real enemy in this fight: Saudi Arabia. They’re the ones who, as keepers of the holy cities, promote Wahhabist Islam as a way of staying “holier than thou”. They’re also the ones who use vast amounts of petrodollars to export their most radical element to the rest of the world, keeping them from posing a threat to the regime.
Either that or we build a time machine and convince all the dinosaurs to go to Australia to die.
Ed Hussain – “The claim, made today by the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia, that they represent God’s will expressed through their version of oppressive Shariah law is a modern innovation.”
Its not a modern innovation for Islamic rulers to claim divine will. For example, successive Ottoman Sultans claimed the title of Caliph between early 16th and 20th centuries.
The Ottomans ruled a vast empire and profited mostly on trade tariffs across the realm, they needed an amicable population friendly to travellers – universalist Sufi mysticism was in. The Sauds by comparison profit by digging holes and pumping oil as fast as possible, they need the population ignorantly backward and with any hostility directed outwards – xenophobic salafist literalism works best there.
Each case the ruling dynasty controls the religion so that the Prophet returns the greatest profit.
Hamas, the alert reader will recall, is the
terrorist organizationcivil rights groupThere, corrected your error to reflect the true modern moderate Muslim point of view you’re supposed to reflect as a good dhimmi.
A worthy piece, Lex. It’s a challenge to comment as succinctly as possible, but I will try.
Anwar Ibrahim, whose case I know well. Is there really any difference between anything he says in those two paragraphs and the standard Islamic Brotherhood cant? I think there is, but it’s hairsplitting of a detail so fine, and it’s irrelevant to us kaffir anyway.
Professor Lewis you have already responded to, but can any serious student of Islam read “[muslims] are commanded to accept diversity” without breaking out into giggles? Muslims are subject to no such command except that they are not to be hasty in judging other Muslims. Non-muslims, no such command. So is he just senile, or is he still trying to cover up the unpleasant truth?
Ed Husain simply lives in a fantasy world, on the UK taxpayer’s dime. From the very beginning of the Ummah worldly rulers were understood to be both Allah’s enforcers and corrupt, a contradiction that lay at the the source of Ali’s earthy cynicism (if you haven’t read the very short Sayings of Ali, you should, they’re rather appealing for cynics). This is spelled out carefully and thoroughly in Lewis’ The Political Language of Islam, the one book of Lewis’ that I unhesitatingly recommend.
Tawfik Hamid is honest in everything I’ve ever read by him. Most notably, he doesn’t see any hope that Islam will be reformed from the bottom up. Instead, the Tafseer and rulings that Islam already has must be confronted and reviewed. He may be Quixotic, but his honesty is worthy of recognition.
Ironically, it is Gerecht, who is generally useless on this subject, that hits upon the core practical problem:
In small numbers, isolated, Muslims are remarkably moderate, willing to go-along to get along. But once their numbers reach a certain mass, the behaviors shift dramatically. One on one, they can be fine fellows. In a group they are predictable to a tee, and the group behavior will always be biased toward the most pious in the group. This is why restricting or even halting Islamic immigration absolutely matters, why it is reckless and fey for our government to be encouraging Islamic immigration the way it is, and why it is so important in the Muslim Brotherhood narrative to exaggerate both the total number of Muslims in the world (1.2billion, max, by the most reliable estimates) and in the USA (again, 2.4 million max, not the 7 million that CAIR trumpets, which is not accidentally greater than the estimated 6 million Jews in America—oh politician, heed to the numbers!).
A similar symposium with less window dressing and more frankness can be found here: http://frontpagemag.com/2010/05/27/symposium-the-worlds-most-wanted-a-%E2%80%9Cmoderate-islam-%E2%80%9D/
Diversity is accepted only if the diverse accept dhimmitude. Historically, Christians were able to travel to the Holy Land as long as they had no intention of staying. Those who did stay could only hope not to be noticed, or restrict themselves to their monasteries and church plant.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are typical of what the Umma used to be like.
Zane, your point about critical mass and gravitation towards the most pious is spot on. And it holds true for all populations/groupings/societies/nations. At some point “assimilation” into the larger culture is no longer desirable by the pious and/or “other” as their numbers increase–just look at Lebanon, Belgium, Cyprus, Quebec and Canada, etc. To call these places “nations” in the manner to which we are accustomed is a stretch. And as we see in Europe, whether in Malmo, Sweden, Holland, Londonistan, the “no-go” Muslim suburbs of Paris and Marsailles, etc., the fundamentalist Islamic impulse becomes the controlling factor. But of course this is an old story. Do all the majority fresh apples in the barrel make the single rotten apple smell better–or the reverse? Are the rotten eggs made to smell better by the majority fresh ones? Historically, the ability of a determined, highly motivated and passionate minority to cow a diffuse luke-warm majority and work its way is legendary. In case no one has noticed, that’s exactly how legislation gets passed in Congress. And once that determined minority becomes equal in number or even a majority of the population the tipping point is reached insofar as the existence of a governable society is concerned. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
A few years ago a caller to Neal Boortz’ talk show from Cali (one of the “moderate” Muslims everyone is always searching longingly for) estimated that, in the Mosques he had attended in Cali, approx 1/3rd of the attendees were of the fundamentalist, stridently activist stripe. And that they indeed had a distinct cowing effect upon the rest of the membership. That’s a large number. Most “official” government estimates are far, far, lower into the single digits. If this caller is accurate then we are sleep-walking into a bigger problem than we think
VX, the 2007 Pew Poll puts the lie to all of that. Don’t read all the interpretations, read the actual poll results. Pretty much 2/3 are willing to support the enemies of America under pretty much any circumstance. Very ugly numbers, and that’s even considering that many Muslims were lying to paint a prettier picture for the pollster.
Well at least the President did not say “Mission Accomplished” last night during his speech saying that combat operations have ended in Iraq even though 50,000 US soldiers remain in a combat zone. Because the media made it clear that not saying “Mission Accomplished” was important. Or something like that.
The real problem is that the Qur’an, according to 80% of the Muslim population (Sunnis) is eternal and immutable. Further, the later verses delivered through the divine revelations happen to be the most violent and to have have abrogated earlier ‘peaceful’ verses. Moderation is not technically feasible if one accepts Muhammad’s instructions from Allah.
Yes, but most Christians consider the Bible to be immutable. That didn’t stop Christianity from transitioning from a “Kill them all, God will know his own” philosophy to a “Hate the sin, love the sinner” philosophy.
The idea that later verses override earlier verses is just an idea, which can be replaced with another. It must, because the alternative is exterminating over 1 billion people because of their religious beliefs.
Qur’an:9:29 “Fight those who do not believe until they all surrender, paying the protective tax in submission.”
Qur’an:8:39 “Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.”
Just an idea?
Why does fight have to mean kill? All we really need is to get rid of the violent aspects. If I have to put up with Muslims ringing my doorbell every Saturday to argue theology I’m OK with that.
Muslims exist. They are currently in an existential conflict with the West. There aren’t that many ways the conflict will be resolved. These are the general classes I see.
1) Permanent separation (not going to happen, they have most of the oil and we have most of the money)
2) We all convert or die (over my dead body)
3) They all convert or die (over my dead body)
4) They become secular and pluralistic.
Right now the biggest obstacle to (4) is the idea that there’s a divine mandate to kill for Islam. It’s our enemy’s biggest strength. STOP HELPING THEM!
Jeff, I like where your heart is, but your attitude is so much like a leftist that refuses to grow up it’s scary.
We can pen them up in the ummah. All it takes is will, something that is in very short supply because people refuse to recognize the problem is Islam.
What you call a mere idea is enshreined in their scriptures. It can’t be ignored and remain Islam. It’sd much like trying to remove the Cross from Christianity. You can try, but what is left isn’t anything approaching Christianity.
The earlier “peaceful” portions of the Koran have been abrogated by the Koran itself. Ever since, it has been the Koran or the sword. Dhimmitude is a possibility, but it’s like “better red than dead.”
So, if we pen them up, what are they going to do with that oil? Drink it? When they were pretty much segregated before 1970 they sold it to the west, or anyone else that would buy it. Why would it be any different now?
If they knew that immigration meant leaving Islam, many would not immigrate. OTH, many would to escape the prison that is Islam.
While a peaceful solution to this problem is most desirable, there are significant elements within Islam that are controlling the dialogue, namely the Muslim Brotherhood and the Wahhabists, to name just a few. Both profess allegiance to the strictest interpretation of the Qur’an and the Hadith as manifested in religious fatwas ranging from violence to open warfare such as the bin Laden 1998 declaration.
Pakistan presently has in excess of 20,000 madrassas that teach only the fundamentalist version of Islam. The students receive no other education skills that will allow them to contribute to society such as skills or trades (unless you include matyrdom). Worse, as much as 80% of the mosques that have been constructed in this country are funded by Wahhabists and the prison Muslim outreach programs are run by the same folks.
I have personally approached a number of Muslims on the issue of reformation and been met in every case with stiff resistance.
I don’t profess to know how to resolve this conflict between Islam and the rest of civilization. Be assured though, I am not prepared to surrender any more of our liberties to their ‘peaceful’ ideology.
Err, Christianity *started* with “hate the sin, love the sinner”. Go back and read it again, and then look up the fate of most of the disciples (as well as Paul, upon whom much of the claim towards “intolerance” is ladled). Then, note the actions of those condemned to the lions.
Christianity didn’t start getting militant until it had taken over a large sphere of influence and then started getting invaded by external forces, and the really slippery slope didn’t really start until Islam conquered every Christian (by choice, not by force!) nation or land from Bethlehem to Tours. Somewhere along the way, after having enough throats slashed, wives raped, and children sold off to slavery, Christianity forgot how to turn the other cheek, and started becoming, in a small measure, that which it fought against, leading to often un-Christian actions of kings and popes alike throughout the Middle Ages.
The big difference is that WE, for the most part, have come out of the Middle Ages. The majority of the Muslim world is still firmly anchored in them.