From the AP:
It’s becoming known as the war of the fatwas: the dizzying exchange of proclamations between Islamic moderates and militants on what it means to be Muslim. The duels have been waged everywhere from pamphlets to cyberspace.
Now some Muslim leaders seek to shift tactics against radicals. Their hope rests in one of Islam’s most elemental questions: Who has the real authority to make religious rulings and other interpretations of the faith?
Proposals to sharply control the issuing of fatwas  the nonbinding edicts on Muslim life, law and duties  are still little more than loose concepts and would require potentially stormy challenges to Islam’s traditions of decentralized leadership.
But there are some influential backers such as Jordan’s King Abdullah II. They argue that bold changes are needed in Islam’s hierarchy to isolate radical clerics and discredit terrorist leaders, including Osama bin Laden, who have used self-styled religious decrees to justify their views and actions.
Abdullah, who brought his anti-terrorist message to Athens last week, has appealed for moderate Muslims to take decisive control over fatwas and religious guidance. In early December, Abdullah told the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference that failure to establish a clear framework to interpret Islam leaves the door open for radicals to strengthen their ranks.
The summit in Mecca, Saudi Arabia  Islam’s holiest site  wrapped up with a statement reinforcing that only “those who are authorized” can issue fatwas. The monarchs, prime ministers and other delegates, however, could reach little common ground on a proposal to give a single body of Islamic law experts greater oversight of all fatwas covering the Muslim world.
It was a sample of the huge religious and political complications that stalk any efforts to change the centuries-old fatwa practices.
Islamic scholars say it would require a fundamental shift away from Islam’s traditions that spread religious authority far and wide rather than under a single leader or institution. Some powerful centers of Islamic learning, such as Egypt’s Al-Azhar University, also resist reforms that could diminish their theological voice.
“Religious authority is in the eyes of the beholder and not anywhere else,” said Abdullahi An-Na’im, an expert in Islamic law at Emory University in Atlanta. “This reality has not changed in 15 centuries of history, and will not change now.”
But now there’s the Internet and other ways to spread messages to mass audiences  which some commentators have dubbed “the war of the fatwas.”
One of the most infamous salvos was the February 1998 “fatwa” by bin Laden and followers that called on Muslims to “kill the Americans and their allies.” It’s been blamed for inspiring some of the most staggering terrorist strikes, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Other militants increasingly have followed suit with fatwa-style declarations of their own  including statements attributed to terrorist chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the alleged mastermind of the Nov. 9 hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan, that killed 60 people.
Moderates clerics initially were slow to react to the radical fatwas. But now there’s a potent counterattack.
In March, Spain’s Muslim leaders issued a fatwa condemning al-Qaida on the anniversary of the 2003 train bombings that claimed 191 lives. A similar anti-terrorist fatwa was made by Britain’s largest Sunni Muslim group following the July attacks that killed 52 commuters.
Jordan announced in December it will prosecute clerics who promote violence or issue fatwas without state permission, becoming the latest Muslim nation seeking to muzzle radical Islam.
“The fatwa, unfortunately, has become a tool of terrorists,” said Abdulssalam Al-Abbadi, Jordan’s former religious affairs minister. “We cannot keep having two versions of Islam: the correct and moderate views and the violent and extremists views. It’s tearing apart the faith.”
So long as religious authority remains in the eye of the beholder—and Islamic tradition dictates this be the case, as Professor An-Na’im notes—the best way to combat the religious edicts of radical Islamic leaders is precisely for moderate Muslim religious leaders to counter those edicts with fatwas of their own that condemn radicalism and denounce terrorism as an illegitimate tool at odds with the dictates of the faith.
The spread of freedom, which corresponds with a liberalization of speech, could provide just such a conduit for the weakening of radical Islamism—the appeal of which (beyond its propensity to scapegoat) is that it is often able to stifle opposing views and assert its dogmatism unchallenged. Already in the Muslim world we’ve seen a significant shift in attitude toward the US (Pakistan is a recent example). And it could just be that the foreign policy realism of the last 50 years—a strategy for dealing with the region that promoted stability at the expense of spreading liberty and reform—will prove to be the single biggest long-term security blunder the US ever made.
Bush, Rice, the neocons, et al, have argued that a drastic and forceful change in policy is the only way to guarantee our long-term security against the growing threat of a massive attack on the west; that modern travel and technology has made the world much smaller and the likelihood of a catastrophic attack much greater.
The new policy is certainly a gamble—and has been resisted as such by many of our western allies, as well as the paleocons and liberals right here at home (each for their own reasons, some of which are ideological, others of which are purely opportunistic, one suspects). But it is a gamble that many of us believe was worth taking, particular in the aftermath of 911, which could have been far worse and which the Bushies believe augured the beginning of an escalation by an enemy who had grown increasingly emboldened by our unwillingness to act against them in a forceful manner.
The early results are mixed—particularly if you go by nothing more than the mainstream media accounts of the project—but the signs are promising, and there can be little doubt that a US that remains strong and resolved upsets the status quo and frightens the middle east orthodoxy.
Is it any wonder the Mullahs are so worried about the tools of western liberalism?
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related.
(h/t Allah and Allah)
Great post, Jeff. While I can certainly sympathize with the desire of the powers-that-be to muzzle the radicals, this is really nothing more than a power-grab; the latest in a long line. Actually, I think Abdullah’s heart is in the right place, but his premises are misplaced. It really is going to be, ultimately, a battle of ideas, and we need our ideas out there battling with the ideas of the reactionary Islamists. (and the reactionary Leftoids, for that matter!)
Daniel Pipes sent a mailing today arguing that our efforts to bring media outlets to the Middle-East are ‘old war’ and won’t work, as the Arabs/Muslims are only interested in their media outlets. He sites examples, but falls into a typical fallacy: examples are not proof; only examples demonstrating your bias.
I strongly believe what Stephen Green argued several weeks ago, that we have to keep disseminating the ideas that Western society is based upon. It is a media war, and we need to take the offensive in a big way. The more our ideas get out there, the more the moderate Imams will side with us and take the fight to the radicals. It is a crucial battle for time: will we influence enough people quickly enough to cut short the devastating attacks that are germinating in sick minds right now? I sure hope so.
Wouldn’t it be cool if we were witnessing what in 100 years will be called the beginning of the Islamic world’s Enlightenment period? Wouldn’t it be cool if toleration for religious and intellectual diversity were incipient? Maybe it would even spread to American academia.
By Golly, it’s the Bushgeist of our time!
Interesting that in some ways, a decentralized faith proves more dangerous than one organized under a single central authority a la Romanized Christianity–despite the fact that the large centralized church seems better positioned to amass worldly power. A Muslim equivalent of the Vatican would make the current war far easier to fight–not to mention the moderating/accommodating effect which a more centralized, hierarchical ‘church’-like and less sectarian structure tends to have on theology.
We have already had fatwas condemning “terrorism” from supposedly moderate Muslims and all of them were proven to be false because they still considered Israeli civilians legitimate targets. What we need is a fatwa condemning JIHAD, but that won’t happen for the same reasons we won’t see a fatwa condemning wife beating.
The best route we should take with the Muslim world is demoralizing Islam, not radical Islamism, that way we will have less problems. It would be far better to isolate Muslim countries from the West by taking away all the foreign aid they are receiving (read: jizya), and restrict access of Western products and Western education and let them stew in their own juices until they figure out themselves that Islam is failed ideology.
Daniel Pipes is right. Selling the our ideas to the Muslim world, like Karen Hughes has been doing, will not work and it may even backfire. Most Muslims hate America with a passion, and although they envy our wealth they do not envy our habits or “democracy”. To the average Muslim in the Muslim world, Islam is everything and they are discouraged from imitating the infidels by their imams. If we are going to wage a propaganda war, let’s focus on demoralizing Islam by calling into question the truthfulness and efficacy of the ideology. Hopefully, many Muslims will choose to leave Islam and that will be bode well for both parties, us and the Muslims.
We should take off the PC gloves and stop treating Islam with sensitivity and respect. It is not just another religion much like how Communism was not just another economic model.
*sigh* The author of the article is correct in that hopes in some centralized authority may be misplaced. The only way I can see this happening is the reestablishment of the Caliphate. Otherwise, any authority set up would be considered invalid by some faction or another. I can see the King of Jordon or of Morocco as being an acceptable candidate for Caliph, although I’m not sure how pleased that Saudis will be. The King of Saudi Arabia will not become the Caliph: too many people (moderates and militants) oppose him.
“War of the fatwas” is a good description. There’s a saying: “There’s a fatwa for and against every thing.” Literally. Even socks.
Sometimes debate between Muslims ends up not in a war of the fatwas but a war of statements: both sides fling statements from the Traditional Sources (Qur’aan, Hadiith, sunnah, and sharii’ah) to support one’s own points and to refute the other side’s points. (I suppose this can be true in any religion, though.)
(Fataawaa (plural of fatwaa) are sort of useless now. In the old days, muftuun (plural of muftii) would issue fataawaa which quDaah (plural of qaaDii) or judges would implement. Very few Muslim states use quDaah any more, so why keep muftuun?)
Muslims are fond of saying that there is no clergy in Islam. True as that may be, there is an essential class of clerics in both Sunni and Shiite Islam who control the religion.
I liked the distinction you made, Jeff, between Islam and more hierarchical systems, like the Roman Catholic Church. Such organization helps maintain discipline (and even dissenters end up somewhat organized). In Islam, disorganization is the rule. (As far as jurists are concerned, this is becoming more of a problem with the spread of information: instead of people sticking to one version of the sharii’ah (of which there are four in Sunni Islam), people are picking and choosing what to follow.)
I’d add a comparison between Sunni and Shiite Islam. Shiite Islam is somewhat more organized. There are ranks of clerics (Arabic followed by Persian rendition: basic level (aamil/aamel, shaykh, or da’i), Hujjatalislaam or hojjatoleslaam, allaama, aayatullaah or aayatollaah, aayatullaah al’uZmaa or aayatollaah alozmaa) and there’s a process to ascend the ranks. Nevertheless, recognition depends not only on one’s education (and which of the prominent theological schools one studied at and is teaching at) but also on peer esteem. So, although Iran claims Grand Ayatollah (or Ayatullah al-Uzma) Ali Khamane’i is the Supreme Ayatollah of all Shiites, in reality the supreme leader is Grand Ayatollah as-Sistani of Iraq. Why? Because more people admire and listen to as-Sistani. When two Shiites debate what should be done, it is more likely they will appeal to Grand Ayatollah as-Sistani’s office than Grand Ayatollah Khamane’i’s. Moqtada as-Sadr is upset (and therefore working against and outside mainstream Shiite authority in Iraq) because he’s not being recognized as an ayatollah. (As popular as as-Sadr’s “campaign” in Najaf was, when Grand Ayatollah as-Sistani intervened to kick as-Sadr out of the Mosque of Imam Ali in Najaf (which is probably one of the holiest places for Shiites), as-Sadr had to obey because if he didn’t he would loose all legitimacy in Iraq.) To turn the tables, even in Shiism authority and legitimacy are in the eye of the beholder. (More info on Shiite clerics can be found here and here.)
This issue of disorganization threatens Islam from within as well. A clear example from Sunni Islam is the bitter theological war between Deobandi Muslims and Barelvi Muslims in India and Pakistan. Whom does one follow? Who is right? These are important questions, as they are issues of salvation for Muslims.
Unless the Caliphate is reestablished or Sunni Islam becomes more like Shiite Islam in terms of structure, I’m somewhat pessimistic as to whether this will be solved any time soon, if at all.
The only other solution is to convert them. We need more Shakers, I think.
Thanks for bringing this up, though. It’s something that is not discussed often, if at all.
We’ve got a steep, steep hill to climb, to change all that anti-Western cultural inertia in the Muslim world. The ACLU’s been trying to sue God out of American public life for half a century, so the village atheist won’t have to run the risk of encountering any Christian cooties at school or during holiday time. Yet Christianity is stronger, both culturally and politically, than ever in the U.S. Trying to stigmatize religious traditions which require all of our violent deaths may not be any easier.
Sad to say, but this may well get uglier before it gets prettier.
Kudos to the Bush administration for going the hearts and mind approach, though. Our nominal Muslim allies are nominally on board with the WOT, at least. Could be worse…
Musilhoon – to your knowledge, do any of the schools of Islamic thought have anything explicit to say regarding self-declared clerics? That is, those who present themselves as having the authority to act as clergy without any of the qualifications you mention?
Muslihoon, since you’re reading this thread, there’s a question that occurred to me years ago in discussion with an Iranian Shi’ite but that I never got a clear read on.
If one just reads the Koran (and I’ve forgotten which verses) it looks as if religious authority in Islam is a matter of intent and volunteering. If one wishes to assert religious authority, one does so and sees who follows. If enough follow, the religious authority follows naturally.
This brings up an interesting notion. If I, or Jeff, or anyone else were to read the Book, come up with an interpretation that satisfied us, and wrote it down with the proper references and deference to the Prophet, and Muslims read it and regarded it as decent scholarship, would we not then be minor Islamic religious authority?
Yes, I know, as a practical matter Jeff and I haven’t been to the right schools and don’t have the right credentials. We wouldn’t be accepted because we aren’t part of the system already. But isn’t that the way the book reads?
Regards,
Ric
Ric Locke,
In most Islamic circles, certification is preferred but not essential (e.g. Abu Hamza has no formal religious education). There are only three things one needs to be a Muslim scholar and they are: being a male Muslim, having a good moral character, and being learned in the Koran and the Sunnah.
If you and Jeff did try to look at Islam and reinterpret it with a more liberal meaning, you would have to convert to Islam in order to have any influence whatsoever. Most Muslims don’t care what infidels think of their religion and some are actually very offended at Western calls for a Reformation in Islam because that intimates that there is something wrong with orthodox Islam. However, Westerners have tried to look for a “moderate” Islam by courting moderate Muslims before. MESA tried this for many years but they either found out that the moderates that they courted weren’t so moderate or that their popular support was so low that they were marginal figures.
Martin Kramer has written about this here.
But most of the interpretation has been done. The political machinery of Islam is not up for debate. The dhimma will still exist and so will the call to transform all of the dar-al-Harb into the dar-al-Islam by implimenting sharia law wherever possible, since that is the “best” form of government because it was ordained by Allah. These things are not up for debate. There are certain things in Islam that are up for debate such as what kind of hairstyle is preferrable. Most of the things that are up for debate in clerical circles do not concern us infidels, what does concern us infidels is the nature of the relationship good Muslims are commanded to have with infidels, but that is set in stone and cannot change. That is why it is pointless to try to “reform” Islam because the things that we want to reform are essential to Islam.
Well, arch, that’s the question, innit?
You’ve done an excellent job of elaborating on my brief note about practical matters. Jeff and I aren’t members of the club, so our interpretation would be rejected by the other members. But that ain’t what the book says, as I read it.
The system is ideally set up for a society in which 99+% of the people are illiterate, if the person setting it up is anxious to avoid the emplacement of a class of Levites. It would appear that the Prophet MHNBP (or, rather, the Angel) wanted very badly to avoid creating a caste of priests separate from everyone else. Essentially anyone who could actually read, as opposed to being able to memorize and recite without understanding, could form and promulgate an opinion, which would then be vetted by the others so situated. Libertarian Episcopry!
The Club has declared that the matter is closed, that no new interpretations of the Book can be permitted. Does the book say that?
1) Faith or belief in the Oneness of God and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad;
No problem with the first part. As for the second, note that Adam walked with God in the Garden; the Patriarchs spoke to God directly; God sent His Son to the Christians; Muhammad’s Angel was essentially the Vizier of Heaven; Joseph Smith got a memo. The notion that God is sick of it and has essentially said “no more prophets, you’re on your own, people” sort of appeals, just on the record.
2) Establishment of the daily prayers;
No worries. Maybe not the Club’s specified pattern, but daily or better.
3) Concern for and almsgiving to the needy;
Done regularly.
4) Self-purification through fasting;
From time to time. Establishing it as a regimen wouldn’t be hard.
and
5) The pilgrimage to Makkah for those who are able.
Can’t afford it right now, plus the Club wouldn’t let me in, but I’d love to have the experience.
So tell me why I’m not as good a Muslim as the majority of practicing ones? I can’t read Arabic, but I’ll bet it’s learnable. Iraqis manage as young as six.
Muslihoon?
Regards,
Ric
There’s no evidence that any Muslim country accepts a basic rule of modern democracy (at least as it is practiced in the West) and that is the separation of church and state.
As long most people in the Middle East pay more attention to clerics than to anything Thomas Jefferson said, there’s no real possibility for democracy in the Middle East.
Elections are basically meaningless in the Middle East. If you think otherwise look at Iran.
They had an election in Iran and guess what, the religious fanatics won.
There’s been an election in Iraq and it looks like clerical parties will ctonrol the new government.
Democracy can be set up in the Middle East but only with a very long western military presence.
“So tell me why I’m not as good a Muslim as the majority of practicing ones? I can’t read Arabic, but I’ll bet it’s learnable. Iraqis manage as young as six.”
-posted by Ric Locke
Well, there’s the rub Ric. You don’t need to know Arabic in order to understand Islam. If that was the case, then the majority of Muslims in the world would not know there own religion since the majority are non-Arabs and do not speak Arabic fluently (and they wouldn’t even know where to start with classical Arabic). This is the point that Ibn Warraq has belabored for years, yet Muslims and their non-Muslim apologists still demand him to show his linguistic credentials. You see, the only reason why Arabic is so central to Islam and the Koran is in order to further Arab imperialism and give the Arabs a special place in the Muslim world. No matter what other Muslims think of the Arabs, even if they hate their guts, and trust me, A LOT of them DO hate them, they can’t get rid of them because the Koran must be read in Arabic, can only be understood in Arabic, and Muhammad, the man that every Muslim must emulate, was an Arab prophet deeply influenced by Arab culture. Non-Arab Muslims are forced to forget their pre-Islamic history (see the Berbers, the Kurds, the Egyptians, the Malay, the Muslim Indians, etc) and they are basically Arabized. Also, the Muslim Arabs are the ones who teach their imams Arabic so they can actually understand the content of the Koran. As much as some of these non-Arab Muslims may dislike the Arab Muslims for their imperialism and even racism, they are dependent on them for learning orthodox Islam. And some Muslim Arabs abuse this power telling the non-Arab Muslims what to do because many of them can’t check for themselves, but they also use this linguistic advantage to deflect any infidel criticism of Islam because that person doesn’t know Arabic and can’t possibly understand the “complexity” of Islam. It’s a joke.
Islam is based on word of mouth. Literacy is not encouraged, afterall Muhammad was illiterate and he was the “perfect man”, so it’s not terribly important if you are atleast capable of memorizing the Koran by rote. Compare Islam to Judaism. In Judaism, every Jew is encouraged to be able to read Hebrew so he can study and struggle with the Torah whereas in Islam, every Muslim is encouraged to memorize the Koran because the mere recitation of it is a holy act but they are not encouraged to be able to read it for themselves since the emphasis is placed on them asking their local imam for guidance.
We should not get bogged down on the “Five Pillars” because there is so much more that is central to Islam that is not contained in those pillars. The halaal and the haraam is one example, jihad is another, and polygamy is yet another feature that is essential to Islam. You cannot understand Islam by reading the Koran alone. Most of it is unreadable and fragmented to begin with. It must be accompanied by the ahadith (Shahih Bukhari and Shahih Muslim being the most authoritative) and the Sirat al Rasoul (the sacralized biography of Muhammad). The concept of nask or abrogation must be understood and the order of the revelation of the suras as well so you can know which suras have been abrogated. The concept of taqiyya or pious dissimulation must also be understood as well since it is part of the jihad; “War is deceit” said Muhammad.
The way Islamic society is set up and “functions” is so that the people stay ignorant and illiterate but their spirits are high since they are reminded that they are Muslims and Islam is Allah’s greatest gift to man, but they are also reminded that the reason why they are sufferring is because there are still infidels in power who are listening to Shaytan, hence the fixation on America and Israel. Once the infidels are defeated and the Muslims are in power, they are convinced that their lives will be better. That is why they cheered on 9/11 and danced in the streets because they thought that it foreshadowed the decline of American (and Israeli) power. Their political leaders are likened to infidels because they have foregin relations with them, and that is why they are despised. They are seen as puppets of the infidels and hypocrites at best and apostates at worst because they fail to stop associating with the infidels and the fail to impliment sharia FULLY. They don’t hate their leaders because of their human rights violations or their corruption but they hate them because they act like infidels.
Also, I should mention that life in Islamic society is sometimes so hopeless that the prospect of jihad is always appealing to a young Muslim male. If he comes back alive, he may come back with some loot, and it he dies he’ll be celebrated as a martyr and receive his 72 virgins. Jihadists are not all poor, but most of them are pious Muslims who have either sufferred a personal crisis of some sort or believe they cannot accomplish much more in their earthly lives. Those Muslims who are well insulated and would not give up their luxurious lifestyle for their religion (i.e. hypocrites) are the ones who are less likely to go on jihad if they have no personal problems.
I think you are right about the daily prayers. It gives them a routine but the Friday khutbas also rile up the masses and remind them of their duty to wage jihad against the infidels who are persecuting the innocent Muslims.
That explains why all I get are disdainful looks.
The oral tradition of the Qu’ran is based on the oral traditions of the bedouin tribes. Arabic was spoken long before it was written. It is not a slurr to describe Mohammed as illiterate–arab society’s values and the short suras of the Qu’ran come from bedouin society, where the most revered members of the tribe were the rawis (lit., reciters) and poets. The haaj is based on the annual poetry competitions held at Mecca. Tribal warfare was sometimes fought in a competition of words by na’qaat, tribal combat poets. As a youth, Mohammed was sent to live among the bedouin, to learn tribal values.
The Qu’ran is also aural, meant to be recited and listened to. The decentralization of Islam is also based on autonomous tribal values. And can you think of a better way to spread viral memes than thru language?
A strong meme in the Qu’ran is that muslims shall not kill other muslims. The killers get around this psychologically by saying the muslims they kill have become collaborators. The victims have a hard time believing muslims could be killing them, ergo the genesis of conspiracy theories, that jews or westerners perpetrated the crimes, and blamed muslims. But experience is changing this memeset. Zarqawi’s hotel bombings are a good exqample–the King of Jordan was brilliant in putting the female suicide bomber on tv–she admitted the terrorists knew they were not going to kill collaborators or crusaders, but innocent women and children. The meme taht mulims don’t kill other muslims seems like a good place to leverage fatwas, to me.
The distributed nature of Islam makes it difficult to lauch a centralized memetic attack. This is an evolutionary advantage, but most likely arose because of the distributed nature of tribal autonomity. The best attack is a distributed one, spreading western memesets by tv, radio, and print media. An effective counter-memetic to Qu’ranic recitation (broadcast on radio stations now) is popular music. Qu’ranic reciters are the current rock stars of the ME. Their CDs sell in amazing quantity. Fundamentalists recognize memetic assault–that is why Iran is banning western music, and movies and songs are banned.
Does that include Turkey?
Does that include Turkey?
Pretty much, yes.
It is important to note that Turkey is not a democracy, but a timocracy; the Turkish armed forces are obliged to maintain the secular nature of the government (by overthrowing any overly-religious civilian prime minister).
We can certainly say that, in this instance, the goals of Western democracy and Turkish timocracy are the same. But, leaving aside the question of whether the “incorporation” of the First Amendment into state constitutions by virtue of the Fourteenth is sound judicial doctrine, amendments to the Constitution repudiating incorporation, or repealing the Fourteenth or even the First could be introduced and ratified, and the U.S. Army is obliged to not stage a coup to prevent them from taking effect, rather than the reverse.
TW: “faith”. The application is sufficiently obvious.
Maybe we Westerners should issue our own fatwas:
“Be it known to all persons near and far, that whomsoever shall call for the killing of humans for reasons of religous intolerance is hereby removed from the society of just men, and should themselves be struck down and killed like an animal whenever and however it may prove possible. So mote it be”
And start a list. A long list, of “better dead”.
Ric Locke:
Not as clear-cut or innocent as it may seem at first. The shahadah is, as you mentioned, divided into two parts: affirming Allah and affirming Muhammad.
”[Ash’hadu anna] laa ilaaha illa-llaah” – “[I witness that] there is no god but God” or “[I witness that] there is no god but Allah.” Sounds innocent, but Muslims interpret this as saying much more than simply there is only one God. There is only one God, and He as attributes. One of His attributes is sovereignty. Sovereignty is God’s only. Any human who usurps sovereignty is setting himself/herself against God. (Usurping sovereignty includes making laws independently, without following God’s commands, and/or against what God has commanded – one must forbid what God has forbidden, one must allow what God has allowed, and one must command what God has commanded.) Any human who accepts another human’s sovereignty is denying God’s sovereignty. Thus, Muslims must accept only God’s sovereignty. God is King (al-malik). He gave a law (shari’ah, basically). Whom did He give this law through? Muhammad. “[Ash’hadu anna] Muhammad ar-Rasul Allah,” “[I witness that] Muhammad is the Messenger of God. “Thus: only the law given by God as revealed to Muhammad – shari’ah – ought to be followed. To do otherwise would be shirk and kufr. Shirk: to deny God’s oneness; kufr: disbelief. Both punishable by death or oppression in shari’ah.
Az-Zarqawi is doing wonders for anti-terrorist awareness. The more Muslims are aware that these militants are as much a threat to Muslims as non-Muslims, the more they will actively, vocally, and vociferously oppose them.
Very well, Jeff, you wanna play that way? Fine:
“The best attack is a distributed one, spreading western memesets by tv, radio, and print media. An effective counter-memetic to Qu’ranic recitation (broadcast on radio stations now) is popular music. Qu’ranic reciters are the current rock stars of the ME. Their CDs sell in amazing quantity. Fundamentalists recognize memetic assault–that is why Iran is banning western music, and movies and songs are banned.”
We should start small and work our way up to disseminating Western memesets. First we need to weaken the hold Islam has on Muslims because that is the reason why they reject anything “Western”. If given a choice between Western freedom and submission to Allah, they will undoubtably choose Allah. The West is seen as a seduction from Shaytan, something that will lead Muslims astray from their deen. That is the reason why the Saudi royals are so hated because they made a compromise between Islam and the West and that is why bin Laden is so loved because although he could have lived a luxurious lifestyle, he now lives in caves in order to wage jihad against the infidels. The best we could hope for if we ignored the phenomenon of Islam would be for the Muslims to adopt our technology and our education model but not our liberal values since as long as Islam thrives, so will misogyny, the persecution of minorities, totalitarianism, and prohibited speech. However, even if they did adopt our technological advances and a Western style education system that would still bode badly for us. Technology has given the Muslim world audio cassettes that were responsible for bringing Khomeini into power in Iran, it has given Al Qaeda the internet as a low cost medium in order to recruit more jihadists, it has given the Muslim world more medicine in order to increase their demographics expodentially, and cell phones have given the head-choppers the ability to create IEDs. Anything we teach them, they will use for dawa and jihad. That’s why I think we should teach them nothing in order to prevent the spread of Islam.
What we should disseminate should be testimonials of ex-Muslims, “Why I am Not a Muslim” on CD, the Fuqran, translations of non-Islamic religious texts in various languages, translations of the histories of non-Muslims under Muslim rule, satires of Muhammad, a compendium of all of the embarrassing things Muhammad did in the aHadith and Sira, and we should send out any images that humiliate the Koran and Islam. By constantly humiliating Islam and promoting other religions as a substitute, it will make them feel ashamed of what Islam has wrought and they will be more open to leaving Islam altogether. Then we can talk about democracy.
Just want to add a little note to Muslihoon’s fine post.
Zarqawi’s group is called al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad or Monotheism and Jihad. We all get the jihad part, but why the monotheism? Zarqawi isn’t doing dawa or preaching, but he wants to reinstate Sunni sharia law and subjugate the Shia. That is pure monotheism. Recognizing the sovereignty of Allah by implimenting sharia fully and cutting all ties with infidels (Zarqawi views the Shia as infidels so he has no problems killing them). Some Muslims may disagree with his tactics, but most agree with his goal.
Thanks, Muslihoon.
So far, so good.
The only quibble here is that I would substitute the indefinite article for the definite: “Muhammad is a messenger of God”.
And here we descend into blasphemy. To be fair, it’s a common blasphemy—most other religions assert the same thing.
This statement asserts flatly that a finite human being was able to hear, understand, and express in finite human language the mind of the infinite God, without error or exception. A-Dam, the First Man, spoke with God directly, as you and I speak—and he failed to understand God and follow His commandments, thus leading to our low state in the first instance.
Is shirk, as you use it here, an Arabic word with that meaning, or are you transliterating? If the former, it’s at least interesting that English has incorporated it with a clearly cognate meaning.
Regards,
Ric
tw: further. If you’re interested in pursuing this further, my email works.
Muhammad is the seal of the prophets. Although the other prophets are sinless and some did miracles, Muhmmad has the greatest miracle of all, the Koran. His message also has a finality to it that the Torah and Gospels lack. Although Islam has reverence for the other prophets, there is scant material on them in Islamic texts and many of the prophets are interpretted through the lens of Muhammad and that is why many of the stories are distorted because Muhmmad was not a master of Christan or Jewish theology. It is assumed that the other prophets were like Muhammad. But only Muhammad is emulated, nobody else.
definition of shirk:
shirk
In Islam, “association” of God’s qualities with someone or something else, thus “idolatry,” the one unforgivable sin according to the Qur’an.
To Muslims, Christians are guilty of shirk.
Well, personally I think that blasphemy consists (pretty much exclusively) of usurping the place of the creator – by telling me what “God says” for example. Insistently.
Because really, if God wants to talk to me, he doesn’t need to use some unwashed poltroon as a translator, y’know? So fuck off.
Is that clear enough?
arch, i am divided about this. I should volunteer something–i find the short suras in recitation quite beautiful. Mohammed always defended the Qu’ran as the uncreated, revealed, word of god by saying to his critics, if you can replicate this, do so.
A good memetic engineer would make meme viruses that don’t trigger the immune system of Islam–they should be just different enough to spoof the receptors into thinking they are harmless. Like, make fun of Bin Laden and Zarqawi, not Mohammed. Testimony of ex-muslims and apostates is meaningless to the devout–those people are no longer muslims.
The ideal target population for viral memes would be young children. Memetic engineering is difficult on adults. It has to be really subtle.
ummm…if i had the fundage…i would make manga, comix of the short suras and Mohammed’s life among the bedouin…endorsing the values of humanity, liberty and tolerance.
Just thought I’d say, Ric Locke, that my arguments are not mine: I’m paraphrasing Sayyid Qutb (especially as expressed in his book Milestones), who, by the way, is very influential amongst Muslim intellectuals and militants.
Regarding the Muhammad part of the shahadah, in the Arabic I should not have put in the article. Nevertheless, it is still “the Messenger” even without the article, as the article would not be used in an iZaafa construction, wherein the first term (in this case ”rasuul”
would be, by default, definite.
To deny the supremacy of Muhammad and what he taught would be to renounce Islam, per Muslims.
Perhaps it should be remembered that technically, as far as I can recall, God never speaks directly to Muhammad. (The Ascent to Heaven (al-mi’raaj might be an exception.) God sent His messages through the angel Gabriel (Jibraa’iil).
How pivotal was Muhammad as the instrument through whom God is said to have delivered His message? Certain of his sayings–that is, quotes and statements–are considered “sacred” (Hadiith qudsii) and basically the Word of God. In Islam, even though Muhammad is still a human, he’s quite higher than us run-of-the-mill humans. Add to this, also, a concept that the closer one was to Muhammad’s generation, the more pure and faithful one was. This is one reason why clerics argue to keep the “doors of ijtihaad” shut: we are not pure or faithful enough to reason according to the will of God.
You can refute/debate this all you want. I’m not Muslim (any more) so you’d be preaching to the choir. And Muslims will most likely run away, accusing you of blasphemy. Muslims aren’t all that interested in really open debates about their religion. And once you accept their rules, what’s left to debate?
A brilliant idea – and it makes me wonder why something like this isn’t already being done, not least since we know that similar psyops were conducted in WWII as well as a number of smaller later-twentieth century conflicts.
But Nisizhono-chan, how to get around the Islamic prohibition on graphic depictions of the Prophet?
Gomennasai – should have been Nishizono. My Romanji isn’t working out so well of late.
RS-san.
there are portraits of the Prophet, but they must be executed in approved fashion. I would enlist the aid of moderate Imams and tribal sheiks to storyboard this.
here is an example of a portrait of Muhammed, riding into the seventh heaven in a chariot. His face is veiled. This would be a good place to start. from there one could make incremental progress to full representation.
You bring up some good points Shinji. The testimony of ex-Muslims are usually not effective, but you would be surprised at their success rate. I don’t think we should take anything off the table and that we should work to demoralize Islam on all fronts. The ex-Muslims usually appeal moreso to the more cerebral Muslims and we would have to use other methods for the illiterate. That is why constant humilitation wouldn’t hurt because they understand that concept very well. Making fun of bin Laden and Zarqawi is good, but Muhammad should never be off limits. It’s critical that Muslims atleast begin to question Muhammad’s “perfection”. But again, there are subtle ways to do this and not so subtle ways to do this. I’m not advocating blasting pornography during televised Koran programs, that would be counter-productive. But compiling a list of his more embarrassing acts would be a good start I think, because many Muslims would have to ask themselves some uncomfortable questions about what it means to be a “good Muslim”.
The Fuqran is a Christian version of the Koran that adopts a similar style. We could use that as a propaganda tool for the illiterate. But let’s stop pretending that the Koran has some mystical quality when it clearly does not. About 1/3 of it doesn’t make any sense when read alone and it is hardly a literary masterpiece by anyone’s standards. As for the recitation, that’s pretty common when you hear the recitation of another language. I’m not Catholic, but I think the Latin mass sounds nice, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I should watch my tongue when criticizing the Vatican or the Pope because I happen to like the way the mass sounds and wouldn’t want it to go away.
RS—my understanding is that there’s ways around depicting Mohammed that are presently in use: generally, you show people responding to him, sort of a Prophet’s-eye-view of things, and try to write their dialog in such a way that both sides of the conversation are obvious.
Domo arigato gozaimasu, Nishizono – this definitely has potential. Anyone doubting the efficacy of this approach should review “Boss” Tweed’s commentary on what led to his downfall, or just take a look at some of the stunts OSS and SOE pulled in WWII.
Arigato as well to Arch and Phone Technician – what initially led to my post was a memory of the furor in many Muslim nations over Anthony Quinn’s 1976 film The Message, in which the character of Mohammed was represented solely by a p.o.v. shot and never directly shown on screen.
arch, the reaction among the initiate i see to non-muslims criticising Muhammed is isomorphic to non-christians criticising Jesus. The receptors are turned off in a rage reaction. net loss.
i would like to leverage off the good things in Islam, encourage those, and thwart the rest. approaching Islam as a monolith to be torn down is not effective.
my personal hypothesis about the Qu’ran is that it sounds better than it reads, at least least to a population steeped in poetic tradition and oral/aural recitation.
oh, really excellent point! the “magic language” argument. the RCC gave up power when it ended the Latin mass, dontcha think?
RS—yes, you’re correct; there was a fair amount of outrage over Mohammed: Messenger of God but much of it was based in the incorrect assumption that Quinn played Mohammed, and not Mohammed’s uncle.
The film itself was actually directed by Moustapha Akkad, who was killed in the terrorist bombings in Syria, and financed by Khaddafi, so naturally some Muslims responded by holding Jews hostage.
And Nishizono, that’s an excellent idea. Comics are a great medium and there’s a lot in the Koran well worth emphasizing.