DEMOCRACY AND RELIGION: ISLAMISM AND JIHAD
INTRODUCTION
‘It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims. Does all this tell us something about ourselves, our societies and our culture?’ (Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, Manager of TV news of al Arabiya and former editor of the London daily Asharq Al Awsat.)
Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim country forbids veils and scarves in Parliament or Universities. (The Prime Minister’s wife who wears a scarf could not attend his swearing in at the Parliament.)
In Israel laws legislating the closure of shopping malls on the Jewish Sabbath must be approved by a multi-religious Parliament composed of Muslims (10%), Orthodox Jews (20%) and explicitly anti-Orthodox Jewish members (15%).
Turkey is a secular state; Israel is a ‘Jewish’ state, both are democratic.
The government of Shah of Iran failed and was deposed due his being an autocratic secularist. He was replaced by autocratic Muslim clerical rule.
In both cases it is the ‘autocracy’ that failed just as ‘democracy’ in the case of Turkey and Israel succeeds. It is autocracy that limits democracy, not religion. Terrorism is the enemy of all religions.
How many of the 1.2 billion Muslims in today’s world support Jihadists, Islamists (non violent fundamentalists) or Traditionalists? What is Islam’s Mainstream? Is Jihadism as represented by Osama bin Laden a perversion of Islam? Is Islamism as represented by the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia different than Jihadism?
It is often stated that Muslims live in undemocratic countries because Islam opposes democracy. However, in fact more that half of the Muslims in the world live under some degree of democratic rule in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Malaysia, Mali, Senegal, Turkey, India, Europe and North America. The countries who fail to practice democracy are not Islamic countries they are Arab countries.
Many have stated ‘Islam is incompatible with democracy’. That opinion is based on the Islamic precept that Muslims are superior to other human beings; equality among of all human beings is not a concept to be found in Islam. Democracy requires a basic mind set of the tolerance for opposing ideas and the ability to share political power. Are such concepts acceptable in Islam? Are they acceptable within the religions of Christianity and Judaism? Since democracy requires reciprocating ideas could the mind set of monotheism tolerate plurality and the diversity of ideas or do its beliefs hold that only ‘it’ has the Truth? Is supremacy not inevitable if you know the truth? Bernard Lewis stated that Judaism as the founder of monotheism established the mind set of religious intolerance. It is the Christian Philip II of Spain whose statement, ‘I would rather sacrifice the lives of a hundred thousand people than cease my persecution of heretics’. He understood as do the Muslim Jihadist that apostasy - that Salman Rushdie - is more dangerous than sinners, even than Jews.
Christianity is no longer Christendom and no longer controls any
countries (aside from the tiny Vatican); Judaism is a minority religion
thorough out the world with the exception of Israel, a democratic
country. Democracy requires the effective separation of Church and
State, a paradigm of secularity and modernity that is generally
rejected by Muslims. Mohammad during his lifetime as Prophet held
the roles of both Imam (spiritual leader) and Caliph (political
leader); that continued during the reign of the first four ‘rightful
Caliphs’. Thereafter the relationship between religion and politics in
Islam were in fact separated. (This is different from Judaism and
Christianity. In the former Moses, the spiritual leader began the
religion; in Christianity Jesus, the spiritual leader began the
religion. Political power, the profane, while growing out of the
original leader’s spiritual power was left to their disciples.) And
that continues today, the vast majority of Muslims live in countries
where the political domain is separated from the religious domain. (We
understand that this is not the same as separation of Church and State
as it is practiced in western democracies.) Even in most Arab countries
clerics do not control the government.
Islamic fundamentalist’s ideal is not democracy. They prefer their
particular interpretation of Islam which is rule by the shari’a. The
Sunni ‘Shari’a’ (with its four differing schools of interpretation)
varies from the Shi’a ‘shari’a’. A terrorist and disciple of bin
Laden, Yusuf al Ayyeri wrote an essay shortly before he was killed by
Saudi security forces in June 2003. He believed democracy to be an
enemy of Islam owing to the encouragement given to Muslims to believe
that they could create their own laws, through their own reasoning and
likewise it fostered the belief they could control their own destiny.
This according to al Ayyeri was anti-Islam. Fundamentalists believe God
has sovereignty over His world including His people; conversely
democrats believe that the people are entitled to sovereignty over
their own lives.
QUR’AN
Is democracy an Islamic value?
A fundamental Qur’anic idea is that God vested with all of humanity a
part of His divinity: “Remember, when your Lord said to the angels: ‘I
have to place a viceregent on earth,’ they said: ‘Will you place one
there who will create disorder and shed blood, while we intone ‘Your
litanies and sanctify Your name?’ And God said: ‘I know what you do not
know’”. (2:30) In particular, human beings are responsible, as God’s
viceregents, for making the world just. By assigning equal political
rights to all adults, democracy expresses that special status of human
beings in God’s creation. That has the same meaning as the statement in
Genesis that humanity was ‘created in God’s image’ (Gen. 1:26).
Can this be understood as God’s choice to allow the people to interpret His will – His sovereignty? By refusing to appoint a successor did not Muhammad demand that the people must choose? A hadith of Muhammad states ‘my community will never agree on an error’.
We shall discuss ‘choosing’ as the essence of democracy.
Many Muslim scholars state that the sources for democratic ethics in Islam lie in the Qur’anic verse ‘and consult with them on the matter’ (3:159) as well as the verse praising ‘those who conduct their affairs by counsel’ (43:38). In this way, the Qur’an instructs the Prophet to consult regularly with Muslims on all significant matters and indicates that a society that conducts its affairs through a deliberative process is considered praiseworthy in the eyes of God. Many reports suggest that the Prophet regularly consulted with his companions regarding the affairs of the state. Shortly after the death of the Prophet the concept of shura (consultative deliberations) and ijma (consensus) had become a symbol signifying participatory politics and legitimacy.
According to Bernard Lewis, the Islamic tradition refers to the Caliphate as exercising political power ‘is a contract, creating bonds of mutual obligation between the ruler and the ruled. Subjects are duty-bound to obey the ruler and carry out his orders, but the ruler also has duties toward the subject, similar to those set forth in most cultures’. This was often more honored in the breach than in observance. This happens in western democracies as well. The goal of the Jihadists and particularly of al Qaeda, after the defeating of the West is the re-establishment of the caliphate, but in their own image.
The Qur’an states that God explicitly created people with great diversity and grouped them into nations and tribes with the express intention ‘to come to know another; to learn from each other. Muslim jurists reasoned that the expression ‘come to know one another’ indicates the need for social cooperation and mutual assistance in order to achieve justice (49:13). The Qur’an notes that people will remain different from one another until the end of human existence. It also states that the reality of human diversity is part of the divine wisdom and an intentional purpose of creation: ‘If thy Lord had so willed, He could have made mankind one people, but they will not cease to dispute.’ (11:118). Was this not the intention of the Prophet when he stated in the Compact of Medina, approved by the people of Medina, ‘the Jews have their religion and we [Muslims] have ours’? It is worth noting that for centuries Jews were treated with more tolerance in Islam than in Christendom.
These statements unquestionably attest to the concepts of democracy and toleration imbedded in the Qur’an.
Based on the current government of Iran an Islamic state is defined as a theocratic state even if has the formal rituals of democracy; elections for a President and a Parliament exist. However candidates for both the presidency and for Parliament must be approved by the clerics; hence it is a theocracy. Despite the often declared statement that Islam and Democracy are incompatible; the most important Iraqi cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani stated (based on his interpretation of the Qur’an) that inherent in an Islamic state are free elections, freedom of religion and civil liberties and excluding a government role for clerics. A great majority of Grand Ayattolah’s in the twentieth century concurred with Sistani’s position. Izz al Din, the son of Grand Ayattolah Muhammad Baqir al Hakim stated in the name of his father ‘Muslims are entitled to live in a democratic society. Muslims, be they good ones or bad, have the right to vote’ (quoted by Reuel Marc Gerecht, ‘The Islamic Paradox’).
Sistani is associated with the ‘Quietist’ school of Shi’ism which
contrasts starkly with the theocracy of the late Grand Ayatollah
Khomeini of Iran who favored the ‘Activist’ school. It is Khomeini who
in fact was the exception and was a revolutionary in theology. Due to
Khomeini’s success in Iran it is often assumed that his view of an
Islamic state is the sole viable option. Sistani if he succeeds in the
January 30 election in Iraq may create an alternative to Khomeini’s
theocracy. His clerical associate Sheik Muhammad al-Huqqara has stated
that Sistani wishes a ‘non-Islamic government that is respectful of
Islam. . . Neither the Western or Islamic traditions are all good or
all bad. In each there is something to be used’ (quoted by Reuel Marc
Gerecht ‘The Islamic Paradox’). If Sistani succeeds the impact on the
Shi’te reformers in Iran will be interesting to watch. It is certainly
possible that the Arab Sistani despite being a Shi’ite, could have more
impact of the Arab Sunni world than the Persian Khomeini.
DEMOCRACY
Democracy does not require the western standard model, but it does require the free consent of the people (demos). This is exactly what is referred by the Qur’an. According to the Pew Research Center Report (2003) in most Muslim populations, large majorities continue to believe that Western-style democracy including multiparty elections, freedom of speech and religion and an impartial judiciary can work in their countries. At the same time, most Muslims also support a prominent – and in some cases expanding – role for Islam and religious leaders in the political life of their countries. That opinion does not seem to diminish Muslim support for a system of governance that ensures the same civil liberties and political rights enjoyed by democracies.
Democracy does not pretend to give us the meaning of life or give us a
higher cause for sacrificing ones life; it gives us the freedom to
choose a meaning even a passionate and truthful meaning for our lives.
In the modern world religion itself is a choice. And since religious
monopoly no longer exists the choice is very large.
Making choices may even require choosing an identity. It is no longer
automatic. Any choice is an individual choice as opposed to a choice
dictated even by being born with a particular religious identity. Can
an individual choose an identity? Human beings require identity; does
it require choosing it through its the enemies?
Every person who becomes ‘born again’ – whether Jewish, Christian or
Muslim – makes an individual choice. Paradoxically it is often to join
a group or sect that denies individual choice. Of course choice
is difficult; especially in the modern world - it requires decision
making. That may be why psychological therapy is so prevalent in the
modern world. It is much easier to follow some traditional rule –
whether how to choose a spouse or a place to live or a career or a
religious identity.
Traditional rule require hierarchical relationships. Hierarchy is
impossible without a leader who embodies the interests of the group.
The leaders of tribalistic and patriarchal systems who rule families in
traditional Arabic societies are bound by webs of responsibility and
customary obligation to their ‘subjects’, just as those gain much from
the reputation and success of the groups with which they identify. The
leader when an Imam, a Bishop or Rabbi embodies the religious cultural
identity of the group.
Making choices requires a completely new mind set. Going back two
centuries traditional Mid Eastern society quickly grasped the
advantages of Western timepieces, importing clocks and watches in
significant numbers, even making beautiful pieces with Islamic motifs
themselves. (This could be seen in the Islamic Museum in Jerusalem
before many were stolen.) Yet Mid Eastern attitudes toward time itself
changed little, as the punctuality demanded by modern life remain
little valued in many parts of the Mid Eastern world (including
Israel). In today’s world some in the Mid East (particularly in Israel)
revel in modern technology particularly the Internet and Email yet they
prefer to use cellular phones rather than Email despite both being
equally instant and the latter much more precise. Phoning is less
efficient but talking is more personal.
Another example of tradition is the marriage policies of Muslim Arabs.
Men are encouraged to marry their own first cousins despite the known
genetic disadvantage of such consanguineous marriages. This practice of
cousin marriage helps to shelter close female relatives. It also helps
create a closed and self-sustaining kinship and an anti-modern
anti-choice society.
Jihadists understand choice; they feel free to express their
oppositional rhetoric in America knowing full well they cannot in their
home countries whether Saudi Arabia or Egypt for fear of execution.
They also know they can bring a Qur’an into Christian America while
George W. Bush knows he cannot bring a Bible into Saudi Arabia – for
his own use. Sayyid Qutb, the self proclaimed theologian of Arab
Islamism, proclaimed that ‘claiming the right to create values, to
legislate rules of collective behavior and to choose any way of life
that rests with me, without regard to what God has prescribed’ was
‘jahiliyya’ barbarous (Milestones).
Choice requires democracy!
ISLAMISM
The failure of non-Islamic ideologies in Islamic lands: Communism, Socialism, Baathism, Secularism and Globalization have left a vacuum filled by Islamic fundamentalism. And fundamentalists like Islamism and al Qaeda are an ideology not a religion or religious sect. (Secularism is an alternative belief system. In Europe it is treated as a religion based on the Enlightenment. It is the religion of the government of France, as well as that of the majority of the governments of Western Europe. It is not the personal religion of the people of Europe who are mostly agnostics toward God despite having been baptized as Christians.)
Islam is a religion whose appeal for one thousand years was based less
on revelation than on political success. When their political
success failed culminating in Napoleon’s entrance into Alexandria two
hundred years ago self blame was not considered a possibility, then or
today. (When the ancient Hebrews failed against the Romans they also
did not assume their religion was the problem. But despite that they
adopted self criticism and adjusted their religion into the newly
revised Rabbinic Judaism and later accepted the enlightenment.) Hasain
Haqqani claims millions of Muslim children are taught to believe that
the Ottoman Empire fell in 1918 for the same reason Muslims lost
Baghdad in 1258: The rulers and their people had gone soft, approaching
religion with tolerance and accommodation rather than viewing
civilization as divided between Islam and infidels. On the other hand
Fouad Ajami wrote ‘If Muslims truly believe that their long winter of
decline is the fault of the United States, no campaign of public
diplomacy shall deliver them from that incoherence.’
Fundamentalists view history as a cosmic struggle between good and evil
using stark dichotomies to describe the opposing camps. The rhetoric is
often spiritual. Jihadists however use this rhetoric as a holy war to
legitimize terrorism against their enemies whether military or
civilian. If their objective is, as is often claimed, ‘spiritual
liberation’ is these a legitimate means to achieve what can be defined
as a legitimate end? Recently Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi defined
‘civilians’ working with infidels as no longer ‘civilians’ but as
appropriate military targets. Jihadists believe that since their end
cause is good (as they define it) their means are justified even if it
is the murder of civilians. Al Zawahiri (bin Laden’s associate and
mentor) has previously defined Muslim civilian workers in the bombing
of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad (1996) similarly.
In his second inaugural address Abraham Lincoln declared that the
competing American armies and peoples both ‘pray to the same God, and
each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any
men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread
from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be
not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither
has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.’
Islamists are fundamentalists – i.e. they claim to know the absolute
truth and hence to know His - God’s purposes. Many Christians and Jews
also believe they ‘know’ God’s truth but they refrain from resorting to
a theology of coercion and violence. However, violent fundamentalists
in Christianity and Judaism are nothing more than a fringe element who
posses little political power. Can the same be said regarding Islam?
The most prevalent form of Islamic fundamentalism is Wahhabism.
Wahhabism is the theology of Saudi Arabia under whose fertile ground
bin Laden and fifteen of the nineteen suicide bomber of September 11
grew. Wahhabism is a literalist and puritanical sect of Islam developed
in the eighteenth century when its theological founder Abd al Wahhab
combined his forces with the Arab tribal leader al Saud to conquer much
of what is today Saudi Arabia. Wahhabism is the bedrock of Jihadism. It
has supported the Jihadists both theologically and financially.
Wahhabism appeals to Islamic populations in countries where autocracy
rather than democracy rules; in Pakistan, in Kashmir, in Algeria (where
it failed), in Chechnya, in Sunni Iraq and even in Indonesia not until
recently a democratic nation. The Saudi established and financed
madrass’ and mosques indoctrinate young students and communities in
virulent anti-western dogma and have damaged tolerant and pluralistic
traditions in eastern and central Asia and Northern Africa. They are
likely to believe the Hadith (or perhaps by the eight century Jurist
Abu Yussf) ‘Fear God, obey Him: and if a flat nosed shrunken-headed
Abyssinian slave is inserted with power over you obey him’ (Quoted by
A.K.S. Lambton ‘State and Government).
Saudi Arabia has also been supported militarily by the United States. A
conflict between support of the Jihadists and support by the United
States was inevitable and bin Laden is now the enemy of Saudi Arabia.
According to Michael Doran in ‘The Saudi Paradox’, Saudi Arabia is in
the throes of a crisis, and the elite are bitterly divided on how to
escape it. Crown Prince Abdullah leads a camp of reformers who seek
rapprochement with the West, while Prince Nayef, the Minister of
Interior, sides with an anti-American Wahhabi religious establishment
that has much in common with al Qaeda. Abdullah cuts a higher profile
abroad -- but at home Nayef casts a longer and darker shadow.’ Nayaf
appears to support Jihad (although not in Saudi Arabia), Abdullah does
not.
Saudi Arabia is a highly complex and conservative society; religion
plays a central role in framing political discourse for rulers and
opponents alike. As the Saudi’s fight an Islamist insurgency led by
al-Qaeda; both use the same religious grounds from which each draws its
legitimacy. Can the Saudi’s alienate their traditional allies in the
religious establishment who seem to support the Jihadists?
In addition Saudi Arabia is a country where 60% of the population is
aged 18 or under and the reactionary government is run by men over 70
years of age. Saudi Arabia as a country is a time bomb run by people
corrupted by the ways of the world and more threatened from within than
from without.
The chief difference between the modus operandi of al Qaeda and the Saudi religious establishment lies in their definition of their primary foes: Al Qaeda believes that the Saudi royal family forms an integral part of the problem whereas the latter does not. This divergence is not insignificant; however it does not preclude limited or tacit cooperation on some issues. Although some in the Saudi regime are indeed bin Laden's enemies, others are his de facto allies. Al Qaeda activists sense that the U.S. plans include the separation of ‘mosque and state’. This constitutes the greatest immediate threat to their designs yet they sense that the time is not yet ripe for a broad revolution. Hence al Qaeda's short-term goal is not yet to topple the regime but rather to shift Saudi Arabia's domestic balance of power to the right and punish supporters of Abdullah. In a recent tape recording (December 15, 2004) Osama bin Laden accused the Saudi government of ‘practiced injustices against the people, violating their rights, humiliating their pride.’ Osama bin Laden and his accomplices have succeeded in riding American troops from Saudi Arabia.
One can argue as some have that Wahhabism and Talibanism are not Islamism. The argument goes along the lines that Islamism is a modern ideology and Wahhabism and Talibanism are an attempt to revert to an ancient puritanical form of Islam. But given the financial support to Islamism by the government of Saudi Arabia and the geographic support of Afghanistan to bin Laden the difference – especially in terms of democracy - is hardly worth pondering. It has been said that Islamists believe in democracy and electoral participation but only once, if in power they would put an end to democracy immediately thereafter. During the last decade, Islamist parties and candidates have participated in elections in eight Arab countries (Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, and Yemen), always with modest results. These elections suffered from various degrees of government interference, but according to Marina Ottaway and Thomas Caruthers (Foreign Policy) there is no indication that the Islamists would have won in a more open environment.
JIHAD
The word ‘jihad’ in Arabic translates as ‘struggle’. The Arabic implies in a spiritual sense, a quest for virtue. Jihad, however is often used referring to a warrior - ‘mijahid’ – one who struggles to ‘correct’ his soul by engaging in a ‘holy war’. Bernard Lewis stated that ’the overwhelming majority of classical theologians, jurists, and traditionalists understood the obligation of jihad in this military sense’. The motto of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood is ‘dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope’.
Jihadism in the military sense of the term embodies a form of
‘apocalyptic’ thinking’. One of its goal is the genocide of Jews, as in
a well know hadith (oral tradition) ‘when even the rocks and trees will
call out Oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill
him!' Other definitions add Christians as well; 'First the Saturday
people, then the Sunday people.’ Recently some have defined this
‘apocalyptic thinking’ to mean that every Muslim must kill 'a Jew or
Christian to substitute for him in Hell. This has (as noted by Richard
Landes) been interpreted to mean that every Muslim has to kill a Jew or
a Christian in order to be saved. A French-Arab youngster slaughtered
and mutilated a Jew, his neighbor since childhood. He triumphantly
announced to his parents', his hands still bloodied, 'I've killed my
Jew, I can go to Paradise.’
To a Jihadist that which is not pure, that which does not belong to the
kingdom of God, is barbarous and must be destroyed. For Jihadists the
Holy and the Profane are indivisible. Thus any change is a threat to
the whole. To quote bin Laden ‘the conflict is between Two Ways:
the Divine, Perfect Way and the Vulgar, Secular Way.’ This is an
apocalyptic worldview. The second step in this worldview (a Shi’ite
view) is the coming of a messiah figure. Thus the present day fighting
in Iraq is a harbinger of the arrival of the Mahdi, the messiah figure
whose expected return will bring about the final judgment. As noted in
the New York Times (D. Benjamin and G. Weimann) a Shi’ite Imam stated
‘The people will be chided for their acts of disobedience by a fire
that will appear in the sky and a redness that will cover the sky. It
will swallow up Baghdad.’
Jihadists intrinsically believe death to be preferable to life in a
non-Islamic world. Their mission is to create a kingdom of Heaven but
here on Earth. From there perspective the eventuality of death prior to
the total eschatology is an insignificant price to pay. Heaven is after
all the ‘true’ world.
Jihadism is a modern form of totalitarianism challenging traditional
Islam. They are fascists with imperial demands on the rest of the
world. Sayyid Abdul Ala Mawdudi, a Pakistani and the intellectual
mentor of Sayyid Qutb has written, ‘Islam wants the whole earth and
does not content itself with only a part thereof. Islam wants and
requires the earth in order that the human race altogether can enjoy
the concept and practical program of human happiness, by means of which
God has honored Islam and put it above the other religions and laws’.
Jihadism is a modern phenomenon dressed up in traditional garb, both
the Sunni and Shia version. Very few Jihadists base their theology on
traditional Islam. They are according to scholar Oliver Roy ‘a
by-product of westernization and not a backlash against traditional
Muslim cultures . . . they are born again Muslims’. Their training with
few exceptions was not in the madrass’. The majority of the leaders are
western oriented and educated. Sayyid Qutb, the founding theocrat of
the Muslim Brotherhood did not study theology, graduated from an
Egyptian secular University and then engineering in the United
States; bin Laden’s deputy Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri is a medical doctor;
Ramzi Yusuf {of the original 1993 World Trade Center bombing) was an
electronic engineer trained in the U.K., Omar Ahmad Saeed Sheikh who
murdered Daniel Pearl before a video recorder was a born British Muslim
of Pakistani descent, educated in private schools and at the London
School of Economics, Muhammad Atta, the leader of the September 11
bombing was a bright architectural student who resided in Germany, and
the London based high tech expert Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian
with British citizenship, who called the September 11th bombers ‘The
Magnificent Nineteen’ and stated shortly afterwards that we will
replace the Bible with the Qur’an. Bin Laden himself despite issuing
fatwas is not a cleric or a trained theologian but a western oriented
businessman more familiar with money transfers through electronic
technology that Islamic theology. His personal religious ideology
includes a redacted Qur’an, with western technology. According to the
N.Y. Times he now considers himself a diplomat, the elder statesmen of
his borderless Islamic Nation (N.Y.T. Dec.19, 2004).
These men trained in the west are modern and urbanized. They have
developed a modern political ideology based on their version of how to
reconcile ‘Islam’ with the modern world. Their archcompetitors are
capitalism and globalization; not Christianity or Judaism. This was
confirmed by al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood when he
stated that ‘the Muslims are not socialist nor capitalist; they are
Muslims.’
Olivier Roy finds the fundamentalist inspiration to be far more mundane
than spiritual: "For many of them, the return to religion has been
brought about through their experience in politics, and not as a result
of their religious belief”. It may be that the foot-soldiers and
suicide bombers come from the madrass’ but the leaders do not.
According to Iran's current spiritual leader Khamene'i, ‘The Islamic
system that the imam [Khomeini] created . . . has not existed in the
course of history, except at the beginning [of Islam], and does not
exist elsewhere in the world today’. The vast majority of the Shia
Grand Ayatollahs in the twentieth century disagreed with the Kohmeini
theology. In January 1989 Khomeini sent a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev
which asserted the universality of Islam. He stressed the failure of
the communist ideology and implored the Soviet president not to turn
westward to market capitalism for a replacement but to Islam.
The Ayatollah Khomeini who defeated the Shah, the great ‘Satan’s’
representative proved to the potential Jihadists that victory was
possible. In the Iraq-Iran war Khomeini fostered the equation: suicide
death is martyrdom. His successor the Ayatollah Khamenei stated it as
follows: ‘In the Iraq-Iran war, America supported Iraq against Iran.
America has harmed Iran more than anyone else, and it fully deserves
the title ‘The Great Satan’ because it engages in evil, in treachery,
in murder and because it is arrogant. America is also the greatest
supporter of the Zionist regime which has thrown out an Islamic nation
from its homeland.’ (Khamenei translated Qutb’s Arabic texts into
Farsi.)
During the same period of time the Arab fundamentalists (with the help
of the United States) defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. These
two events were the birthstones of Jihadism and bin Laden. Bin Laden as
the self proclaimed child of the Afghanistan war compares himself
loosely to Muhammad and his conquest of the Empires of Eastern
Christendom and Persia as well as Saladin who defeated the Crusader
armies and conquered Jerusalem.
Is Jihad a growth industry? Despite September 11 and with the exception
of Iran twenty five years ago the globalization of Jihadism has not
succeeded and consequently Gilles Kepel suggested they are a dying
beast. That may be why terrorism is their only strategy.
Without being blind to the dangers of militant fundamentalism one needs
to develop an awareness of the practical (although not moral)
distinction between theologies such as those of the Wahhabis as
compared to terrorist groups such as al Qaeda who kill civilians.
Fundamentalists and non-Jihadist Muslim spokesmen all are aware of the
nature of Jihadist revolutionaries as enemies of any prevailing order.
Given the opportunity al Qaeda will destroy their self defined ‘near
enemies’ whether they be in Egypt, Syria, Jordan or Saudi Arabia.
Jihadists consider Islamists as clients of the infidels. It is
imperative to prevent bin Laden's call to arms from bringing those
Islamic fundamentalists into his Jihadist arms and into his
ideological/political battle.
SUICIDE BOMBING
Suicide bombing is as a form of discontent in living; and the asphyxiation of hope.
Eric Hoffer in his classic ‘The True Believer’ wrote that if one sees
life as debased ‘to lose one’s life is but to lose the present and,
clearly, to lose a defiled, worthless present is not to lose much.’ If
one expects virgins in Heaven then surely there may be much to gain.
Humiliation can easily turn into a cult of the pure and the authentic.
A debased world often requires a scapegoat – one to blame instead of
self-blame – the Jews served that purpose in Christian Europe and that
has now migrated to Islam. They were connected to all the precepts of
the enlightenment: secularism (as the prototypical anti-Christ),
cosmopolitanism, education, tolerance, and finance. Anti-Semitism has
more recently become allied and merged with another scapegoat in the
form of anti-Americanism. (It is interesting to note that
according to Ivan Krastec in the Journal of Democracy there is no such
defined word as ‘Americanism’, there is only anti-Americanism. While in
Europe both the right and the left are anti-American there is a
significant difference: the right comes to its anti-Americanism because
of its anti-Semitism; the left come to its anti-Semitism because of its
anti-Americanism.)
As noted in Al Qaeda’s latest Journal for Women ‘We will stand covered
by our veils and wrapped in our robes, weapons in hand, our children in
our laps, with the Qur’ar and the Sunna of the Prophet of Allah
directing and guiding us. The blood of our husbands and the body parts
of our children are the sacrifice by means of which we draw closer to
Allah, so that through us, Allah will cause the Shahada for His sake to
succeed. . . [Our reward will be] the pleasure of Allah and His
Paradise’.
This ideology as noted by Fred Halliday is ‘an extreme case of borrowing; some elements from Sunni Islam, some from Shi’a Muslims, and mixing both with modern nihilism, a cult of extreme heroism, self-sacrifice, anti-globalization rhetoric and nationalism. It is an ideology that thrives on its intoxicating incoherence’ and is based on existential despair. Al Zawahiri developed a new theology justifying suicide bombing and the killing of children called ‘for the greater good of Islam’ (Maha Azzam, ‘Al Qaeda’). This reversed 1,300 years of previous Islamic theology.
One such young man photographed on the Guardian Front Page was wearing a black woolen hood with slits for his eyes, but what was most noticeable was his blue and yellow T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms bearing the logo: SUPER; nothing Islamic about his wear. Kemal Ataturk made the inhabitants of his country remove their fez and scarves to make a political statement. As opposed to the Turks of Ataturk’s reign this young man chose his wear. What political statement are these young men making – a post-modernist statement? What is their religious identity?
It is worth noting that in late December 2004 Sheik Hasson Yussuf, the leader of Hamas in the West Bank stated that ‘God created people to live, not to die.’ This is a remarkable change from the leader of the group that perpetuated the most intentional death from suicide bombing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
How does the Qur’an respond to murder?
‘We ordained for the Children of Israel [for believers] that if any one slew a person - unless [or except] it be for murder or for spreading mischief [or corruption] in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our messengers with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land (5:32).
This appears to be a clear prohibition of murder confirming the importance of every single human being. The problem is that the words ‘unless’ or ‘except’ when combined with the words ‘spreading mischief’ or ‘corruption’ are problematic. The murderers of the Jewish Nicholas Berg claimed; ‘We tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls’ a form of spreading corruption in a Muslim land. This can be a justification for any ‘jihad’ operation.
These men and women were not mentally unbalanced people. They have been called as psychologically normal as you and I. They are certainly not socially dysfunctional. These statements in various forms have been attested to by Jerrold Post, George Washington University; Rona Fields, author of ‘Martyrdom: The Psychology, Theology and Politics of Self Sacrifice’, and of Clark University; Robert Jay Lifton, Harvard and Yale Universities; Ariel Merari, Tel Aviv University; Clark McCauley, University of Pennsylvania; Eyal Serraj, Psychiatrist, Gaza Strip; Barbara Victor, author of ‘Army of Roses’ among many others; Tali Eilam Tzoreff, Ben Gurion University; Anat Berkos, Hertzliya International Policy Institute; Dr. Nancy Korbin, University of Rhode Island and psychoanalyst among others.
Their acts are not suicidal. A suicide is based on individual
pathology. The individual who performs suicide bombing does not commit
suicide; they are involved in a culture of death.
Suicide bombers are not poor and uneducated. 47% have an academic education and an additional 29% have at least a high school education. RAND Corporation economist Claude Berrebi says that in his study of 285 Islamic Jihad and Hamas terrorists killed in action between 1997-2002, he found that ‘they were more educated and wealthier than the average Palestinian.’ 83% of the suicide bombers are single, 64% of the suicide bombers are between the ages 18-23; the rest are under 30 years of age. The leaders as noted above are more educated in fact are western educated, urban and alienated. They of course have never convinced their own children to commit Shahid!
Their parents are with rare exceptions proud of their children’s acts. They consider their deaths to satisfy some sense of ‘honor’. A Palestinian mother of two dead sons (Umm Nidal) stated it doesn't matter to me whether I have two or three Shahid [sons]. [As far as I'm concerned], let all my sons be Shahids. What matters is doing what Allah wills and waging Jihad for the sake of this homeland. This is [Allah's] grace, and we are in the service of the religion and the homeland.’
There communities have developed a culture of death. Sheik Ikremeh
Sabri, the highest ranking cleric in the Palestinian Authority preached
in Al Aqsa mosque ‘They think they scare people. We tell them: In as
much as you love life, the Muslims love death and martyrdom’. He does
not base this upon Islamic theology; it is his culture that is
abhorrent. His culture sees death for what are essentially children –
easier to recruit and indoctrinate - as standing as the appetizer
of a lifetime ending it before it really begins. His ‘they’ who are the
rest of us, accept death as dessert after a lifetime.
The world seems obsessed with the ‘occupied territories’ in Palestine.
Civilian deaths in Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, Chechna, Algeria, Iran-Iraq
and Cambodia far out-way those in Israel/Palestine. Other ‘occupied
territories’ exist in Tibet and Lebanon. Are what can be called the
‘occupied territories’ in Kashmir, given the public nuclear
capabilities of India and Pakistan, the instability of the latter
country with its ‘Islamic bomb’ and its several citizens – including
Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan and his proliferation network - who have already
sold nuclear secrets and components to troublesome characters and
states, their several wars and the numbers of people involved, not more
world dangerous than those in the Israel/Palestine conflict? (President
Pervez Musharraf, despite denying Pakistani government involvement
instantly pardoned Dr. Khan of any crime.) Yet UN resolutions, numerous
conferences, European concerns and subsidies, and American envoys have
focused on the ‘occupied territories’ of Palestine. If one
listened to Arab speakers (and some in the West) one would be led to
believe that Israel is a uniquely evil state and solving the conflict
is an elixir. Is Israel the cause of the Arab democracy and development
deficit? Or is it simply West's most obvious and successful outpost as
was the Crusader kingdom in the 12th century in the same territory?
That is the favorite analogy of bin Laden and al Zawahiri.
Solving the conflict would not solve the problems in the Arab Middle
East. Palestine is not a moral issue but a political lightning rod that
involves Arab oil, Arab global terrorism and fundamentalist violence in
and beyond the Middle East, the importance of Jerusalem to each of the
three monotheistic religions, and Arab anti-Semitism that seem to
resonate in Europe.
Spengler a columnist for the Asia Times Online noted that ‘culture is
the stuff out of which we weave the illusion of immortality ...
Frequently, ethnic groups will die rather than abandon their 'way of
life'. . . assimilation implied abandoning both their past and
their future. Historic tragedy occurs on the grand scale when economic
or strategic circumstances undercut the material conditions of life of
a people, which nonetheless cannot accept assimilation into another
culture. That is when entire peoples fight to the death’ (May 17,
2004). As noted by Christian theologian Richard J. Neuhaus, (The
Naked Public Square) ‘politics is most importantly a function of
culture, and at the heart of culture is religion, whether or not it is
called by that name.’
Culture and religion differ from each other. Religion can and is
intended to purify cultural tendencies. What we have seen represents a
culture of death which has developed for a long period of time in the
Arabic culture. Despite Arabs representing only one fifth of the
Muslim world there influence is unfortunately much greater. The Qur’an
is written in Arabic and all Muslims pray in Arabic. Islam and the
Qur’an do not represent a theology of death; however they have not yet
purified the Arabic culture of its death wish.
DEMOCRATIC REFORM
The dilemma of democratic reform in the Arab countries lies in the fact that autocratic leaders are faced with minimal effective opposition by Parliaments or the Judiciary. This is not surprising in light of the fact that there is a democratic deficit in the culture of the Arab culture. There is a scarcity of organized constituencies demanding political rights. Almost all models of democracy involve the diffusion of power and an organized opposition. The Arab debate over democracy which was constructed in the early twentieth century has dissipated and taken over by the fundamentalists with the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1920s. It may have begun anew recently in reaction to Jihadism and especially the killing of the children in Chechnya. It may no longer be considered ‘freedom fighting’ to kill children!
The intersection between religion and politics may differ in countries
where the majority population is Arabic versus those where the majority
population is Christian. Nevertheless as late as the end of the
nineteenth century Pope Pius IX declared in no uncertain terms in
Vatican I that he could speak infallibly towards Catholics in terms of
religious dogma and he expected total obedience. In direct response the
Catholic Lord Acton uttered his now famous remark that ‘power tends to
corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. In the era of Vatican
II, less than 100 hundred years later very few in the Catholic West
would be constrained by a statement uttered infallibly by a Pope.
Vatican I’s proclamation could never have been approved by the time of
Vatican II. This is how Christianity has evolved; will Islam evolve in
a similar manner?
Confusion exists as to whether Anti-Americanism actually expresses anti
democratic tendencies. As noted by a recent U.S. study "Muslims do not
'hate our freedom', but rather, they hate our policies. The
overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as
one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights,
and the long-standing even increasing support for what Muslims
collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia,
Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states."
A seminar on ‘Islam and Reform’ was held In Cairo (October 5-6, 2004)
More than twenty intellectuals and researchers from the Arab and Muslim
world, Europe, and America declared in a final statement the need for
the implementation of both religious and political reforms.
The seminar focused on three main issues: parameters for reform in
Islam; the potential participation of Islamist groups' participation in
democratic regimes; the expansion of relations between American foreign
policy and nascent pro-democracy groups in the Muslim world.
In the opening speech Dr. Sa'ad Al-Din Ibrahim, Chairman of the Ibn
Khaldun Center For Development Studies in Cairo, said that the plans
for reform "aspire to emphasize that the gates of ‘ijtihad’
(independent or critical thinking as opposed to ‘takid’ based on
judicial precedent) are wide open and that an [intellectual] Jihad must
be waged to keep them open until Judgment Day, as the meaning of this
[keeping the gates of ijtihad open] is the protection of freedom of
thought and expression, not only in religious matters but in all
matters.”
The participants published a final statement which presented the
following resolutions:
1. Islam must adjust to the social transformations of the previous eleven centuries.
2. Reliance must be on the Qur’anic text itself.
3. To correct the understanding of ‘ijtihad’.
4. It recommended dialogue with the West
5. Religious and Political reform need to be done simultaneously..
6. Democracy is a strategic option.
High-Ranking Clerics in the Egyptian Religious Establishment attacked
the seminar and its participants.
The seminar and its recommendations raised the ire of high-ranking
members of the religious establishment in Egypt. The Sheikh of
Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, harshly attacked the seminar and its
participants, and claimed that their call "to confront all institutions
that claim a monopoly over religion" was directed against Al-Azhar. He
is the most important Sunni cleric in the Islamic world and had signed
the Alexandria Document in January 2002 with other religious leaders,
both Christianity and Jewish, stating: ‘We declare our commitment to
ending the violence and bloodshed that denies the right to life and
dignity’.
Tantawi further claimed that voices in the seminar ‘called explicitly
for the disavowal of the Prophet's sunna; Al-Azhar and [Egyptian]
society reject this. . . The participation of Western [research]
centers in a discussion of Islam and its legal sources is a mark of
shame and a disaster which society and its leaders need to prevent...
It is an obligation to forcefully intercede so as to prevent [these]
affronts. This is a group of [religious] deviants, one of whom has
already been indicted on charges of treason; thus it is forbidden to
deal with them and it is an obligation to consider them insignificant
in society.’
Another conference held in Saudi Arabia under the patronage of Crown
Prince Abdullah (Dec. 2003) with sixty participants including Judges,
Clerics, Intellectuals and ten women recommended accelerating political
reform, expanding popular participation, renewal of religious
discussion, freedom of expression, strengthening women’s rights and
improving school curricula.
Imagine the opening up of professorships at King Saud University (or al
Azhar University) in Christianity or Buddhism or even Self-Criticism,
Women’s Studies or Judaism?
Two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and George Malbrunot were
kidnapped by gangsters who sold them to Jihadists in Iraq in mid August
2004. Those Jihadists stated they would behead them unless the French
government rescinded its law prohibiting headscarves in public schools.
They expected the support of millions of French-Muslims. The vast
majority (nearly unanimous according to the media) of French-Muslims
paraded in public and rejected the Jihadist request and stated clearly
‘not in our Muslim name’. On December 21, 2004 the journalists
were finally released. Were the French Muslims aligning
themselves with European democracy rather than with Islamic Jihadism?
Several Arab reformers (Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi, Tunisian intellectual
Al-'Afif Al-Akhdhar, and former Iraqi Minister of Planning Dr. Jawad
Hashem) have recently petitioned the U.N. to establish an international
tribunal which would prosecute terrorists, as well as people and
institutions, including religious clerics, who incite terrorism. It was
a response to a fatwa issued by Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi - a leader
of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. He is one of the most important
religious authorities in Jihadist circles. His fatwa promoted the
abduction and killing of U.S. citizens in Iraq. Other fatwas justified
Sept. 11 and the assassination of Arab intellectuals. Within one month
it was signed by 3,000 Arabs from 25 countries.
Who are these people considering reform? Are they only the Arab elites?
Are, as Tamara Cofman Wittes (‘Arab Liberalism and Democracy in the
Middle East’) stated, Arab Liberals ‘increasingly aging, increasingly
isolated and diminishing in number . . . an endangered species?’ ? How
many of these Arab liberals write in European languages and live
outside the Middle East? Can the West be helpful in empowering both the
Reformers and the Moderate Islamists? Or was George Kennan right when
he said (before Sept. 11) there ‘is no reason to suppose that the
attempt to develop and employ democratic institutions will be the best
for many [non European] peoples (quoted by Samuel Huntington in’The
Third Wave’).
Are democratic interpretations of the Qur’an increasing? Do these
discussions take place in the ‘Arab Street’? The clerical opposition as
noted above is clear. The Middle East's unelected rulers have shown no
inclination to eliminate themselves. Is Islamism or Democracy the
opposition to autocratic regimes? Is Saudi hell better than bin Laden’s
heaven?
Despite the low levels of feelings toward the United States in Arab
countries the United Nations Development Report states that in
virtually every Arab country a majority of respondents would emigrate
to the United States if they had the opportunity.
As Muhammad Shahrour stated in ‘Islam and Reform’ noted above one has
‘to differentiate between the religion and state politics. When you
take the political Islam, you see only killing, assassination,
poisoning, intrigue, conspiracy and civil war, but Islam as a message
is very human, sensible and just.’
Today, political reform may be percolating in the region, amid growing
public frustration over chronic corruption, poor socioeconomic
performance, and a pervasive sense of stagnation.
Freer more liberal societies seem to be emerging worldwide as a result
of the economic advantage created by modernity and globalization with
or without American help. The difference between the theses of Samuel
Huntington and Francis Fukuyama may be more apparent than real.
And Fukuyama (‘The End of History and The Last Man’) may be right about
liberal democracy in the long run.
Perhaps the opposition to the ‘West’ may be the need in the human heart
simply for opposition for its own sake. Should freer more liberal
societies not succeed in the long run and the existing ones fail the
result is likely to be a new darker age.