Since September, I’ve read three pretty good books on Islam and lots of newspaper articles. That's what this paper is based on. I particularly recommend Karen Armstrong’s recent book Islam. Please feel encouraged to amplify and correct my comments.
Here’s what I’m going to say. I think a detailed study of the origins and history of Islam would be interesting but not necessarily more relevant to our current situation than a similar study of Christianity. Ask yourself whether the ‘real’ Islam or the ‘real’ Christianity is in the original words and example of Muhammad or Christ, or in the past 2000 years of history, or in the clashing opinions and events reported in today’s newspaper? I think a familiarity with the historical context of the past 100 years is helpful, but much of what is going on now has its roots in recent decades.
I don’t know that there is anything about Islam that makes it intrinsically harder to live with than other world religions. In theory there is no separation between religion and state in Islam, but in fact the two are not compatible, and there generally has been a separation. In theory, Muslims would like to make the whole world safe for Islam, but in practice they have often lived peacefully with their neighbors. In theory, Islam tolerates other faiths, and in fact it often has. Islamic empires once controlled most of the developed world but protected minority faiths. It is the accidents of current history and personality that we wrestle with now.
Glossary
amir - military commander
ayatollah - a high ranking Shia religious leader (Iran)
burqa - head to foot covering for women (Afghanistan)
caliph - a political ruler in an Islamic state
chador - head to foot covering for women (Iran)
Dar al-Islam - “House of Islam”, the Islamic world
Dar al-harb - “House of War”, the non-Islamic world
dhimmi - protected subjects: Jews, Christians, etc.; 2d class citizens, paid poll tax; the more secure the empire, the better they were treated
fatwa - legal opinion of a religious scholar or the ulema; e.g. ‘death to Rushdie’
fiqh - Islamic jurisprudence
five pillars of Islam - 1) there is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet; 2) prayer 5 times a day; 3) tax to aid poor (2.5% of income and capital); 4) fasting during Ramadan (in solidarity with the poor) 5) pilgrimage to Mecca (once)
hadith - teachings and doings of the Prophet; compiled after Mohammed’s death
hijab - veil
hijra - Mohammed’s flight from Mecca to Madina in 622 C.E.
imam - a leader of the Muslim community; for the Shia, one the 1st 12 descendants of the Prophet; Khomeni was called imam
Islam - surrender/submission ( to the will of God )
jihad - internal struggle to reform bad habits, in the community or in an individual; also, a religious war in defense of or to the advancement of Islam
kabah - shrine in Mecca; Arab sacred meteorite, coopted by Islam
Madhi - “the rightly guided one”; the Islamic Messiah, who will appear at the end of the world and begin a reign of peace and justice; many false Mahdi’s
madrasah - seminary; where learned men (ulema) study law (fiqh) ; and where, currently, youth may be indoctrinated
Muhammad - the Prophet, the Messenger of God, the perfect man; 570-632 C.E.
Muhammadanism - old Western name for Islam, by analogy with “Christianity”
mujahidin - soldiers of God; they wage jihad
mullah - leader of a mosque
Muslim - one who submits/surrenders to God
purdah - modest dress; separation of men and women
people of the book - Christians and Jews; often mentioned in the Quran
Qur’an - “the recitation”; revealed to Muhammad by an angel , from 610- 632 C.E.
Ramadan - month of fasting (in solidarity with the poor)
shariah (“the way”) - the body of Islamic sacred laws, based on the Quran,
the sunnah and the hadith; Islamic countries may have a law code based on shariah
Shia Muslims - party of Ali; difference from Sunnis is largely political; mostly in Iran
Sufism - Sunni mysticism; promotes universal peace and love; a generous and attractive movement, but rarely in charge politically
sunnah - customs of the Prophet (hence Sunni)
Sunni Muslims - 90% of Muslims;
ulema - learned men, traditional religious scholars; make decisions
ummah - Islamic community or brotherhood; it is universal as well as local; reaches beyond national borders; a very important concept
Islam
Muhammad was born in Mecca in 570 C.E. By 610 he was a successful and respected businessman. He was concerned about several pressing problems: 1) The local capitalists were too busy making money to care for the poor, which was a long-standing Arab obligation. 2) Women were badly treated. 3) The various Arab tribes were constantly at war, which didn’t help the local quality of life. 4) Although Muhammad believed the Arabs worshipped the same god as the Jews and the Christians, they were looked down on because they had no prophet or scripture of their own.
On 17 Ramadan, in 610 C.E., Muhammad was fasting in a mountain cave, as was his yearly custom, when an angel appeared and told him to start speaking the Quran, (which means “the recitation”). These revelations kept coming, often just as they were needed, until his death in 632. Muhammad and his followers (particularly women and the poor) were driven out of Mecca and found safety in Medina in 622. The Muslim calendar dates from this year. Before his death, Muhammad and his followers had defeated the Meccans in battle and returned to Mecca.
Muhammad never considered himself as other than a man. He was God’s Messenger, or Prophet. He felt his role was to remind his people of the teachings of the great prophets who had gone before him, such as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, because their message had become lost and corrupted over time. His followers later called him a perfect man, and, because other Muslim prophets began to be heard from, they declared him to be the last Prophet or the “Seal of the Prophets”. Muhammad had 12 wives, who were mostly needy war widows with children.
The main thrust of the Prophet’s message was belief in one God and concern for the weak and the poor of the Muslim community, the ummah. The Qur’an is quite long, and there are also large written collections of the sayings and actions of the Prophet. Together these form the basis of Islamic law, the shariah, which in theory governs all the activities of life. As with the Torah and the Bible, there’s plenty of scope in the Quran for interpretation and maneuvering in all directions.
It is stated in the Quran that there is to be no compusion in religion. Mercy, even to defeated enemies, was required. Women were to be better treated under Islam, though in a subordinate role. W did achieve marital and property rights that they gained only centuries later in the West. Veiling of most women came only later as well, possibly through the example of Eastern Christianity.
In 680 there was a split between those who supported the tradition of the first 3 caliphs as legitimate successors (who became the Sunni Muslims) and those who supported only the 4th caliph, Ali, the nephew and son-in-law of Muhammad. They became the Shia Muslims. This continues to be the main division in Islam. Iran is Shiite for instance, and the Taliban are Sunni. It isn’t primarily theological; it’s political, and Sunnis have often fought against other Sunnis.
By 700 C.E. the Muslims had conquered the world from Afghanistan to Spain. Until to the 16th century, the great Muslim empires dominated civilization west of China. They sponsored art, philosophy, and science and were relatively hospitable to minority ethnic and religious groups, the dhimmi, and in particular to the People of the Book: Christians and Jews. They also fought wars of defense and conquest, practiced assassination, ethnic cleansing, and corruption, and acted out the whole human enterprise, just as the Christians did.
By the 14th century the West was catching up, and by the 16th it pulled ahead. In the West, an urban, industrial, and increasingly individualistic civilization gradually replaced an agrarian and authoritarian culture.
In some measure democracy, pluralism, and secularism, freedom from the constraints of religion, were required by the modern state, as were continuous expansion and colonization.
The Islamic world tried to keep up, but chiefly from the top down, with military technology and training. It still had an agrarian base. By the beginning of the 20th century, most Islamic lands were so far behind that they were either colonies of Western nations or were largely controlled by the West. The leaders were wealthy and westernized, but most of the population was poor and uneducated and looked to its religious leaders for comfort and support. An attempt to modernize Egypt had failed by 1882, and the British took over. France was in control of much of North Africa. The last great Islamic Empire, the Ottoman Turks, was weak and corrupt and was destroyed in the first world war. Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan were then created by the British. Palestine became a British mandate.
The 80 years since then have been even more disastrous for Islam: with largely stagnant economies, rapid population growth, a growing chasm between rich and poor, brutally oppressive secular and nominally Islamic governments supported by the West because they were thought stable and anti-communist, cultural disruption, poor education, and religious, political, and military humiliation, and, in reaction, religious fundamentalism and terrorism.
from Karen Armstrong’s book, Islam:
“All over the world, people in all the major faiths have reeled under the impact of Western modernity... As they struggle to rectify what they see as the demaging effects of modern secular culture, fundamentalists fight back and, in the process, they depart from the core values of compassion, justice, and benevolence that characterize all the world’s faiths, including Islam.”
Who’s fault this is, and how to fix it, are other matters. Turkey, Tunesia, the gradual opening of Iran, and the relative success of 7 million Muslims in the United States could be considered as hopeful signs.
Problems
There are some differences between Islam and Christianity, which may have significance for our current situation:
1) Islam began with huge political success. The Quran had promised that a society which surrendered to God’s will could not fail. Later political and military failures were interpreted as loss of God’s favor and suggested the need to make greater efforts. Much of the history of Islam has involved a search for the right kind of government, one which creates both a stable and prosperous society and an atmosphere in which personal devotion can flourish. Salvation is not redemption from sin but the creation of a just society. Totalitarian govenment is considered non-Islamic, but democracy is also suspect. God must be in charge, neither a dictator nor simply a majority of the people.
In a New Yorker article, “The Revolt of Islam,” by Bernard Lewis, Lewis suggests that Muhammad intended a perpetual state of war, until the entire world either embraced Islam or submitted to the rule of the Muslim state. I havn’t seen this clearly stated in the other books and articles I’ve read about Islam, including another by Lewis. It seems to be both affirmed and denied by individual Muslims.
Certainly the contrast of past glory with subsequent abasement remains central in the thought of many Muslims. This has been called the Andalus Syndrome. Andalusia was perhaps the high-point of Islamic civilization. Here Greek science reached the West, (through translations from the Arabic by Sephardic Jews). The Muslims were driven out of Spain, but many of their wonderful structures survive today, as churches and museums. Humiliation (religious, national, and personal, and both real and fancied) is a major theme of contemporary Islamic rage.
Christianity’s beginnings were, by contrast, considerably more humble. Worldly success has remained ambiguous for Christians, and final victory is identified with the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world.
2) Christianity is to a considerable degree personal, internal, and otherworldly: Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Distinct dress and public actions have not been a major feature. It’s possible to be a low-profile Christian.
Islam, like orthodox Judaism, is more this-worldly and practical, a total way of life which can’t easily be confined to the private sphere. This makes it harder for Muslims to be in a minority and not to be in political control of their society. Prostration 5 times a day, the veiling of women, and the rejection of much popular western culture are public and can be seen as provocative.
3) The earthly welfare of the Islamic community, the ummah, is very important to Muslims. This was one of Mohammed’s primary concerns. The ummah is universal as well as local, continuing beyond national borders. A majority of British Muslims, for instance, supported the secular Saddam Hussein when the Iraqi Muslim community was bombed.
Christianity has never been strongly egalitarian, and it was early on divided along theological lines: the eastern and western churches, heretical sects, Catholicism and Protestantism, Evangelical and Liberal, etc. It’s harder to form Christian political alliances.
Palestine
Many Muslims point to Palestine as a major source of their current anger at the West. Bernard Lewis observes that this is partly because Israel and the United States serve as useful stand-ins for complaints about their own governments which can’t safely be expressed. None the less, it seems important to say something about Palestine. The following brief observations are personal but come from more books and from over a longer period of interest than my remarks on Islam.
Arabs and Jews have lived together in Palestine for thousands of years, but there has never been a Palestinian state. In 1948, the UN General Assembly established a modest portion of the Palestine region to be the nation of Israel.
Five Arab countries immediately attacked Israel. As a direct result, 700,000 Palestinian Arabs became refugees. While the many millions of WWII refugies, including millions of Jews driven from Europe and from Arab lands, have been resettled, Arab policy has kept the Palestinians uprooted.
Throughout the 20th century, the Jews in Palestine would have been content with a small, secure homeland, but many Palestinian Arabs and most of the Arab world have never agreed to this. Israel has been attacked many times, in openly proclaimed attempts to obliterate her, and each time she has ended up stronger and in control of more territory.
The vast majority of Israelis would be glad to give up most of these occupied territories in return for a secure peace with a Palestinian state. The repeated failure of the Palestinian Arabs to respond to peace offers and to suppress terrorist opponents of peace has discredited Israeli peace seekers and has encouraged the growing right-wing secular and ultra-orthodox parties to want more or even all of Palestine. The current problem is not primarily terrorism versus repression but the presence on both sides of small but determined groups who reject peace altogether. Both sides now need U.S. and UN intervention, and, reportedly, most citizens on both sides would welcome this. Any peacekeeping force would need effectively to deter both terrorist attacks and Israeli reprisals. Israel needs to give up settlements in occupied territories or trade land for land or for reparations. Terrorism needs to be supressed.
The Human Factor
There are good guys and bad guys, dumb and dumber on all sides of every serious human disagreement. There are peacemakers and people who enjoy wielding power and don’t care where they go with it or who gets hurt.
The Answer?
What’s the overall answer to religious conflict? To begin with, whatever works in the situation. In the long run, the world seems to be moving toward democracy as the most fair and effective form of government. There are problems with democracy for Islamic nations, but many Muslims think they can be worked out. Capitalism creates problems too, but it can also solve them. A free press, universal education, open discussion, and civil rights for all citizens are necessary for any healthy nation. Ignorance, coersion, and discrimination aren't workable options. Muslim nations need freer and more open societies in order to develop economically and provide acceptable lives for their citizens.
Whatever forms of government or economy prevail, the world needs to accept religious pluralism, ideally within nations but certainly among them. This is what we have in theory in the United States and need to defend. Maintaining a multicultural society is a continuous struggle, but I can’t imagine that gathering the world into enclaves, by language, culture, race, or religion would work better.
Selected News Quotes
Either we get rid of our minivans or Saudi Arabia gets rid of its textbooks.
Poverty, despair, and the resultant terrorism will not go away unless another factor is addressed: out-of-control population growth.
Democracy is the answer to fundamentalist extremism.
What binds us together as a nation is not a common deity but a committment to certain ideas that transcend the religious beliefs of the citizenry...freedom...the right to speak openly.
Islam is a very evil and wicked religion. - Franklin Graham
Akbar [Muslim Emperor of India] reveled in his multiethnic court and pluralist laws.
Mr. Khatami [president of Iran] struck two points: a respect for pluralism and a condemnation of terrorism. Mr. Khatami has proposed an alliance of religiously rooted moderates form across faith lines.
The restoration of religion to the sphere of the personal, its depoliticization, is the nettle that all Muslim societies must grasp. - Salman Rushdie
For all the worry among non-Muslims about a clash of cultures, the reality is that moderate Muslims in Europe are the majority by far.
We Muslims cannot keep blaming the West for all our ills...We have failed as a civil society.
No nation can be an honest broker between a democracy under attack and a terrorist coalition on the march.
Palestinian leader Sari Nusseibach criticized Palestinian strategy: "We're telling the Israelis we want to kick you out of your home. The idea is to get the Israelis to side with you."
National standards of living improve -- family income, education, nutrition, and life expectancy all rise, and birthrates fall -- as women move toward equality.
It has come to be assumed in much of the Muslim world that to be a proponent of women's rights is to be pro-Western.
I named my son Osama because I want to make him a mujahid.
For many centuries Islam was the world's greatest, most open, most enlightened, most creative, most powerful civilization. -- When things go wrong you can ask: 'Who did this to us?', or you can ask: 'What did we do wrong?', which is what the Turks and the modernizers have been doing.
The Roots of Arab Poverty: monopolies, corrupt laws, poor education, supression of women.
'Now they're going to bomb Iraq,' one young man said, 'but the real goal, and we all know it, is to wipe out Muslims.'
Although there is a deep moral impulse in Islam for justice, charity, and compassion, Islam has not developed a dominant religious philosophy that allows equal recognition of alternative faith communities.
Using political Islam as an anti-communist tool was a crucial reason why so much of the Muslim world came to be dominated by stagnant, undemocratic, and adequately pro-Western governments.
There are 5000 Saudi princes. Where are the princesses?
Can there be any hope of peace? Yasir Abed Rabbo of the Palestinian Authority and Yosi Beilin, former justice minister of Israel, insist there can. But they both say it will require U.S. intervention.