Regular Atlas readers are quite familiar with this subject matter. I have long derided the "moderate Islam" meme as a theory with no basis in reality or history. It's wishful thinking, dangerous and suicidal. Yes, of course there are moderate Muslims -- laspsed, secular Muslims but pious Muslims are jihadis. And while I await a "Vatican 2" in Islam, Fjordman writes his latest essay for Atlas.
Fjordman August 21, 2008
I do not believe that there is such a thing as a moderate Islam, and have been
quite clear about that since I started writing. I disagree with observers such
as Dr. Daniel Pipes on this particular point.
I'd like to say to Pipes that I enjoy much of his work. I have linked to it a
number of times before and intend to do so in the future as well. However, I get
increasingly disturbed by how many people keep repeating the mantra of reaching
out to "moderate Islam" when I have yet to see a single piece of evidence that a
moderate Islam actually exists.
When asked about where to find a moderate
Islam, Daniel Pipes has repeatedly referred to the late Sudanese scholar Mahmud
Muhammud Taha, whose ideas are available in English in the book The
Second Message of Islam. Taha's disciple and translator Abdullahi
Ahmed An-Na'Im, author of the book Toward
an Islamic Reformation, has this to
say about the ideas of his teacher:
"[T]he Medina message is not the
fundamental, universal, eternal message of Islam. That founding message is from
Mecca. So, the reformation of Islam must be based on a return to the Mecca
message. In order to reconcile the Mecca and Medina messages into a single
system, Muslim jurists have said that some of the Medina verses have abrogated
the corresponding earlier verses from Mecca. Although the abrogation did take
place, and it was logical and valid jurisprudence at one time, it was a
postponement, not a permanent abrogation."
Because of this, An-Na'Im
thinks that "The Mecca verses should now be made the basis of the law and the
Medina verses should be abrogated. This counter-abrogation will result in the
total conciliation between Islamic law and the modern development of human
rights and civil liberties. In this sense we reformers are
superfundamentalists."
I have read the books of both Taha and An-Na'Im
closely. I find that their writing sounds better the first time you read it than
it does the second time. For instance, Taha suggests that the reason why
Muhammad and the early Muslims "had to" murder so many people was because these
individuals didn't accept Islam peacefully. Not only does Taha not indicate that
he thinks this was wrong, he describes armed Jihad as a "surgical tool" which
can be used to implement true Islam. He hints that this hopefully won't be
needed now because people are "mature" enough to know that Islam is good for
them and will submit without coercion.
What happens to those who don't
like Islam and have no intention of submitting? Taha doesn't say, but judging
from his writings, he seems to believe that violence is justified against such
people. It is hard to see in what way this is supposed to represent a
"reformist" way of thinking. According to orthodox Islamic theology, Muslims are
not allowed to physically attack non-Muslims unless these have first been
invited to embrace Islam yet have failed to do so, in which case they are fair
game. In other words, Muslims should try to convert people peacefully first and
then start killing them afterwards if they refuse. Taha thus advocates a
traditional concept of Jihad, one not qualitatively different from that espoused
by Jihadist terrorists such as Osama bin Laden.
Although Taha resembles
an apologist for Jihadist violence, he was still considered so unorthodox by
traditional Muslims that he was executed as an apostate. Besides, his ideas are
built on questionable "truths" about the Koran. Consider what the German
professor Christoph
Luxenberg claims in his pioneering work:
"In its origin, the Koran is
a Syro-Aramaic liturgical book, with hymns and extracts from Scriptures which
might have been used in sacred Christian services. In the second place, one may
see in the Koran the beginning of a preaching directed toward transmitting the
belief in the Sacred Scriptures to the pagans of Mecca, in the Arabic language.
Its socio-political sections, which are not especially related to the original
Koran, were added later in Medina. At its beginning, the Koran was not conceived
as the foundation of a new religion. It presupposes belief in the Scriptures,
and thus functioned merely as an inroad into Arabic society."
In other
words, if Mr. Luxenberg is correct, what we now call the Meccan chapters of the
Koran are peaceful precisely because they aren't "Islamic" at all, they are
based on Christian texts. The "authentic" texts related to Muhammad and his
companions, whoever the historical Muhammad really was, are the much more
violent and aggressive chapters we classify as Medinan. This is precisely the
opposite of what Taha and An-Na'Im suggest. From a secular point of view, their
ideas are thus extremely vulnerable to historical criticism, and from an Islamic
point of view, it's difficult to see how their ideas can be
implemented.
After reading through much of the literature on the subject,
I would divide "Muslim reformers" into three categories. The first, and by far
the largest category, consists of liars, opportunists and taqiyya artists;
people who want to infiltrate our societies rather than reform Islam. The second
category consists of people who may be well-meaning but simply don't understand
the issues involved. Irshad Manji, for instance, is not a bad person, but she
just doesn't know very much about Islamic history. The third and smallest
category consists of people who are knowledgeable and genuinely desire reform.
The German-Syrian scholar Bassam Tibi could be placed here. I find some of his
work interesting, but even he is incoherent and unconvincing in presenting the
case for how a moderate Islam should look like.
Where does Taha belong in
this picture? Frankly, I suspect it's among category 1. He is theologically
unconvincing, and some of the passages he writes are outright disturbing if you
read them closely and analyze what he's actually saying. The following quotes,
with page references, are from the book The
Second Message of Islam by Mahmud Muhammud Taha.
Page
74:
"Reciprocity (al-mu'awadah) in
the case of fornication is a fixed punishment (hadd) of either stoning to death or whipping.
Since the fornicator sought easy pleasure without regard for Shari'a, he is made
to suffer pain in order to recover his senses. An individual tends to lean more
towards pleasure than towards pain. By pulling the self to pain, when it
succumbs to prohibited pleasure, he reestablishes a certain equilibrium and
avoids recklessness and folly. The fixed punishment for drinking alcohol is
based on the same principle. A person who takes alcohol wishes to numb his mind,
thereby trying to escape reality. The pain of whipping is intended to bring him
back to face bitter reality, so that he may use his clear mind to improve this
reality."'
Page 75:
"Islam, in its essence, is not a religion
according to the common meaning of the word, but rather a science, its dogma
being merely transitional to its scientific stage."
Page 130:
"We have
said that the Qur'an was divided between al-iman and al-islam, as well as being revealed in two
parts as Meccan and Medinese. The Meccan Qur'an was revealed first. In other
words, people were invited to adopt Islam [in the ultimate sense] first, and
when they failed to do so, and it was practically demonstrated that they were
below its standard, they were addressed in accordance with their
abilities."
My comment: What Taha
means by this quote, as he makes clear in other passages, is that Muslims during
the early Mecca phase invited people to accept Islam. When some of them refused
to do so, Muslims had the right to start killing people and force them to accept
Islam. Taha indicates that this principle should apply now, too. He also makes
it perfectly clear that his definition of "freedom" is identical with sharia,
and that those who abuse their freedom by not living according to sharia should
face armed Jihad until they do. It's for their own good.
Page 134:
"In
this way, all the verses of persuasion, though they constitute the primary or
original principle, were abrogated or repealed by the verses of compulsion
(jihad). This exception was necessitated
by the circumstances of the time and the inadequacy of the human capability to
discharge properly the duty of freedom at that time."
"Some Muslim
scholars believe that Islamic wars were purely defensive wars, a mistaken belief
prompted by their keenness to refute claims by the Orientalists that Islam
spread by means of the sword. In fact, the sword was used to curtail the abuse
of freedom. Islam used persuasion for thirteen years in propagating its clearly
valid message for the individual and the community. When the addressees failed
to discharge properly the duties of their freedom, they lost this freedom, and
the Prophet was appointed as their guardian until they came of age. However,
once they embraced the new religion and observed the sanctity of life and
property, and the social claims of their kith and kin, as they had been
instructed, the sword was suspended, and abuses of freedom were penalized
according to new laws. Hence the development of Islamic Shari'a law, and the
establishment of a new type of government. In justifying the use of the sword,
we may describe it as a surgeon's lancet and not a butcher's knife. When used
with sufficient wisdom, mercy, and knowledge, it uplifted the individual and
purified society."
Page 135:
"Suffering death by the sword in this
life is really an aspect of suffering hell in the next life, since both are
punishments for disbelief. Whoever adds to his own disbelief by inciting others
to disbelief or to shun the path of God must be suppressed before he takes up
arms in the cause of disbelief."
Page 136:
"Islam's original principle
is freedom. But the Islamic religion was revealed to a society in which slavery
was an integral part of the socioeconomic order. It was also a society that was
shown in practice to be incapable of properly exercising its freedom, and
therefore its individual members needed guidance; hence the consequent enactment
of jihad. In Islamic jihad, the Muslims first had to offer to the
unbelievers the new religion. If they refused to accept it, they had the second
option of paying jizyah and living under
Muslim government, while practicing their own religion and enjoying personal
security. If they also refused the option of jizyah, the Muslims would fight them and if
victorious take some of them as slaves, thereby adding to the number of those
already in slavery."
"If an individual is invited to become the slave of
God but refuses, such refusal is symptomatic of ignorance that calls for a
period of training. The individual prepares to submit voluntarily to the
servitude of God by becoming the slave of another person, thereby learning
obedience and humility, which are becoming of a slave. Reciprocity (al-mu'awadah) here rules that if a free person
refuses to become the slave of God, he may be subjugated and made the slave of a
slave of God, in fair and just retribution: 'And whoso does an atom's weight of
evil will also see it.' (99:8)"
My
comment: The above passage is one of the most disturbing quotes from the
entire book. Taha was from the Sudan, a country where chattel slavery is still
being practiced today. If Taha had said that slavery once existed in most human
societies, I could perhaps have accepted that. But he goes further than that. He
indicates that slavery can in fact be morally
good because it is a "training period" for becoming a slave of Allah, as
all human beings should be. Let's imagine for a moment that Mr. Taha had been a
white Christian, not a black Muslim. What if, say, Robert Spencer in his next
book stated that slavery in the United States was good because it taught the
slaves obedience and humility. Does anybody believe he would then have been
hailed as a great example of a moderate and tolerant Christianity? Somehow, I
doubt it. But there is apparently nothing "extremist" about supporting slavery
if you are a Muslim. Extremists are nasty Islamophobes such as Geert
Wilders.
Page 149:
"Being so supreme, Islam has never been achieved by
any nation up to the present day. The nation of muslimin has not yet come. It is
expected to come, however, in the future of humanity."
My comment: Apart from sharia, Taha likes
Communism, but he thinks the road to perfect Communism goes through sharia.
Sharia is the key to global equality, eternal peace and warm apple pie. Unless
they have banned warm apple pie by then, I don't know whether it's halal or not.
It could be part of a Zionist plot:
Page 155-156:
"The key here is
that no one should be allowed to own anything that permits the exploitation of
one citizen's labor to increase the income of another. Individual ownership,
even within such narrow boundaries, should not be ownership of property as such,
but rather ownership of the benefits derived from property, and all property
remains in the ownership of God and the community as a whole. As production from
resources increases, the equity of distribution is perfected, and differences
are reduced by raising both minimum and maximum incomes. But the gap between
minimum and maximum incomes is gradually narrowed in order to achieve absolute
equality. When such absolute equality is achieved through the grace of God, and
as a result of abundant production, we shall achieve communism or a sharing of
the earth's wealth by all people. Communism thus differs from socialism in
degree, in the sense that socialism is a stage in the development towards
communism. The Prophet experienced ultimate communism"
Page
156-157:
"…as the Prophet said, 'Justice shall fill the earth in the same way
it was previously full of injustice.' This is what Marx dreamed of, but failed
to find the way to achieve. It can only be achieved by al-muslimin who are yet to come, and then the
earth shall enjoy a degree of fulfillment of the verse: 'The God-fearing are in
gardens and springs. They will be told: Enter therein, in peace and security. We
cleansed what was in their breasts of hatred, so they became brothers sitting
together, never to feel hardship or be removed therefrom.' (15:45-48) This is
the degree of communism to be achieved by Islam with the coming of the nation of
muslimin, whence the earth shall light
up with the Light of its Lord, and God's Grace is conferred upon its
inhabitants, when there shall be peace, and love shall triumph."
All
things summed up, I agree with Daniel Pipes: Mahmud Muhammud Taha is indeed an
interesting case, but for precisely the opposite reason of what Mr. Pipes
claims. Taha supports the idea of slavery on a moral basis, not just as an
historical fact. "Freedom" is identical with sharia and being a slave of Allah.
Those who don't want to accept Islam or Islamic rule should face armed Jihad,
and the sword should be used as a "surgical tool" to cut them off from the body
of society. And this is moderate…..how, exactly?
If Taha is the great
hope for a moderate Islam, we can conclude that a moderate Islam supports
slavery, stoning people to death for adultery, whipping those who enjoy a glass
of wine or beer and massacring those who disagree with the above mentioned
policies. Taha openly supported many of the most appalling aspects of sharia,
yet was still considered so controversial that he was executed as an
apostate.
The story of Mahmud Muhammud Taha is the ultimate, definitive
and final proof that there is no moderate Islam. There never has been and there
never will be. It's a myth. We should not base our domestic or foreign policies
on the existence of a moderate Islam just like we should not base them on the
existence of other mythical creatures such as the yeti or the tooth
fairy.
It is unpleasant to conclude that Islam cannot be reformed. I
don't like it either, and would much have preferred a different answer. But I
see no practical indications that a tolerant Islam is emerging and have great
difficulty in envisioning how such an entity could look like. There are several
ways Islam could conceivably be reformed, yet none of them are very likely to
succeed.
I have reviewed
and criticized
Irshad Manji's work before. Although she never says so explicitly in her
book, I get the impression that Manji largely agrees with the mantra that
"Islam is whatever Muslims make of it." I don't share this view. Why do those
who behead Buddhist teachers in Thailand, burn churches in Nigeria, persecute
Hindus in Pakistan or blow bombs in the London subway always "misunderstand"
Islamic texts? Why don't they feel this urge to kill people after reading about,
say, Winnie the Pooh?
If any text was infinitely elastic, we could
replace the Koran with any other book and get the same result. That's obviously
not the case. If you have a text that repeatedly calls for killing, death and
mayhem, more people are going to "interpret" this text in aggressive ways. Islam
is the most aggressive and violent religion on earth in practice because its
texts are more aggressive than those of any other major religion, and because
the example of Muhammad is vastly more violent than that of any other religious
founder. If you retur
