The Essence of Islam

The Essence of Islam
5/15/2011
The Essence of Islam
Peter Joyce

“Phobia” has two meanings. Usually it means fear, as in “claustrophobia”, fear of enclosed spaces. Occasionally it means dislike, as in “xenophobia”, dislike of foreigners. But it really doesn’t matter. According to either meaning, I am islamophobic. I dislike Islam. Any affection I have held for Muslims I’ve known has been despite their religion, and never because of it.
As for the fear aspect of “phobia”, I am lucky enough to live in a country where Islam is so uncommon that I can say and write what I like about it with impunity – I hope. However, if I lived in many other countries, airing my views on Islam would at the very least require me to be looking over my shoulder. In many Muslim countries, I imagine I would be arrested. If I lived overseas, I would fear Muslims in the same way that, as a driver, I fear intersections. I have safely negotiated each one in my life so far, but I would be foolish to let down my guard. Of course, I could stay safe by not attacking Islam so openly. However, I always like to speak my mind.
Muslims are extremists. Yes, it is a generalisation. However it is, in general, true. In fact, I have never known an exception. The Muslim world is of course a very diverse place, and a Tunisian probably has less in common with an Indonesian than I have with a Norwegian. So, in one sense, I certainly do not generalise about Islam. Let me also make clear that, in calling Muslims extremists, I do not mean to suggest they could all become terrorists. Violence is, if you like, an extreme form of extremism, and only a very few ever get angry enough. Almost all Muslims are peaceful extremists.
So on what is my generalisation based? The overarching issue is the universal Muslim attitude to the Koran. All Muslims I have ever met – even those who consider themselves moderate – have expressed no doubt that the Koran is the literal word of God. This is an extreme position, because it assumes at the outset that the holy book is right, and all that remains is to interpret it as Allah intended. Naturally, peaceful believers concentrate on the more conciliatory passages, and the hotheads seize on anything that promotes violent jihad. However, my point is that even seeing the Koran as infallible and benign is a form of peaceful extremism. “Because my holy book says so” no longer passes muster as a way of knowing.
Now, I have known some Christians who have said almost the same thing about the Bible, and they are also extremists. However, such people are becoming rare in the so-called Christian world. Most educated Christians see the Bible in more symbolic and metaphorical terms, and reject supernatural elements in the scriptures which once defined Christian belief – notably the resurrection. They may see the Bible purely as history – even as flawed history – and their God as purely internal. Also, in the modern so-called Christian world, there have been few obstacles to historical analysis of Christ. Mohammed remains an idealised and idolised figure.
When you insist that your holy book came directly from God, it does things to you; it leads to related beliefs which I can never accept. For example, it often leads to the idea that your own beliefs are part of God’s grand plan, and that any dissent is therefore anti-God. On a national level, this makes it more difficult to separate church and state. After all, doesn’t an all-knowing God have a fairer and more compassionate plan for running the world than parliaments of mere mortals? The infallible divinity of the Koran also gives us the notion of apostasy. Muslims are always considered to be believers, and in some countries it is illegal simply to change your mind about Islam. Many cries for social change, especially in the status of women, are often seen as going against God. Allah has apparently created the sexes as equal but different. Men must offer women shelter from harm – whether they want it or not. Protection has become repression.
Seeing the Koran as inerrant also makes it more difficult to accept even well-established modern ideas if they conflict with the holy book. Most people in the so-called Christian world no longer see God’s hand in every uncaused act, such as natural disasters. Most Muslims do. A depressingly small number of Muslims accept evolution. Many of those who do make futile attempts to prove that the Koran knew about it all along. All this is peaceful extremism.
Seeing the Koran as divine also tends to destroy any ability to laugh at one’s faith. Christian leaders have had to get used to being regarded as buffoons, because they fortunately no longer have the respect or the influence to prevent such ridicule. We must preserve the right to mock people and ideas in – among other things – politics, culture and religion. Pious men, acting not only as mullahs but also as husbands and fathers, have too much control in the Muslim world. They complain that the West is in some kind of war with Islam. This really means that any reasonable move to free people from tyranny of belief gnaws away at their own power.
Uncompromising believers in any holy book tend to divide humanity glibly into two groups. In effect these are the saved and the damned, though most of the faithful use softer language. When this notion is combined with a lingering belief in a real, serene heaven and sizzling hell, it can become a lethal mix. In a small number of the faithful, “I’m right – you’re wrong” can turn to “God and I are right – you’re dead.” Recently I saw an interview on TV with a young Afghan would-be suicide bomber. He had been all wired up and ready to do his work, but backed out at the last minute, because he saw that he had been misled: most of the intended victims around him were not infidels but fellow Muslims. Now, happy though I am that he changed his mind, his reasoning was ethically warped. He clearly meant that if the victims had not been Muslims, the attack would have been justified. I shudder at such absence of common humanity, at the implied notion that a set of ancient ideas matters more than real people. All the indoctrinators’ requirements were satisfied in this young man: a sense of grievance and humiliation at the supposed victimisation of Islam, a certainty that he would really meet seventy-two immaculate virgins, and most likely a conviction that “god knows his own”: in other words, that Allah would send to heaven any who were deserving among the people who died. The only setback was that the victims were “us”, not “them”.
Hateful indoctrination, of the kind that contaminates the minds of terrorists, would of course be wasted on almost all Muslims. They would no doubt protest that the huge, moderate majority of them believe in the Koran’s divinity and in a real heaven and hell, yet would not for a moment consider any such violent action – or support it. This is of course true. Yet it misses the point. Unquestioning acceptance of the Koran is not a sufficient condition for terrorism. However, it is a necessary condition: indoctrinators can do their sinister work if their victims come from a belief base that assumes two things: that the Islamic paradise is real, and that Allah is the only true God for everyone, in Pittsburgh no less than in Peshawar.
We are used to hearing that “Islam is a religion of tolerance.” But what does this mean? Does it suggest that tolerance is a defining quality of Islam? If so, it insults millions of tolerant people of other faiths – or no faith. If tolerance is a virtue for all people, Islam cannot claim it as its own. Or does the statement simply assert that tolerance is a quality which Muslims happen to possess, as do Buddhists, Christians, atheists and Zoroastrians? If so, it is meaningless. Any large group of people comprises tolerant and intolerant, selfless and selfish, honest and dishonest, peaceful and violent. No apologists for Islam – or any other creed – are entitled to confine their religion simply to the noble essence of its central philosophy or to stress the way its best believers behave. This makes it very easy to dismiss violent believers as outsiders. After a suicide bombing in a Pakistani mosque in 2009, a bystander commented, “These extremists are not Muslims. They are butchers.” He was half right: they were Muslims and butchers. One aspect of Islam inspired the Alhambra, and another inspired suicide bombing.
Muslims like to claim that Islam has an untainted essence, to which mere believers can only aspire, because they are human and imperfect. I find this a peculiar argument, because all religions sound wonderful in the abstract. Imagine I set up my own religion, and give it a favourable name, such as inclusionism. If some of my followers set off bombs in public places, it would be offensive to say, “These violent pretenders are not true inclusionists. Inclusionism is obviously about peace and understanding. Even the name itself proclaims this.” We are what we do. If we call ourselves religious, we are what we do – good or evil – in the name of our religion.
All of us like some movies and dislike others. The same applies to songs and novels and houses…and to the people we encounter. This is only natural. It is also natural for us to like some beliefs and dislike others. We develop ways to separate what we like from what we dislike. We discriminate.
I repudiate all holy books. Therefore, I dislike Islam for treating the Koran so dogmatically. Some may say that I am biased against Muslims, or that I have become a victim of anti-Islam propaganda. But not every strong opinion is biased. If I have considered various forms of government and decided that I like democracy, does that mean that I am biased against dictators? I don’t think so. As for propaganda, if you disagree with what I say about Islam, I can claim you’ve been swayed by anti-anti-Muslim propaganda. Such reciprocal charges really get us nowhere. I have considered the beliefs of Muslims, and decided that they are irrational. Someone may prove that I am mistaken, but until then, that is my belief: my belief, not one foisted upon me. This is justified and perfectly natural discrimination. It is not bias, and if it is stereotyping, it is stereotyping based on observation.
Like everyone, I judge people I meet. Most of this evaluation is subconscious, but at least part is conscious. And the beliefs people hold form part of the conscious impression they make on me. This is as it should be. Far from being prejudice, belief as a means of assessing people makes good sense. It is fairer than using inescapable physical features such as height or skin colour. Some may say that I should assess people on more universal qualities than their religion. Perhaps that Muslim would be a wonderful friend, because he is forgiving, generous, loyal and hospitable. Yes, perhaps he would. However, beliefs about God and science and the nature of truth do matter. They are part of what defines a person. We know this, because Muslims themselves insist on it. I have the impression that Islam is undergoing a crisis of identity, and in a world that is becoming more homogeneous, Muslims feel compelled to assert their religious distinctiveness more and more. However, I wonder why being Muslim should matter more than being human.
If you do decide it is more important to cherish and to advertise what makes you Muslim, that is of course your right. But you cannot on the one hand say that your religion is the most essential part of who you are, and on the other say that it should not matter to people around you who do not share your faith. Which is your religion to be: important or unimportant? If you decide it is important, you must take the social consequences of that decision: people may dislike the beliefs that you value. If you decide your religion is unimportant, welcome to the swelling group of fulfilled people who happily identify themselves not as Muslim or Christian, but simply as Homo sapiens.
The drive for identity has made Islam tragically insular. If anything, the conviction among Muslims that the Koran contains all truth appears to have increased in modern times. In some respects Islam has a noble history of progress, liberalism and openness. The Muslim world once produced influential thinkers. I have often read that Muslims were usually more tolerant of Christians than the other way round. I lack the knowledge to refute this. However, in all these respects, the Islamic world has made no real headway in recent centuries. In fact, I am convinced it has gone backwards.
Muslims who call themselves moderate naturally dissociate themselves from narrow or violent interpretations of the Koran. Yet in the twenty-first century, moderation requires more. Moderation does not consist in interpreting the Koran in a liberal and flexible way; it consists in questioning its very divinity, and ultimately being able to ignore it. It consists in at least doubting whether Allah even exists, rather than just wondering what He means.
If you are a Muslim and wish to protest that you are not a peaceful extremist in the way I have outlined it in this article, ask yourself a simple question: is the Koran the word of Allah? If your answer is an unequivocal “yes”, you distance yourself from many non-Muslims who agree with me, most of whom are too polite to say what I do.
—————————————
The author welcomes feedback to his article. He can be contacted via email: joyce_peter@hotmail.com