When I hear informed and critical individuals that I
respect rail against Islam –
the religion of a fifth of the human population
– if I
didn’t know better, I might be led to believe that I was hearing some
Bible-thumping fundie preacher assailing “that gutter religion.” We have
come to expect such conduct from bloviators on the right, typified by
FOX News panels. But not from such educated, intelligent and
sophisticated individuals as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Bill Maher
who, in their assault against Islam, have allowed their indignation to
overwhelm their judgment.
Let me be clear: I condemn unequivocally the
barbarism and brutality of ISIS and Al Qaeda. Likewise the brutality of
the Crusades and the Inquisition, and the brutality of the
indiscriminate shelling of Gaza. But none of these atrocities suffice,
by themselves, as adequate reason to condemn, respectively, all of
Islam, Christianity or Judaism.
There is much more to Islam than beheadings, genital
mutilation and holy wars.
Harris, Dawkins, Maher, Hitchens, et al., seem to
believe that from some verses in the Qur’an, we can deduce the behavior
of most of that fifth of the human population that identifies themselves
as “Moslem.” This, of course, is plain nonsense.
Consider: I move into a new home. A realtor tells me,
“this is a diverse neighborhood. The home on the left belongs to a
Moslem. Across the street lives a Jew. To your right is a house formerly
owned by a Christian, but he’s gone now.”
So from this, should I conclude that the guy on the
left has four wives whom you will never see because they wear
“bee-keeper suits?” That his daughters have been genetically mutilated,
and that his son builds suicide vests in the basement? And that the
fellow across the street once had a son, but because the kid was
disobedient he was turned over to the elders and stoned to death
(Deuteronomy 21:18-21), and when his debts piled up he sold his daughter
into slavery (Exodus 21:7) – all according to Holy law of the Torah? And the
Christian? Following the Biblical words of his Lord and Savior that he
sold all that he had and gave it to the poor (Matthew 19:21)? Presumably
he had no pension or savings because he was told in the Bible to “give
no thought to the morrow.” (Matthew 6:34)
The Islamaphobes’ moral condemnation of a billion and
a half of their fellow human beings, on the basis of some verses found
in the Qur’an, is equally ridiculous.
In fact, if I am told that my neighbors are Moslem,
Jewish or Christian, I will know virtually nothing more about them until
I become personally acquainted with them. Is the Moslem a Sunni, a
Shiite, or neither, or is he a non-believing “ethnic Moslem.” Is the Jew
Orthodox, Conservative or Reform, or maybe even an atheist? Is the
Christian a devout Catholic, an evangelical, or a Unitarian?
Recently a guest on Bill Maher’s show identified
himself as a “secular Moslem.” I confess that at first I was puzzled.
Isn’t “secular Moslem” an oxymoron
– like a
“married bachelor”? But then, as I reflected on it, it made
perfectly good sense.
I am personally acquainted with many “secular
Christians.” In fact, I suppose that I am one of them. I totally reject
traditional Christian theology preferring to accept the scientific view
of the universe and the inviolability of physical laws. I firmly believe
that “God” (whatever that word might
mean) had nothing to do with the ancient anthology known as “The
Holy Bible.” I am “Christian” in the sense that I accept, critically,
most of the moral teachings attributed to Jesus (who may or may not have
actually existed). I do so, not because “Jesus said so” or “the Bible
tells me so,” but rather because, after decades of studying, teaching
and writing works in moral philosophy, I have concluded that much of
moral message attributed to Jesus makes sense
– in a word,
it is reasonable, on grounds independent of alleged Divine instruction.
But not all Christian morality makes moral sense to
me. I have no use for what David Hume called “the monkish virtues” such
as celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, solitude, and
least of all, blind faith. I reject these because they are unreasonable
and they violate my moral sense. And as I look at human history, I find
that these “monkish virtues” are the source of untold human misery.
So am I “really” a Christian? Evangelical Christians
would say “no” because I have not accepted Jesus Christ as my personal
savior, and I do not accept without reservation and critical scrutiny,
the moral teachings attributed to Jesus. And yet, when the Mormon Church
claims that there are more than eleven million “Mormons,” they include
me, regardless of the fact that I
effectively left that religion in my teens, and since then have
entered a Mormon church just twice
– in each
case for funeral services for my parents.
So just who is, or is not, a “Moslem”? Is a “secular
Moslem” really a Moslem, if he does not pray five times a day, does not
believe that “there is no God by Allah and Mohammad is his prophet,”
enjoys without a qualm a good ham sandwich with a beer, and selectively
endorses some moral teachings of the Islamic tradition, while rejecting
others? He presumably calls himself a “Moslem” because he was born of
Moslem parents, raised in a Moslem community, and identifies himself
with the culture and traditions of Islam, all the while rejecting the
theological world-view of the religion of Islam. And when some educated
bigots on the opposite side of the Earth, disparage his traditions, he
will defend them.
Recently I searched Google to find out what portion
of the Russian population was Moslem. The answer? About twenty million
(13%). Of these twenty million, I learned, about thirty percent were
“orthodox” and the remainder “ethnic.” Presumably, very few of those
“ethnic Moslems” are inclined to join ISIS or Al Qaeda, strap on suicide
vests, or slice off the heads of “infidel” Christians and Jews.
Yet that “orthodox/ethnic” distinction seems to be
lost on the islamaphobes. “Call yourself a ‘Muslim,’ and we will
conclude that you are a fanatic. After all, it’s all in the Qur’an.”
Sophisticated students and scholars of world
religions understand, as the islamaphobes apparently do not, that “Holy
Scripture” (i.e. the Bible and Qur’an) do not convey unified and lucid
moral messages. Instead, each book is a “cafeteria” of vague and often
conflicting moral teachings. As one wit put it, “the Bible (also the
Qur’an) is like a prisoner of war: torture it enough and you can get it
to say anything.”
Accordingly, the Bible and Qur’an do not instruct
behavior as much as they justify it. Are you a Moslem who is enraged by
the slaughter of over a million of your co-religionists in “the global
war on terror”? If so you will want to strike back. Will the Qur’an
condone this? “Seek and ye shall find.” So in the Qur’an (5:34) , there
is this: “Slay or crucify or cut the hands and feet of the unbelievers,
that they be expelled from the land with disgrace and that they shall
have a great punishment in the world hereafter.”
But also in the Qur’an, there is this: "Even if you
stretch out your hand against me to kill me, I shall not stretch out my
hand against you to kill you," and "if anyone murders an innocent
person, it will be as if he has murdered the whole of humanity."
Orthodox Jews claim that the land of Israel
(including Palestine), was given by God to “the seed of Abraham”
– namely,
the Jews. But the Arabs are traditionally believed also to be “the seed
of Abraham,” through Ishmael, the son of Hagar. But never mind that.,
say the Zionists. “This land is our land.”
In sum: we take from the holy books what we need to
confirm our pre-existing inclinations, and we ignore “inconvenient”
verses. I know of no orthodox Jews who have killed their neighbors for
working on the Sabbath, as instructed in Exodus (35:3). Nor am I aware
of any Christians, outside of Trappist monasteries, who have sold all
their possessions and given to the poor.*
Most significantly, perhaps, the Qur’an teaches
tolerance to Christians and Jews
– “the
people of the book.”
Fanatics in each of the Abrahamic religions have been
unspeakably vicious and cruel to “infidels” under their control. I offer
no excuses whatever for the savage executioners of ISIS and Al Qaeda,
nor for the torturers of the Spanish Inquisition, nor for Israeli
massacre at Sabra and Shatila in 1982.
In contrast. all three religions have provided
examples of righteous compassion and toleration toward members of other
faiths. Both doctrine and history testify that in this regard, Islam
takes the moral prize.
First of all, toleration of Christians and Jews
(“people of the book”), is a central tenet of Islam. The Qur’an
expressly forbids “compulsion in religion.” (2:256) Abraham, Moses and
Jesus are all regarded by devout Moslems as authentic prophets of Allah,
with Jesus second only to Mohammad. On the other hand, neither Judaism
nor Christianity recognize Mohammad as a prophet.
As for history, when the Moslem armies overran Egypt,
they encountered the Coptic Christians, a sect of Christianity older
than Roman Catholicism. The Copts have survived and flourished in Egypt
to this day under Moslem rule.
When Pope Urban II launched the crusades in 1095, a
prominent objective was to drive the “infidel” Moslems from the Holy
places in Jerusalem. When the Moslem warrior Saladin recaptured
Jerusalem in 1185, he allowed Christian pilgrims access to the Holy
sites, a guarantee that endured throughout the Islamic occupation of
Palestine. And when the Jews were driven out of Spain in the fifteenth
century, they found safe refuge in Moslem countries.
In a square in central Damascus stands enduring
evidence of Moslem toleration, for there, side by side, one will find
Christian church, a Jewish synagogue and a Moslem mosque. For centuries,
Christian and Jewish structures and communities have flourished
peacefully throughout the Moslem regions of the world.
From the ninth century through the eleventh, Baghdad
was the pinnacle of civilization. There the sciences flourished, and
ancient historical, literary and philosophical texts were translated and
preserved. The western number system, originally from India, was
refined, and algebra (an Arabic word) was advanced. To this day, most of
the prominent stars above bear Arabic names.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, a much better astrophysicist
than historian, places the blame for the decline of Islamic science and
scholarship on one man: the theologian, Al Ghazzali, who persuaded the
Caliph to ban the teaching of mathematics and science.** Though I
am no historian, this strikes me as much too simplistic. If Al Ghazzali
had a hand in the triumph of Islamic fundamentalism over science and
scholarship, then surely he must have been as much a symptom as a cause
of this cultural defeat. And might not the fall of Baghdad to the Mongol
Hordes in 1258 have had something to do with the end of the Golden Age
of Islamic science?
Whatever the cause, the decline of Islamic
civilization at the hands of religious fundamentalists bears an urgent
warning today, as fundamentalists in Congress and state legislatures
deny science, seek to slash the budgets of the National Science
Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences, and defund the teaching
of science in the public schools and universities.
Even so, the fall of Baghdad did not mark the end of
Islamic civilization. Afterwards, masterpieces of literature and art
were created, as well as architecture, from the Alhambra palace in
Granada (13th century) to the Taj Mahal in India (17th century).
In the 1982
movie, “Laurence of Arabia,” Prince Faisal (brilliantly portrayed by
Alec Guiness) reminds Laurence (Peter O’Toole):
No Arab
loves the desert. We love water and green trees. There’s nothing
in the desert. No man needs nothing...
Or is
it that you think we are a something that you can play with.
Because we are a little people. A silly people. Greedy,
barbarous and cruel.
In the
Arab city of Cordoba there were two miles of public lighting in
the streets when London was a village... Nine centuries ago... I
long for the vanished gardens of Cordoba.
Islamic culture
has left an enduring legacy throughout the world. We would do well to
acknowledge and admire it.
Very well, but
we still have an ongoing struggle with “radical Islam” – ISIS and Al
Qaeda. How might we best deal with these savage fanatics?
Above all, we
do so by separating the fanatics from the vast majority of
Moslems who denounce
the radicals who are besmirching their religion and culture. This
should not be difficult if we recognize, as the islamaphobes apparently
have not,
that most of the victims of radical Islam have been Moslems.
The primary
objective of ISIS and Al Qaeda is to unite all Moslems in a “clash of
civilizations” against the infidel West, and the United States in
particular. The 9/11 attacks and the current atrocities are all directed
toward this end. Implicit in this “clash” is an insistence that “Islamic
civilization” is an undifferentiated monolithic whole.
Tragically, the
islamaphobes have bought it. The aforementioned atheists (Harris,
Dawkins, Hitchens, Maher, etc.), along with evangelical Christians, and
opportunistic demagogues such as Donald Trump, have, by treating Islam
as a unified and malignant dogma, become unwitting allies of the radical
Islamists. Consider, for example, Trump’s proposal to exclude “all
Moslems” from entering the United States.
This
undifferentiated attack on all Moslems threatens to exclude from the
battle against ISIS and Al Qaeda, the most steadfast allies, namely
moderate, “ethnic” and even “secular” Moslems. A “war” against a fifth
of humanity is a “war” that the West cannot win.
Finally, the
islamaphobes relentless attack on the Islamic religion ignores a
compelling lesson of history: religion thrives on persecution and
martyrdom. Caligula and Nero couldn’t defeat Christianity. Seventy years
of “official state atheism” in the Soviet Union did not eliminate
Russian Orthodoxy. When, in 1844, the mobs in Illinois murdered the
Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, and drove the Mormons from their homes and
across the Mississippi River into the wilderness, the Mormons, including
my ancestors, walked across the great plains and over the Rocky
Mountains and established their “Zion,” which continues to thrive to
this day.
Clearly, the
islamaphobes will not destroy Islam by condemning an entire religion and
tradition due to the behavior of a few fanatics. It is far more likely
that they will motivate the “indifferent” (ethnic and secular) Moslems
to defend their traditions. If so, the we will lose the support of
invaluable allies in the fight against the radicals.
And what about
that religion, Islam? We should treat it with tolerance and respect,
acknowledging its contributions to world civilization. As a wise man
once observed, the best way to kill a religion is to feed it to death.
If, as I believe, all dogmatic religions reside on foundations of myths
and ignorance, the best antidote is critical thinking and confirmed
knowledge. No modern industrialized nation can flourish without a
practical acceptance of science. Technology, as applied science,
requires that acceptance. And the methodology and attitude of science –
what Jacob Bronowski called “the habit of truth” – promotes secularism
and erodes religious dogma.
Promote
scientific education and critical thinking, and time, along with
tolerance and patience, will accomplish what the bluster of the
islamaphobes cannot. The Abrahamic religions – Christianity, Judaism and
Islam – will persist, but as “traditions” more than dogmas. In fact, we
have seen this erosion at work ever since modern science arose during
the Renaissance. It is noteworthy that the most secular countries in
Europe, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, all have “official
state churches” which, like their monarchies, are empty traditions.
Perhaps, with the long passage of time, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad will
be regarded as “real” and as relevant as King Arthur, Zeus and Wotan.
Of course this
eventual transition from dogma to myth and folklore is not guaranteed.
The fall of Rome was succeeded by the Dark Ages, and Islamic science
never recovered the excellence that it achieved in tenth century
Baghdad. There is no assurance that Christian fundamentalism, which has
apparently captured the Republican Party in the United States, will not
replace evolution with creationism, historical geology with Genesis, and
Constitutional Law with Exodus, Deuteronomy and Numbers. If science and
secularism are to prevail, they must be steadfastly defended. In this
struggle, education is the most effective weapon.
In sum:
Islamaphobia is wrong, because:
—
It is simplistic – there are many “Islams.” And many
self-identified “Moslems” are non-practicing “ethnics” and
non-believing secularists.
—
It falsely assumes that Moslem behavior follows from the Qur’an.
In fact, the Qur’an (like the Bible) conveys conflicting and
often contradictory messages.
—
Accordingly, islamaphobia is immoral because it attacks innocent
individuals.
—
It is impractical: It undermines the struggle against the
radicals by alienating potential allies in this struggle.
—
It is self-defeating: Persecution and insult provokes resistance
and solidifies the loyalty of individuals to their religions.
The ongoing
attack of the US government and media against ISIS, Al Qaeda and other
radicals is profoundly misguided. It seems that we are more concerned
about not offending the Saudis (who significantly supply the radicals),
and the Turks (who are profiting from sales of oil stolen by ISIS), than
we are about directly engaging the radicals. We alienate potential
allies in Moslem countries which detest the radicals. We steadfastly
refuse to coordinate our attacks against ISIS with the Russians, who are
more threatened by ISIS than we are. Since the 9/11 attacks, Russia has
suffered more losses from terrorist attacks than has the United States.
These include the school massacre at Beslan, the Dobrovka theater
bombing in Moscow, the airliner destroyed over Sinai. Twenty million
Moslems reside in Russia, and in addition along the southern border of
Russia are Moslem states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Most of these Moslems are not immediate threats to Russia. But among
them are a few dangerous fanatics, two of whom planted bombs at the
Boston Marathon..
The United
States and Russia are united by a common enemy – radical Islam. A
recognition of a common enemy was reason enough for the United States
and England to forge an alliance with Josef Stalin. Vladimir Putin is no
Stalin, and he is the democratically elected leader of his country. If,
as some charge, Putin is a thug and a despot, that is the Russians’
problem, not ours.
So what
prevents us from joining Russia in the fight against this common threat?
First of all, we fail to correctly prioritize the threats we face. Second, the American government and media totally
refuse to view the struggle against radical Islam through Russian eyes, preferring instead to restart the Cold War, to
the great satisfaction of the Military/Industrial (add
“Media/Congressional”) Complex. But isn’t Russia a serious threat once
again to our national security? I don’t think so. (But that’s the topic
for another essay)
And so, absent
a radical re-assessment of the threats before us (a re-assessment that
is nowhere in prospect), we will continue to muddle along with talk of a
“clash of civilizations” by intelligent individuals who should know
better. Meanwhile, an effective strategic response is set aside.
As the
philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wisely observed: “A man will be
imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards; as
long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push.”
* Here is “President Jed Bartlet’s” brilliant
takedown of Biblical literalism from “The West Wing.”
** Neil deGrasse Tyson explains
the downfall of Islamic science here: (Re: Hamid al Gazzali, go to
time 3.25. For context, go to 1.20).
