The problem with the Anti-Islamism-ists

Last updated on: January 17, 2016 at 9:51 am by Jane the Actuary

The problem with the Anti-Islamism-ists 2016-01-17T09:51:49-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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One article after the next, in such places as National Review, repeats the message: Islam is not a “religion of peace” but it is the very nature of Islam and its scriptures (both the Qu’ran and the hadith) to be intolerant, to seek expansion by violent means, to treat women unjustly, to sow hatred towards non-believers, etc.

Here’s an example from just today: “The Problem with Islam Is Aggressive Scripture, Not Aggressive ‘Traditionalism’” by Andrew C. McCarthy. Repeating a theme he’s expounded elsewhere, he says that the aggressive, intolerant Islam we see is not just a matter of a few bad apples perverting Islamic doctrine, but comes directly from Islamic doctrine itself. Referring to an article by a Cheryl Bernard (link here, and it’s actually a pretty good article), he says

Alas, they [undesirable elements of Islamic culture] are direct consequences of Islamic scripture and sharia, the law derived from scripture. She can’t go there. She wants Islam to be moderate, but its scriptures won’t cooperate. She must rely on tradition and culture because traditions and cultures can and do evolve. Scripture, by contrast, does not — not in Islam as taught by over a millennium’s worth of scholars and accepted by untold millions of Muslims. Mainstream Islam holds that scripture is immutable. The Koran, the center of Islamic life, is deemed the “uncreated word of Allah,” eternal. (See, e.g., Sura 6:115: “The Word of thy Lord doth find its fulfillment in truth and justice: None can change His Words: For He is the one Who heareth and knoweth all.”) . . .

Doctrine is the answer to virtually every immoderate instance of aggressive “traditionalism” Bernard complains about: the separation of men from women in the mosque, and the decidedly poorer accommodations (“often unacceptable and even insulting,” as Bernard describes them) to which women are consigned; the separation of the sexes in work and social settings; the instructions not to trust or befriend “unbelievers”; the admonitions to resist adopting Western habits and developing loyalty to Western institutions. There is scriptural support for every one of these injunctions.

And, to be sure, he’s right. Muslims who support polygamy, veiling/covering of women, and more, find support not just in obscure verses in the Qu’ran but in the normative interpretation, as well as hadiths (stories of the life and sayings of Muhammad, considered as authoritative as the Qu’ran itself) accepted as authentic universally across Islam.

But if that’s true, well, what’s the solution? It’s a dead end.

It provides no answer other than to seek to quarantine the Islamic world, cordon it off, keep their destructive notions from contaminating the rest of the world. And that’s not even a solution anyway — both due to the pre-existing immigration of Muslims to the West, and the globalization of the world.

Or perhaps we imagine that this knowledge that Islam is fundamentally a seriously flawed religion, in its very nature, means that individual Muslims should abandon their faith, in favor of another religion or none at all. Not gonna happen.

No.

The answer is this: there is a true “moderate Islam” that says — based on my reading of moderate Muslims (see here, here, and here) — “at its core, Islam is about a merciful God and the equality of all; any part of the Qu’ran which appears to contradict this is either being misinterpreted, its original meaning being lost in the old Arabic it’s written in and an unknown context, or was intended as a temporary concession to the patriarchal Arab world Muhammad inherited.”

The “Sword Verses,” for instance, that Islamists use to justify attacking infidels? The reformers say those were about self-defense. (Were they really about self-defense? It doesn’t matter, does it? All that matters is that the reformers believe it, and perhaps might persuade other Muslims of such.)

And there are plenty of Muslims who believe this. They’re just not organized into a community — which prevents them from spreading their message. Bernard’s article describes moderate Muslims who are misfits in their mosques, and simply walk away, saying their prayers at home, rather than getting involved in building a community of fellow-believers.

Hence, the only path forward that I see is for us, that is, both the American government, and we, as individuals, to support these “reformers” (both those who see themselves as reformers, and those who quietly go about their day without engaging in the discussion), help them build a community, and give them the tools they need to counter the Saudi money that’s spreading the extremist message.

True, they may be small in numbers. But giving them a voice is the only way forward that I can see.

Either that, or persuading them all to come home to Judaism, in an alternate-history sort of way.

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