[iwar] [fc:What.Became.of.Tolerance.in.Islam?]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-09-22 12:31:42
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 12:31:42 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: [iwar] [fc:What.Became.of.Tolerance.in.Islam?]
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COMMENTARY
What Became of Tolerance in Islam?
By KHALED ABOU EL FADL, Khaled
Los Angeles Times, September, 14, 2001.

[Abou El Fadl is an acting professor at UCLA Law School and author of
"Rebellion and Political Violence in Islamic Law" (Cambridge University
Press, 2001)]

Extreme acts of violence and evil such as the recent terrorist attacks
test the mettle and moral depth of societies--the society that is
targeted by the violence and the society that generated it. 

The Japanese stealth attack on Pearl Harbor tested both the aggressor
and the victim.  Pearl Harbor challenged the moral integrity of Japanese
normative values, but it also tested us.  We responded to an extreme act
of aggression with another extreme act: We interned our Japanese
citizens in concentration camps, resulting in deep fissures in our
constitutional and civil rights fabric. 

We do not have a good record when responding to aggression.  As a
society, we tend to vent our anger and hurt at our own citizens and then
spend decades expressing regret and talking about lessons learned. 
Considering the scale of what has been called the second Pearl Harbor, I
fear that there will be an explosion of hate crimes against Muslim and
Arab Americans, both by police and by ordinary citizens.  Anticipating
the backlash, Muslim and Arab organizations have rushed to issue
condemnations of terrorism and hate-motivated violence and have gone to
pains to explain that terrorists who happen to be Muslim do not
represent Muslims at large, Islam or anyone else. 

Nevertheless, the recent terrorist attacks mandate a serious
introspective pause. 

As Americans, we should reflect on our own Middle East policies and the
arrogance by which we deal with the dark-skinned people we collectively
refer to as Arabs.  Muslims, American and otherwise, should reflect on
the state of their culture and the state of the Islamic civilization. 

As a Muslim, I feel that the horror of recent terrorist attacks demands
a serious, conscientious pause.  Terrorism is an aberration, but most
often it is of a particular type, an extreme manifestation of underlying
social and ideological currents prevalent in a particular culture. 
Terrorism is not a virus that suddenly infects the brain of a person;
rather, it is the result of long-standing and cumulative cultural and
rhetorical dynamics. 

In Islamic law, terrorism (hirabah) is considered cowardly, predatory
and a grand sin punishable by death.  Classical Islamic law explicitly
prohibits the taking or slaying of hostages or diplomats even in
retaliation against unlawful acts by the enemy.  Furthermore, it
prohibits stealth or indiscriminate attacks against enemies, Muslim or
non-Muslim.  One can even say that classical jurists considered such
acts to be contrary to the ethics of Arab chivalry and therefore
fundamentally cowardly. 

It would be disingenuous, however, to propose that this classical
attitude is predominant or even that familiar in modern Arab-Muslim
culture.  I like many other Muslims grew up with an unhealthy dose of
highly opportunistic and belligerent rhetoric, not only in the official
media but also at popular cultural venues such as local mosques.  Even
in the U.S., it is not unusual to hear irresponsible and unethical
rhetoric repeated in local Islamic centers or Muslim student
organizations at universities.  It is disheartening to hear contemporary
Arab news agencies, for example, refer to acts of terrorism in neutral
terms such as guerrilla attacks (amal fida'i) and to suicide bombers as
martyrs ( shuhada ). 

All of this begs the question: What happened to the civilization that
produced such tolerance, knowledge and beauty throughout its history? A
lot has happened.  The Islamic civilization has been wiped out by an
aggressive and racist European civilization.  Colonialism and the
expulsion of Palestinians happened.  Numerous massacres against and by
Muslims happened.  Despotic and exploitative regimes have taken power in
nearly every Muslim country.  Most important, however, a dogmatic,
puritanical and ethically oblivious form of Islam has predominated since
the 1970s.  This brand of Islamic theology is largely dismissive of the
classical juristic tradition and of any notion of universal and innate
moral values.  This orientation insists that only the mechanics and
technicalities of Islamic law define morality.  Paradoxically, it also
rejects the classical juristic tradition and insists on a literal
reinterpretation of all Islamic texts. 

Fundamentally, this puritanical theology responds to feelings of
powerlessness and defeat with uncompromising symbolic displays of power,
not only against non-Muslims but also against Muslim women.  It is not
accidental that this puritanical orientation is the most virulent in
flexing its muscles against women and that it is plagued by erotic
fantasies of virgins in heaven submissively catering to the whim and
desire of men. 

This contemporary orientation is anchored in profound feelings of
defeatism, alienation, frustration and arrogance.  It is a theology that
is alienated not only from the institutions of power in the modern world
but also from its own heritage and tradition. 

The extreme form of this puritanical Islam does not represent most
Muslims today.  But there are two ways in which contemporary Muslim
culture, Arab or non-Arab, inadvertently feeds these extreme trends. 
First, since the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the onslaught of
colonialism, Islamic intellectuals have busied themselves with the task
of "defending Islam" by rampant apologetics.  This produced a culture
that eschews self-critical and introspective insight and embraces
projection of blame and a fantasy-like level of confidence and
arrogance.  Second, Muslims got into the habit of paying homage to the
presumed superiority of the Islamic tradition but marginalize this
idealistic image in everyday life. 

Muslim intellectuals justified hijacking airplanes and taking hostages. 
Terrorist attacks such as the 1976 Entebbe operation or the 1972 killing
of Israeli Olympic athletes were justified on purely pragmatic grounds:
How else are we to fight Israeli arrogance and belligerence?

The reality of contemporary Muslims is unfortunate.  Easy oil money,
easy apologetics, easy puritanism, easy appeals to the logic of
necessity have all but obliterated the incentive for introspection and
critical insight. 

Arab and Muslim organizations in the U.S.  are right to worry about hate
crimes and stereotypical projections of Muslims and the Islamic
religion. 

The problem, however, is that Muslims themselves responded to the
challenge of modernity by stereotyping and then completely ignoring
their own tradition.  It is not surprising that some extremists have
taken this tendency to its logical and heinous extreme. 

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