The label of Catholic terror
was never used about the IRA
Fundamentalism is often a form of
nationalism in religious disguise
Karen Armstrong
Monday July 11, 2005
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1525714,00.html
Last year I attended a conference in the US about security and
intelligence in the so-called war on terror and was astonished to hear one of
the more belligerent participants, who as far as I could tell had
nothing but contempt for religion, strongly argue that as a purely practical
expedient, politicians and the media must stop referring to "Muslim
terrorism". It was obvious, he said, that the atrocities had nothing to do
with Islam, and to suggest otherwise was not merely inaccurate but
dangerously counterproductive.
Rhetoric is a powerful weapon in any conflict. We cannot hope to
convert Osama bin Laden from his vicious ideology; our priority must be to
stem the flow of young people into organisations such as al-Qaida,
instead of alienating them by routinely coupling their religion with immoral
violence. Incorrect statements about Islam have convinced too many in
the Muslim world that the west is an implacable enemy. Yet, as we found
at the conference, it is not easy to find an alternative for referring
to this terrorism; however, the attempt can be a salutary exercise that
reveals the complexity of what we are up against.
We need a phrase that is more exact than "Islamic terror". These acts
may be committed by people who call themselves Muslims, but they violate
essential Islamic principles. The Qur'an prohibits aggressive warfare,
permits war only in self-defence and insists that the true Islamic
values are peace, reconciliation and forgiveness. It also states firmly
that there must be no coercion in religious matters, and for centuries
Islam had a much better record of religious tolerance than Christianity.
Like the Bible, the Qur'an has its share of aggressive texts, but like
all the great religions, its main thrust is towards kindliness and
compassion. Islamic law outlaws war against any country in which Muslims
are allowed to practice their religion freely, and forbids the use of
fire, the destruction of buildings and the killing of innocent civilians
in a military campaign. So although Muslims, like Christians or Jews,
have all too often failed to live up to their ideals, it is not because
of the religion per se.
We rarely, if ever, called the IRA bombings "Catholic" terrorism
because we knew enough to realise that this was not essentially a religious
campaign. Indeed, like the Irish republican movement, many
fundamentalist movements worldwide are simply new forms of nationalism in a
highly
unorthodox religious guise. This is obviously the case with Zionist
fundamentalism in Israel and the fervently patriotic Christian right in the
US.
In the Muslim world, too, where the European nationalist ideology has
always seemed an alien import, fundamentalisms are often more about a
search for social identity and national self-definition than religion.
They represent a widespread desire to return to the roots of the culture,
before it was invaded and weakened by the colonial powers.
Because it is increasingly recognised that the terrorists in no way
represent mainstream Islam, some prefer to call them jihadists, but this
is not very satisfactory. Extremists and unscrupulous politicians have
purloined the word for their own purposes, but the real meaning of jihad
is not "holy war" but "struggle" or "effort." Muslims are commanded to
make a massive attempt on all fronts - social, economic, intellectual,
ethical and spiritual - to put the will of God into practice.
Sometimes a military effort may be a regrettable necessity in order to
defend decent values, but an oft-quoted tradition has the Prophet
Muhammad saying after a military victory: "We are coming back from the
Lesser Jihad [ie the battle] and returning to the Greater Jihad" - the far
more important, difficult and momentous struggle to reform our own
society and our own hearts.
Jihad is thus a cherished spiritual value that, for most Muslims, has
no connection with violence. Last year, at the University of Kentucky, I
met a delightful young man called Jihad; his parents had given him that
name in the hope that he would become not a holy warrior, but a truly
spiritual man who would make the world a better place. The term jihadi
terrorism is likely to be offensive, therefore, and will win no hearts
or minds.
At our conference in Washington, many people favoured "Wahhabi
terrorism". They pointed out that most of the hijackers on September 11 came
from Saudi Arabia, where a peculiarly intolerant form of Islam known as
Wahhabism was the state religion. They argued that this description
would be popular with those many Muslims who tended to be hostile to the
Saudis. I was not happy, however, because even though the narrow,
sometimes bigoted vision of Wahhabism makes it a fruitful ground for
extremism, the vast majority of Wahhabis do not commit acts of terror.
Bin Laden was not inspired by Wahhabism but by the writings of the
Egyptian ideologue Sayyid Qutb, who was executed by President Nasser in
1966. Almost every fundamentalist movement in Sunni Islam has been
strongly influenced by Qutb, so there is a good case for calling the violence
that some of his followers commit "Qutbian terrorism." Qutb urged his
followers to withdraw from the moral and spiritual barbarism of modern
society and fight it to the death.
Western people should learn more about such thinkers as Qutb, and
become aware of the many dramatically different shades of opinion in the
Muslim world. There are too many lazy, unexamined assumptions about Islam,
which tends to be regarded as an amorphous, monolithic entity. Remarks
such as "They hate our freedom" may give some a righteous glow, but
they are not useful, because they are rarely accompanied by a rigorous
analysis of who exactly "they" are.
The story of Qutb is also instructive as a reminder that militant
religiosity is often the product of social, economic and political factors.
Qutb was imprisoned for 15 years in one of Nasser's vile concentration
camps, where he and thousands of other members of the Muslim
Brotherhood were subjected to physical and mental torture. He entered the camp
as
a moderate, but the prison made him a fundamentalist. Modern
secularism, as he had experienced it under Nasser, seemed a great evil and a
lethal assault on faith.
Precise intelligence is essential in any conflict. It is important to
know who our enemies are, but equally crucial to know who they are not.
It is even more vital to avoid turning potential friends into foes. By
making the disciplined effort to name our enemies correctly, we will
learn more about them, and come one step nearer, perhaps, to solving the
seemingly intractable and increasingly perilous problems of our divided
world.
Karen Armstrong is author of Islam: a Short History
karmstronginfo@btopenworld.com