Friday, October 22, 2010

Islam

This is the third of three articles about the monotheistic religions.

It is customary to emphasize that not all Muslims are extremists, that only a small minority are active in terrorism against Western targets. But, this largely misses the point, yes there are millions of peaceful Muslims, but one must take into account the aspects of Islam that distingushes it from other religions and that drive so many of its adherents to take violent action against others. This is not, of course a purely Islamic characteristic, Christianity was marked by the use of extreme violence against supposed heretics and Jews. And then of course there were the hundred years of Catholic-Protestant wars during which torture and killing were commonplace. However, that is in the past, while the violent phase of anti-Western Islam is resurgent.

Islam as a religion was founded in war and violence. Mohammed led an army to conquer his doubters in Arabia and forced them to accept belief in his religion or die, and many of those murdered were Jews. He never claimed to be a "god" but only the messenger of God (for further details see "No god but God" by Reza Aslan). However, as Islam developed, it required absolute submission to the revealed word of God as seen through the interpretations of the Caliphs, who were both the temporal and religious rulers of all Sunni Islam. Of course, the Shia disputed the authority of the Caliphate and so became a heretical minority.

It is not widely known that the Koran consists of hundreds of sura or chapters supposedly dictated by God to Mohammed. There is no doubt that the "stories" in the Koran were greatly influenced by Mohammed's interactions with Jews during his travels in Arabia (Medina means "state" in Hebrew). The earliest sura chronologically were the shortest and the later ones were the longest. Since the later ones were supposed to replace the earlier ones if there were any contradictions (how could that have been possible), and since the exact chronology was unknown, during the hundred or so years after Mohammed, the sura were arranged into the Koran in order of length, the longest first. While this doesn't give a coherent development of the religion, it doesn't matter, since all Muslims are required to learn the Koran by heart in Arabic, even if that is not their native language and they can't actually understand it (see for example "The trouble with Islam," Irshad Manji; "The Islamist," Ed Husain).

The problem is that while Islamic extremists or Islamists actually carry out violent acts in the name of Islam, most Muslims accept the same basic principles that they do, namely that Mohammed was the "seal" of the prophets (i.e. the final and most perfect one), that Islam is the only acceptable faith, that all non-believers or infidels must accept Islam (or die) and that Islam is predestrined to take over the whole earth. Of course they all believe that sharia law, Islamic law developed in the Sunni tradition, is required to be the law system in every country. All Muslims subscribe to the belief that there is the region of Islam (dar al-salam) and there is the region of war (dar al-harb) and the former must overtake the latter. Thus, they all believe in jihad, the necessity to take up arms against all infidels, and note that jihad has never meant a "spiritual" struggle, but always a military struggle (see "Jihad: Islamic holy war and the fate of non-Muslims" by Andrew Bostom). I challenge anyone to find a believing Muslim who does not accept these precepts, and so there is not much basis for "moderate" Islam.

All the voices of modern Islam are strident and anti-Western (see "Voices of resurgent Islam" John Esposito). But, Islam has failed as a system to develop economically, the Muslim world is the second most backward after Africa, with low levels of literacy and terrible treatment of women. Punishments and attitudes are often primitive and there is nothing attractive for a Western person, except for some individuals with a tendency towards extremism and violence. Yes, there is more to Islam than merely violence, but it is impossible to separate Islam from its violent background and political ambitions.

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