Disassociating Islam from Terrorism
John Michael Williams
Toward Islam as a Religion
by John Michael Williams
v. 2.0 2004-08-29
Copyright © 2004, John Michael Williams
Permission is granted to reproduce this work in
any form for any reason, provided such
reproduction is complete, with nothing omitted or
changed.
PDF or Word format versions are available on
request from the author: jw...@AstraGate.net
Previous versions were posted to USENET groups
alt.religion.islam, alt.religion.islam.arabic
and alt.religion.islam.shia.
------------------------------------------------
Abstract
Islam, from the time after Mohammed, has been
both a religion and a basis of law. However,
this combination confuses some practitioners,
causing displacement of faith by intolerance,
which latter then is enforced by violence, hatred,
and death.
Books representing the Koran have not been written
with these practitioners in mind, and, so, they do
not represent it well to them.
It is suggested that books representing the Koran
be written in a complete form which should include,
as best possible, the actual words of Mohammed in
the third person. This change from an imperative
to an indicative mood would put books representing
the Koran grammatically on a par with other
religious documents and would free devout
practitioners of Islam to advance conceptually and
peaceably into the modern world.
Preface
The author is not a religious scholar. This essay is
meant to be primarily political in nature, not religious.
However, after the suicide attacks of September 11th,
2001, on New York and the Pentagon, it became a serious
question as to what was the difference? Religion seems
little different from politics when religious people practice
religion as pawns of misguided politicians.
The suicide attackers apparently all were trained as
soldiers and believed that committing suicide was a path
to salvation. Supposedly, these beliefs were according to
teachings of Islam. The suicide attackers thus seemed to
believe that selfishly they could achieve a passage to
paradise while at the same time accomplishing an
altruistic mission of vengeance in the name of Islam. But,
under the latter condition, they acted for Islam as a
nation, not a religion.
The September suiciders may be presumed to have
shared the goals of the Al Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden:
Resettlement of displaced Palestinian Arab refugees;
removal of nonIslamic military presence from the Saudi
Arabian nation, which, as it happens, surrounds the
holiest sites of Islam; and, revenge for the 1998 Clinton
assassination attempt on the Al Qaida and Taliban
leaders.
In September of 2001, this collection of religious
anarchists developed fully their plans, accomplished their
mission, and now all are dead.
The purpose of the present work is to recognize that the
threat of other such attacks is not really gone, and that
some action by believers in Islam is called for to help
ensure that a similar group of such persons never again
might be formed.
In the present work, the author suggests that confusion
of religion with politics (or, law), caused the irrational and
self-destructive behavior exhibited by the September
suiciders. The source of this confusion seems to be the
way the primary Islamic authority, the Koran, currently is
presented to believers.
The author suggests a relatively minor change in the
way the Koran is presented, so as to preserve untouched
the religious teachings of the Koran, but to provide a
rationale allowing Islamic worshippers to adopt Islam
truly as a religion.
Much of the information in this essay is from various
Islamic web sites, Encyclopedia Britannica (2001 CD
Edition), and from E. H. Palmer's 1880 translation of the
Koran, as distributed on the 2001 Swift Platinum Deluxe
Bible CD. The Palmer meanings were checked against
the online translation by Rashad Khalifa at
www.submission.org, which is an Islamic religious site;
verse numbers were added from the Khalifa text. The
Today Show quotation below is from a 2003-01-13
interview as transcribed and posted at the Saudi Arabian
U. S. embassy web site. The author has no reason to
assume any significant inaccuracy in these sources.
Introduction
Several nations in the world have adopted the teachings
of Islam as a body of law. The base document of this law
is the Koran, a collection of revelations dictated by
Mohammed, put in writing after his death, and believed to
be the words of God. Other core beliefs are built on the
Koran, and the whole collectively are known as the
Shariah. The most notable of such nations in the modern
world are Saudi Arabia, part of Pakistan, Iran, and Sudan.
Conversely, the nation of Islam thus consists at least of
these lands.
Islamic scholars and clerics have extended the Shariah
based on their understanding of the Koran; so, in the
present work it is assumed that Islamic law can be
changed, depending on such understanding. Also, it is
assumed that one can believe in, and obey, the Koran
without any thing in the law or politics explicitly referring
to the Koran.
The depth of the problem of the combination of religion
and law may be understood in words recorded in a recent
NBC Today Show interview of Crown Prince Abdullah of
Saudi Arabia. In defending his country against charges
that it has been a hatchery of suicidal terrorists, Prince
Abdullah is quoted as having said,
"I would suggest that the American
people study the holy Quran and the
Islamic faith. Our Quran and our
faith reject the taking of lives. . . .
Our Islamic faith is a forward-looking
faith, a faith of learning and a faith of
science."
But, is this claim true? Or, is this only the wishful
thinking of a peaceful ruler? Is the Koran a book of faith,
primarily, or a book of law? And, if a book of law, does it
truly reject the killing of human beings?
The Koran on Human Lives
The present author has taken seriously the advice of
Prince Abdullah. Below are a collection of quotes from the
Koran. None of these quotes is believed taken out of
context, although much intervening text has been omitted.
The quotes are selected to contradict the Prince's words
above; the reason for this will be explained later.
Chapters (Sura) in the Koran are named vividly; this
presumably is because the Koran originally was an
unwritten work, words spoken by Mohammed, memorized
by his listeners, and eventually written down:
According to the Koran, Mohammed, speaking for God,
wants believers to do this:
The Heifer:
178: O ye who believe! Retaliation is prescribed
for you for the slain: the free for the free, the
slave for the slave, the female for the female; yet
he who is pardoned at all by his brother, must
be prosecuted in reason, and made to pay with
kindness.
--jmw: So, vengeance is justified; but, a
pardoned offense should not be avenged.
190 - 192: Fight in God's way with those who
fight with you, . . .. Kill them wherever ye find
them, and drive them out from whence they
drive you out; ... but fight them not by the
Sacred Mosque until they fight you there; then
kill them, for such is the recompense of those
that misbelieve. But if they desist, then, verily,
God is forgiving and merciful.
216: Prescribed for you is fighting, but it is
hateful to you. Yet peradventure that ye hate a
thing while it is good for you, and peradventure
that ye love a thing while it is bad for you; God
knows, and ye,- ye do not know!
Women:
88 - 90: Do ye wish to guide those whom God
hath led astray? Whoso God hath led astray ye
shall not surely find for him a path. They would
fain that ye misbelieve as they misbelieve, that
ye might be alike; take ye not patrons from
among them until they too flee in God's way; but
if they turn their backs, then seize them and kill
them wheresoever ye find them, and take from
them neither patron nor help,- save those who
reach a people betwixt whom and you is an
alliance- or who come to you while their bosoms
prevent them from fighting you or fighting their
own people.
91: Ye will find others who seek for quarter
from you, and quarter from their own people; ...
but if they retire not from you, nor offer you
peace, nor restrain their hands, then seize them
and kill them wheresoever ye find them;- over
these we have made for you manifest power.
92: It is not for a believer to kill a believer save
by mistake; and whosoever kills a believer by
mistake then let him free a [Islamic slave]; and
the blood-money must be paid to his people save
what they shall remit as alms. But if he be from
a tribe hostile to you and yet a believer, then let
him free a [Islamic slave]. And if it be a tribe
betwixt whom and you there is an alliance, then
let the blood-money be paid to his friends, and
let him free a [Islamic slave]; but he who cannot
find the means, then let him fast for two
consecutive months- a penance this from God,
for God is knowing, wise.
93: And whoso kills a believer purposely, his
reward is hell, to dwell therein for aye; and God
will be wrath with him, and curse him, and
prepare for him a mighty woe.
The Table:
33: The reward of those who make war against
God and His Apostle, and strive after violence in
the earth, is only that they shall be slaughtered
or crucified, or their hands cut off and their feet
on alternate sides, or that they shall be banished
from the land; . . ..
--jmw: This kind of punishment is prescribed
in other passages, too.
Spoils:
39 - 41: Fight them . . .. But if they turn their
backs, . . . know that whenever ye seize
anything as a spoil, to God belongs a fifth
thereof, . . ..
65; 67: O thou prophet! urge on the believers to
fight. . . . It has not been for any prophet to take
captives until he hath slaughtered in the land! . . .
--jmw: These passages justify killing in
battle and the theft of goods from the
loser.
Repentance or Immunity:
2; 5: Roam ye at large in the land for four
months, . . .. But when the sacred months are
passed away, kill the idolaters wherever ye may
find them; and take them, and besiege them,
and lie in wait for them in every place of
observation; but if they repent, and are steadfast
in prayer, and give alms, then let them go their
way; verily, God is forgiving and merciful.
Night Journey:
33: And slay not the soul that God has
forbidden you, except for just cause; for he who
is slain unjustly we have given his next of kin
authority; yet let him not exceed in slaying;
verily, he is ever helped.
The Koran as Law
There is considerable militarism in parts of the Koran;
after all, Mohammed in his later years was a military
leader as well as a religious one.
The text from Women above can explain why so many
Islamic believers preface their speech with invocations of
the Grace of God, the Merciful, and so forth: The Koran
has authorized the killing of nonbelievers; and, such
invocations reassure listeners that the speaker is Islamic
and thus should not be treated as an infidel. Because of
the way the Koran is read to combine religion and law, a
faithful believer, a lover of Mohammed and God, can not
be distinguished from a selfish unbeliever merely fearing
death at the hands of Islamic listeners.
Although not presented here, the parts of the Koran not
advocating killing greatly predominate. A Koran
translation totals about 70,000 English words, and the
present author had to search hard to find the violent
quotes above.
The Koran, while not representing the present author's
beliefs, is not evil or hateful: As currently realized in the
writings, it presents a faith and a code of law from the
Arabian peninsula of the Middle East during the era of the
life of Mohammed. Many passages demand mercy,
tolerance, generosity, and forgiveness of offences. The
problem, as shown above, is that some of the Koran
requires that a believer kill or steal in God's name. And,
the Koran is considered by believers to be both the word
and the law of God.
The issue here is not one of intelligently balancing some
passages of the Koran with others. Somehow, all
passages must be protected from malicious
misunderstanding. It makes little difference that a
compassionate or moderate Islamic believer would not kill
anyone merely because of their faith. Good judgement,
tolerance, or humanity are not the issue. The issue is
that anyone reading the Koran might be led to such killing
because of correct reading of the words in the Koranic text.
There is no possible argument that certain passages of the
Koran do not require such killing, at least according to the
translations the author has seen.
This point can not be over-emphasized: The issue is not
religious. The author does not understand Arabic. It is
not the present author's intention to alter the Arabic
words of the Koran; nor is it to prefer one English
translation over another; nor to pass judgement on
religious meanings. The issue is that a certain fraction of
all believers in Islam do read the text to mean what
Palmer translates it to mean, and to accept this as a rule
of their lives, a governance that they must follow. The
ordinary Islamic reader, reading Arabic, can not be
expected to understand the text better than the translator
Palmer. The proof is the existence of Osama bin Laden,
Mohammed Atta, and others bent on self-destruction.
These were educated persons, and they and persons like
them have been making mistakes because of the way they
have been reading the Koran.
Even though such persons may be relatively rare in
Islam, a dozen is too many. The goal should be to make
them rarer yet. The question is, How?
Reforming the Law Without Changing the Koran
In the present author's opinion, the best solution would
be, somehow, for Islam to avoid political goals and dedicate
itself primarily to the morality of its members.
But, the Koran is believed to be the word of God. Can
Islam preserve these words while giving the reader the
choice of peace, the choice of disobedience to a reading of
the law of Islam, but obedience to the religion of Islam?
How is this done in other religions? Perhaps the
answer might be found by considering the holy books of
other religions? Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the
major monotheistic religions in the modern world. In the
past, Jewish and Christian regimes combined religion and
politics; this led to "holy" wars and unnecessarily violent
internal ideological strife. If Islam can preserve its beliefs
while separating law from them, it truly will be forward-
looking.
But how? The Koran clearly is presented, in recent
translations at least, as both religion and law.
The present author thinks the answer lies in the
grammatical mood of the Koran. This, the intent, may be
changed without losing any of the meaning.
Compare the Bible. A major difference is that the Bible
is descriptive (indicative). The Bible reports what Jesus
or Moses did, said, or told others to do; it never says "Do
this!" Even the Ten Commandments are described as
inscriptions on a set of stone tablets handed down to
Moses. The handing-down is described; the
Commandments are described; but, the reader is not told
in the Bible to do anything.
The Koran in current books as a whole is not indicative:
It is imperative. The words of Mohammed in the Koran
tell the reader what they should do, and when, and how to
act to reach Heaven. There are descriptive passages, but
the Koran seen by this author mostly is in the mood of a
book of laws or regulations.
It is this handing down of orders from God, through
Mohammed, that creates a confusion of religion and
politics in the minds of the faithful; and, it leads, in the
present author's opinion, to the irrational belief that
removing onesself from the world in a suicide attack, for
ones own selfish salvation, must be an act of obedience to
God. Hidden behind a veil of holiness, the suicide
attacker can not see the anarchistic politician, issuing the
orders and sharing this confused interpretation of the
Koran. It is the orders from God and state, inextricably
commingled, which lead to the impossibility that a well-
meaning political leader, such as Prince Abdullah, might
invoke the Koran accurately as a religious work.
Rewriting books representing the Koran as a
description of what Mohammed did and said, would be a
forward-looking act of learning.
For example, the Koran, The Feast 3 says:
"Prohibited for you are animals that die of
themselves, blood, the meat of pigs, ... Also
prohibited is dividing the meat through a game
of chance; this is an abomination." (Khalifa
translation)
The reader thus must not eat these things; a believer
must take this as the word of God.
Rendered indicatively, with context made up here by the
present author for illustration, perhaps this might appear
as,
And while walking in the marketplace in
Medina with his disciples, Mohammed turned to
them and said, "Prohibited for you are animals
that die of themselves, blood, the meat of pigs, ...
Also prohibited is dividing the meat through a
game of chance; this is an abomination."
Of course, only a knowledgable Islamic scholar could
supply the actual context of such a passage of the Koran;
the actual context, except the location in Medina, may be
lost. In the second quote, the reader nevertheless
understands that Mohammed said this about 1400 years
ago, in a marketplace in Medina. If the reader is devout,
he or she will emulate the disciples of Mohammed and
refrain from eating such things. Clearly, though, although
the words of God are identical in both passages above, in
the second example, the behavior of the reader is not
directly dictated by the words in the text.
This illustrates the proposed solution of the present
author: Just as King James I convened in 1604 a
collaboration of scholars to bind accurately the Bible, so
also should a similarly erudite meeting of Islamic scholars
be convened, so as to record accurately the Koran, to
describe what Mohammed did and said, and when, and to
whom. By leaving out nothing, the Koran's religious
meaning would not be changed; however, passages
describing what Mohammed said about killing infidels
could be interpreted in terms of the actual intentions of
God in the modern world.
After all, is not this what Mohammed would have
wanted? To be remembered as a prophet, as a messenger
of God?
Ahab
his own use. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, hitler could
very easily have been mohammad reincarnated.
I love Edsels
but don't forget, their book says KILL KILL KILL!!!!
William S. Hubbard
"John Michael Williams" <jw...@AstraGate.net> wrote in message
news:4032bf27.04082...@posting.google.com...
John H. McCloskey
THAT is not altogether the case by anybody's account, except maybe, in a sense,
that of somebody anthropological like Clifford Geertz.
Most folks who write for or against it single out this or that that "Islam
does" as much more equal than other things that Islam also undeniably does.
Depending on which ax is being ground, it is alleged to be _specially_ Islamic
to, say, preserve Greek philosophy while the West was havin' one of our bad
periods, or alternatively, to kidnap US diplomats in Tehran in 1979.
To say and mean "Islam is as Islam does" would be grand if we could do it, but
it isn't obvious that anybody can. There are simply too many particulars to
integrate, almost all of them unknown to any one individual mind. Almost all
of them simply not remembered by anybody human now alive, for that matter.
When you attempt it ą la Geertz, it seems to me that the maxim subtly and
silently turns into something really quite different, something it would be
more accurate to word as "Whatever Muslims do, that is Islam."
To say "whatever" admits that we are doing an incomplete induction, but it also
opens the door to pretty well everything human and its opposite being part of
"Islam," -- and of course a word that means everything in general tends not to
mean anything much in particular.
BGKB. Happy days.
--JHM
PS. You could take "Islam is as Islam does" in an old-fashioned Enlightenment
sort of way as well as a modern anthropological one, if you're mainly only
interested in declaring it a good thing or a bad thing. In that shape, the
question is scarcely different from the utility of religionism in general, a
question that has been overwhelmingly answered affirmatively, I believe, by
those who have considered it. Some facts are here again more equal and Islamic
than others: it matters much more that Islam keeps millions of people from
murder and vandalism and generally getting into trouble with the police than
that it very occasionally inspires a very few in the opposite direction. (But
of course if you think the police can inspire sufficient fear to do the job on
their own, religionism is unnecessary, and then perhaps on balance of other
considerations, it may be undesirable as well? An old song, all this, and
there are lots of different verses to it.)
John H. McCloskey
Yet another strong argument for NOT trying to redecorate other people's
religion.
William S. Hubbard
"John H. McCloskey" <elchipod...@aol.com2600> wrote in message
news:20040830095145...@mb-m24.aol.com...
clark wilkins
"John Michael Williams" <jw...@AstraGate.net> wrote in message
news:4032bf27.04082...@posting.google.com...
Nope. Commiting suicide is a sin to Muslims.
> Supposedly, these beliefs were according to
> teachings of Islam.
Nope.
> The suicide attackers thus seemed to
> believe that selfishly they could achieve a passage to
> paradise
Nope. They knew they weren't going to get any "72 virgins". But they were
going to have two years of fun and sin in the US before they took their last
carnival ride - and have their families receive about $ 100,000 apiece from
bin Laden.
>while at the same time accomplishing an
> altruistic mission of vengeance in the name of Islam.
They were telling the US to get out of Saudi Arabia.
Our troops have pulled out of Arabia and, since then, there have been no
more attacks.
> But,
> under the latter condition, they acted for Islam as a
> nation, not a religion.
They acted for Saudi Arabia.
Check the nationalities of the highjackers.
>
> The September suiciders may be presumed to have
> shared the goals of the Al Qaida leader, Osama bin Laden:
Yes.
> Resettlement of displaced Palestinian Arab refugees;
Nope.
> removal of nonIslamic military presence from the Saudi
> Arabian nation,
Yes.
> which, as it happens, surrounds the
> holiest sites of Islam; and, revenge for the 1998 Clinton
> assassination attempt on the Al Qaida and Taliban
> leaders.
Can't comment.
>
> In September of 2001, this collection of religious
> anarchists developed fully their plans, accomplished their
> mission, and now all are dead.
>
> The purpose of the present work is to recognize that the
> threat of other such attacks is not really gone, and that
> some action by believers in Islam is called for to help
> ensure that a similar group of such persons never again
> might be formed.
Okay. Islamists police Islamists.
Who polices George Bush?
>
> In the present work, the author suggests that confusion
> of religion with politics (or, law), caused the irrational and
> self-destructive behavior exhibited by the September
> suiciders. The source of this confusion seems to be the
> way the primary Islamic authority, the Koran, currently is
> presented to believers.
You are aware that there are more than one Islamic sect?
>
> The author suggests a relatively minor change in the
> way the Koran is presented, so as to preserve untouched
> the religious teachings of the Koran, but to provide a
> rationale allowing Islamic worshippers to adopt Islam
> truly as a religion.
Your telephone is ringing.
It's Bernard Lewis.
::Clark::
xtmprs...@erols.com
"John H. McCloskey" wrote:
>
> > Islam is, as Islam does.
>
> THAT is not altogether the case by anybody's account, except maybe, in a sense,
> that of somebody anthropological like Clifford Geertz.
>
> Most folks who write for or against it single out this or that that "Islam
> does" as much more equal than other things that Islam also undeniably does.
> Depending on which ax is being ground, it is alleged to be _specially_ Islamic
> to, say, preserve Greek philosophy while the West was havin' one of our bad
> periods, or alternatively, to kidnap US diplomats in Tehran in 1979.
>
> To say and mean "Islam is as Islam does" would be grand if we could do it, but
> it isn't obvious that anybody can. There are simply too many particulars to
> integrate, almost all of them unknown to any one individual mind. Almost all
> of them simply not remembered by anybody human now alive, for that matter.
>
> When you attempt it ą la Geertz, it seems to me that the maxim subtly and
> silently turns into something really quite different, something it would be
> more accurate to word as "Whatever Muslims do, that is Islam."
>
> To say "whatever" admits that we are doing an incomplete induction, but it also
> opens the door to pretty well everything human and its opposite being part of
> "Islam," -- and of course a word that means everything in general tends not to
> mean anything much in particular.
>
The same can be said about infidels, leading to the conclusion that
infidels are indistinguishable from moslems, which is obviously
a false staement. Therefore your argument is a non statement. It means
nothing.
John Michael Williams
Some of your comments are debatable, but I would
prefer not in this thread.
"clark wilkins" <clwi...@prodigy.net> wrote in message news:<10j7c6b...@corp.supernews.com>...
> "John Michael Williams" <jw...@AstraGate.net> wrote in message
> news:4032bf27.04082...@posting.google.com...
> > ------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > Toward Islam as a Religion
...
> > In the present work, the author suggests that confusion
> > of religion with politics (or, law), caused the irrational and
> > self-destructive behavior exhibited by the September
> > suiciders. The source of this confusion seems to be the
> > way the primary Islamic authority, the Koran, currently is
> > presented to believers.
>
> You are aware that there are more than one Islamic sect?
Yes. All accept the same Koran, I believe. The Koran is NOT
considered by Islamic theologians to be a book, but rather an
unchangeable collection of God's words. The only Koran is in
Arabic; translations are considered at best commentaries.
This is the reason given by Islamic believers that it would be
offensive to God to delete or change anything in a book
claiming to present the Koran.
The Sharia varies among sects, but not the Koran
part of it. This is how I understand it, anyway.
I don't know whether Druse consider themselves Islamic.
>
> >
> > The author suggests a relatively minor change in the
> > way the Koran is presented, so as to preserve untouched
> > the religious teachings of the Koran, but to provide a
> > rationale allowing Islamic worshippers to adopt Islam
> > truly as a religion.
>
> Your telephone is ringing.
> It's Bernard Lewis.
I have no idea what this means; I don't recall ever knowing
of anyone of that name.
Please explain, unless it is meant to be satirical.
>
...
John
jw...@AstraGate.net
John Michael Williams