Violent Islamic radicals know they are heretical
Roald B. Larsen
politisk såvel som religiøst
Comment
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Violent Islamic radicals know they are heretical
Extremists are proud of their deviance, and moderate Muslims can't be
held responsible
Karen Armstrong
Saturday July 8, 2006
Guardian
A few years ago at a conference in the US, a Christian fundamentalist
erupted into the hall and launched a vitriolic attack on me and my
fellow panellists. His words were tumbling over one another
incoherently, but the note of pain was clear. We had obviously
assaulted him at some profound level. For three days my colleagues and
I had discussed complex and radical issues in theology, not once at a
loss for words; but stunned by the impact of this attack, we could find
nothing to say. Dumbfounded, we gazed bleakly at our assailant across
an abyss of incomprehension, until he was hustled out.
This type of incident is now common. Increasingly, people find it
difficult to communicate with their co-religionists. The divide is as
great as that between religious and secular people. Many of the
faithful feel threatened by those who interpret their tradition
differently; it seems their sacred values are in jeopardy. An
apparently impassable gulf yawns between liberal and fundamentalist
Christians, reform and orthodox Jews, traditional and extremist
Muslims. Because of our preoccupation with the so-called clash of
civilisations, this internal tension is often overlooked.
It is a year since the London bombings, an act committed in the name of
Islam by a viciously disaffected minority, but which violated the
essential principles of any religion. Doubtless with this anniversary
in mind, the prime minister has complained that British Muslims are not
doing enough to deal with the extremists. The "moderate" Muslims, he
said testily, must confront the Islamists; they cannot condemn their
methods while tacitly condoning their anger. The extremists'
anti-western views are wrong, and mainstream Muslims must tell them
that violent jihad "is not the religion of Islam".
This regrettable step will put yet more pressure on a community already
under strain. It ignores the fact that the chief problem for most
Muslims is not "the west" per se, but the suffering of Muslims in
Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Iraq and Palestine. Many Britons share this
dismay, but the strong emphasis placed by Islam upon justice and
community solidarity makes this a religious issue for Muslims. When
they see their brothers and sisters systematically oppressed and
humiliated, some feel as wounded as a Christian who sees the Bible spat
upon or the eucharistic host violated.
It is disingenuous of Tony Blair to separate the rising tide of
"Islamism" from his unpopular foreign policy, particularly when
Palestinians are being subjected to new dangers in Gaza. He is also
mistaken to imagine that law-abiding Muslims could bring the extremists
to heel in the same way that he disciplines recalcitrant members of his
cabinet. This is just not how religious groups operate.
During the 20th century, a militant piety erupted in almost every major
world faith: in Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Confucianism, as well
as in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is often called
"fundamentalism". Its aim is to bring God and/or religion from the
sidelines back to centre stage, though very few fundamentalists commit
acts of violence. Coined by American Protestants who wanted a return to
Christian "fundamentals", the term is unsatisfactory, not least because
it suggests a conservative and backward-looking religiosity. In fact,
fundamentalists are rebels who have separated themselves irrevocably
and on principle from the main body of the faithful. Fundamentalist
movements are nearly always the result of an internal dispute with
traditional or liberal co-religionists; fundamentalists regard them as
traitors who have made too many concessions to modernity. They withdraw
from mainstream religious life to create separatist churches, colleges,
study groups, madrasas, yeshivas and training camps. Only later, if at
all, do fundamentalists turn their wrath against a foreign foe.
Thus Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), whose ideology is followed by most Sunni
fundamentalists, had no love for the west, but his jihad was primarily
directed against such Muslim rulers as Jamal Abdul Nasser. In order to
replace secularist Fatah, Hamas began by attacking the PLO, and was
initially funded by Israel in order to undermine Arafat. Osama bin
Laden began by campaigning against the Saudi royal family and
secularist rulers such as Saddam Hussein; later, when he discovered the
extent of their support for these regimes, he declared war against the
US. Even when fundamentalists are engaged in a struggle with an
external enemy, this internal hostility remains a potent force.
It is unrealistic to hope that radical Islamists will be chastened by a
rebuke from "moderate" imams; they have nothing but contempt for
traditional Muslims, who they see as part of the problem. Nor are
extremists likely to be dismayed when told that terrorism violates the
religion of Islam. We often use the word "fundamentalist" wrongly, as a
synonym for "orthodox". In fact, fundamentalists are unorthodox - even
anti-orthodox. They may invoke the past, but these are innovative
movements that promote entirely new doctrines.
Fundamentalist Christians who claim that every word of the Bible is
literally true are reading in an essentially modern way; before the
advent of our scientifically oriented culture, Jews, Christians and
Muslims all relished highly allegorical interpretations of their holy
texts. Religious Zionists who regard Israel as sacred also fly in the
face of tradition. A hundred years ago, most orthodox rabbis condemned
the idea of a Jewish secular state in the Holy Land. In making the
assertion that a cleric should be head of state, Ayatollah Khomeini
flouted centuries of Shia orthodoxy, which separated religion and
politics as a matter of sacred principle.
The same is true of the new emphasis on violent jihad. Until recently,
no Muslim thinker had ever claimed it was the central tenet of Islam.
The first to make this controversial, even heretical, claim was the
Pakistani ideologue Abu Ala Mawdudi in 1939. Like Qutb, he was well
aware that this innovation could only be justified by the godless
cruelty of modernity. Informed extremists today do not need to be told
that their holy war is unorthodox; they already know.
The extremists believe that mainstream Muslims have failed to respond
to the current crisis and are proud of their own deviance. Attempting
to shift the blame to the already beleaguered Muslim community could
further alienate the disaffected. It will certainly not prevent another
London bombing.
· Karen Armstrong is the author of The Battle for God, A History of
Fundamentalism
com...@guardian.co.uk
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329524427-103677,00.html
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rL