Author: Warren Ross
Publication: Capitalism Magazine
Date: October 2, 2001
URL: http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1125
Introduction: Whatever doctrines
Islam shares with the other major religions, it is clear that it has distinctive
views that add a powerful incentive and doctrinal justification for mass
murder.
As opposed to at least Christianity
and Judaism in the Western world, Islam is distinguished by the following
six traits:
* Thorough religiousness - Islam
takes all the ideas very seriously. Muslims are called to prayer not just
on Sunday, but five times a day. An entire month of every year is devoted
to fasting. Focus on the other world, determinism, faith, and sacrifice
are not empty phrases but deeply held beliefs, practiced to the point where
they are fundamentally indistinguishable from the culture of the Islamic
countries. Regarding fatalism, for example, "En Sh'Allah" ("God willing")
is one of the most common expressions in the Islamic world. It justifies
a passive acceptance of events, and an unwillingness to take action to
achieve goals to an extent so unknown and so frustrating to Westerners
that one colleague of mine characterized the phrase as the Arab equivalent
of the Mexican "mañana," only without the sense of urgency. One
need only look at how people live in the Islamic countries - shuffling
resignation, grinding poverty, rejection of material values and a continuous
focus on their relationship with Allah - to see that these are people who
take their religion seriously.
* Ambiguity between personal striving
and war - The word "jihad" has multiple meanings in Arabic. In its most
basic meaning, it is a religious duty to spread Islam by waging war. But,
what kind of war?
Encyclopedia Britannica says: "Islam
distinguishes four ways by which the duty of jihad can be fulfilled: by
the heart, the tongue, the hand, and the sword. The first consists in a
spiritual purification of one's own heart by doing battle with the devil
and overcoming his inducements to evil. The propagation of Islam through
the tongue and hand is accomplished in large measure by supporting what
is right and correcting what is wrong. The fourth way to fulfill one's
duty is to wage war physically against unbelievers and enemies of the Islamic
faith."
The equation of "striving" with
conquest over others is a prescription for confusion, at the very least.
Having integrity, living one's views, is made equivalent to killing and
conquest. Is it any wonder that this religion has many practitioners willing
to engage in such killing? If one is brought up with no way to make a conceptual
distinction between integrity and murder, then in principle those two concepts
are the same in the practitioner's mind. One story on Mohamed Atta mentioned
that he had not come from a terrorist family or been a terrorist for his
entire life, but had been a "normal" guy, living an undistinguished life.
He'd had various jobs, seemed middle class. Then he began to attend a Mosque
in Germany that bred terrorists, which turned him into a devoted terrorist.
How could this happen? Whatever else is at the foundation of his odyssey
from "middle class" to terrorist, I'm sure the Imams in the Mosque used
the ambiguity between striving and conquest as part of their brainwashing
in preparation for his taking part in the September 11 attacks.
The terrorist deserves moral condemnation
and retribution for allowing himself to be turned into a killing machine
- no one can claim, "my religion confused me" as an excuse for mass murder.
However, if there ever had been the slightest element of disgust that could
make him recoil from murder, his religion would have made it impossible
to argue why he shouldn't do it. In effect, this religion contains an epistemological
booby-trap at the foundation, which can easily explain how the practitioners
of this religion can move from peaceful to terroristic.
* Emphasis on force - Islam has
a long history of political murder ("assassin" is an Arabic word) and war
as the means of implementing and spreading the religion. Islam was fighting
religious wars centuries before the Crusades. Consider the following from
the Introduction to the Everyman version of the Koran:
"...the capture of Khaybar was part
of a policy of pressure to the north that had started somewhat earlier
and was to be pursued vigorously to the end of Muhammad's life. It was
also to lead to expansion northwards into Syria after his death. It appears
to have been based on two aims: control of strategic routes and direct
contact with northern tribes to convert them to Islam.
"The period from the treaty of al-Hudaybiya
to the death of Muhammad was one of almost total success, the only reverse
being the failure of one of the northern expeditions. Tribes began to send
delegations to Medina to negotiate allegiance to Muhammad. His basic condition
was always that they should become Muslims."
A key point to observe is that whatever
injunctions and protestations for peaceful dealings might be elsewhere
in the religious texts, Islam has a tradition and a mythology thoroughly
imbued with the idea of war as the means of spreading Islam. Judaic texts
contain battles as well, but they are usually defensive battles. Christian
doctrine emphasizes turning the other cheek, and has very little that could
represent a mythology of war.
* Emphasis on martyrdom - Christianity
has its martyrs, but they are usually pitiable creatures who either are
unjustly harmed by brutes or who sacrifice themselves to help others. In
Islam, the rank of martyr, or "'shahid,' comprises two groups of the faithful:
those killed in jihad, or holy war, and those killed unjustly." Hence,
again we see a confusion-filled ambiguity mixing two very different motivations
and results.
The terrorist instruction manual
contains these passages: "How beautiful it is for one to read God's words,
such as: 'And those who prefer the afterlife over this world should fight
for the sake of God.' And His words: 'Do not suppose that those who are
killed for the sake of God are dead; they are alive...' " And from number
3 in the manual: "Read al-Tawba and Anfal [traditional war chapters from
the Qur'an] and reflect on their meanings and remember all of the things
that God has promised for the martyrs. "
* No distinction between personal
views and political organization, no "separation of Church and State" -
As Encyclopedia Britannica says: "Because Islam draws no distinction between
the religious and the temporal spheres of life, the Muslim state is by
definition religious." Adherence to religious law is paramount, and there
is explicit sanction in Islamic doctrine for dictatorship to implement
this adherence: "The first step taken in this direction by the Sunnites
was the enunciation that 'one day of lawlessness is worse than 30 years
of tyranny.' This was followed by the principle that 'Muslims must obey
even a tyrannical ruler.' ... No doubt, the principle was also adopted...that
'there can be no obedience to the ruler in disobedience of God'; but there
is no denying the fact that the Sunni doctrine came more and more to be
heavily weighted on the side of political conformism. "
And those quotes describe the Sunni
wing of Islam, the supposedly moderate side. The Shi'ite wing of Islam
is even more tyrannical, as the theocracy in Iran shows. However, it is
still only a matter of small degree on a scale completely tipped toward
dictatorship. One example is the penalties for attempting to convert a
Muslim from his faith. True, in Afghanistan, the penalty for this crime
is death. Nonetheless, even in the United Arab Emirates, supposedly one
of the most moderate of the Arab states, the penalty is imprisonment (as
a recent case in Dubai demonstrated).
* Thorough hatred of the West -
No one is surprised that the terrorists hate the West. That is the primary
motive for the horrors they commit. Most people, though, cannot believe
the extent to which this view is common in the Middle East. We got a taste
of this hatred when it came out that Arabs all over the Middle East were
dancing in the streets when they saw the World Trade Center attacked. An
example on the TV show "60 Minutes" (which aired an excellent program on
this West-hatred): A well-dressed woman, speaking impeccable English, said
that she was happy about the attack because it showed that America was
no longer untouchable, no longer invulnerable.
Quotes from the terror instruction
manual are horrifying, but they express views common in the Middle East.
From number 15: "All of their equipment and gates and technology will not
prevent, nor harm, except by God's will. The believers do not fear such
things. The only ones that fear it are the allies of Satan, who are the
brothers of the devil...[they] are fascinated with Western civilization,
and have drank the love [of the West] like they drink water." Of course,
hatred of the West is not an explicit tenet of Islam. When the texts of
Islam were written, there was no "West" - Europe was in the Dark Ages.
Nonetheless, hatred of the West as it is today is almost an immediate consequence
of Islam's other views. The philosophy of the West is the exact opposite
of those views.
Whatever doctrines Islam shares
with the other major religions, it is clear that it has distinctive views
that add a powerful incentive and doctrinal justification for mass murder.
All religions have in them the philosophical premises, which could lead
to terror, but not all have supporting doctrines and traditions that make
terror a likelihood. This status is unique to Islam. Nonetheless, the really
important point about what is distinctive to Islam is the first one - its
serious religiousness. All secondary attributes are dispensable in explaining
terror, but Islam's serious adherence to the four primary philosophical
premises of religion, and its implementation of those premises in practice,
would lead to such terrorism even if there had been no tradition of war.
Hatred of the West, for example, is not an isolated premise unrelated to
the four primary premises. Hatred of the West is a consequence of the fact
that the secular West thoroughly rejects such views (notwithstanding the
remnants of a more religious past).
