The label of Catholic
terror was never used about the IRA Fundamentalism is often a form of
nationalism in religious disguise Karen Armstrong
Monday July 11,
2005
The Guardian
Last year I
attended a conference in the US about security and intelligence in the
so-called war on terror and was astonished to hear one of the more
belligerent participants, who as far as I could tell had nothing but
contempt for religion, strongly argue that as a purely practical
expedient, politicians and the media must stop referring to "Muslim
terrorism". It was obvious, he said, that the atrocities had nothing to do
with Islam, and to suggest otherwise was not merely inaccurate but
dangerously counterproductive.
Rhetoric is a powerful weapon in any conflict. We cannot hope to
convert Osama bin Laden from his vicious ideology; our priority must be to
stem the flow of young people into organisations such as al-Qaida, instead
of alienating them by routinely coupling their religion with immoral
violence. Incorrect statements about Islam have convinced too many in the
Muslim world that the west is an implacable enemy. Yet, as we found at the
conference, it is not easy to find an alternative for referring to this
terrorism; however, the attempt can be a salutary exercise that reveals
the complexity of what we are up against.
We need a phrase that is more
exact than "Islamic terror". These acts may be committed by people who
call themselves Muslims, but they violate essential Islamic principles.
The Qur'an prohibits aggressive warfare, permits war only in self-defence
and insists that the true Islamic values are peace, reconciliation and
forgiveness. It also states firmly that there must be no coercion in
religious matters, and for centuries Islam had a much better record of
religious tolerance than Christianity.
Like the Bible, the Qur'an
has its share of aggressive texts, but like all the great religions, its
main thrust is towards kindliness and compassion. Islamic law outlaws war
against any country in which Muslims are allowed to practice their
religion freely, and forbids the use of fire, the destruction of buildings
and the killing of innocent civilians in a military campaign. So although
Muslims, like Christians or Jews, have all too often failed to live up to
their ideals, it is not because of the religion per se.
We rarely, if ever, called
the IRA bombings "Catholic" terrorism because we knew enough to realise
that this was not essentially a religious campaign. Indeed, like the Irish
republican movement, many fundamentalist movements worldwide are simply
new forms of nationalism in a highly unorthodox religious guise. This is
obviously the case with Zionist fundamentalism in Israel and the fervently
patriotic Christian right in the US.
In the Muslim world, too,
where the European nationalist ideology has always seemed an alien import,
fundamentalisms are often more about a search for social identity and
national self-definition than religion. They represent a widespread desire
to return to the roots of the culture, before it was invaded and weakened
by the colonial powers.
Because it is increasingly
recognised that the terrorists in no way represent mainstream Islam, some
prefer to call them jihadists, but this is not very satisfactory.
Extremists and unscrupulous politicians have purloined the word for their
own purposes, but the real meaning of jihad is not "holy war" but
"struggle" or "effort." Muslims are commanded to make a massive attempt on
all fronts - social, economic, intellectual, ethical and spiritual - to
put the will of God into practice.
Sometimes a military effort
may be a regrettable necessity in order to defend decent values, but an
oft-quoted tradition has the Prophet Muhammad saying after a military
victory: "We are coming back from the Lesser Jihad [ie the battle] and
returning to the Greater Jihad" - the far more important, difficult and
momentous struggle to reform our own society and our own hearts.
Jihad is thus a cherished
spiritual value that, for most Muslims, has no connection with violence.
Last year, at the University of Kentucky, I met a delightful young man
called Jihad; his parents had given him that name in the hope that he
would become not a holy warrior, but a truly spiritual man who would make
the world a better place. The term jihadi terrorism is likely to be
offensive, therefore, and will win no hearts or minds.
At our conference in
Washington, many people favoured "Wahhabi terrorism". They pointed out
that most of the hijackers on September 11 came from Saudi Arabia, where a
peculiarly intolerant form of Islam known as Wahhabism was the state
religion. They argued that this description would be popular with those
many Muslims who tended to be hostile to the Saudis. I was not happy,
however, because even though the narrow, sometimes bigoted vision of
Wahhabism makes it a fruitful ground for extremism, the vast majority of
Wahhabis do not commit acts of terror.
Bin Laden was not inspired by
Wahhabism but by the writings of the Egyptian ideologue Sayyid Qutb, who
was executed by President Nasser in 1966. Almost every fundamentalist
movement in Sunni Islam has been strongly influenced by Qutb, so there is
a good case for calling the violence that some of his followers commit
"Qutbian terrorism." Qutb urged his followers to withdraw from the moral
and spiritual barbarism of modern society and fight it to the death.
Western people should learn
more about such thinkers as Qutb, and become aware of the many
dramatically different shades of opinion in the Muslim world. There are
too many lazy, unexamined assumptions about Islam, which tends to be
regarded as an amorphous, monolithic entity. Remarks such as "They hate
our freedom" may give some a righteous glow, but they are not useful,
because they are rarely accompanied by a rigorous analysis of who exactly
"they" are.
The story of Qutb is also
instructive as a reminder that militant religiosity is often the product
of social, economic and political factors. Qutb was imprisoned for 15
years in one of Nasser's vile concentration camps, where he and thousands
of other members of the Muslim Brotherhood were subjected to physical and
mental torture. He entered the camp as a moderate, but the prison made him
a fundamentalist. Modern secularism, as he had experienced it under
Nasser, seemed a great evil and a lethal assault on faith.
Precise intelligence is
essential in any conflict. It is important to know who our enemies are,
but equally crucial to know who they are not. It is even more vital to
avoid turning potential friends into foes. By making the disciplined
effort to name our enemies correctly, we will learn more about them, and
come one step nearer, perhaps, to solving the seemingly intractable and
increasingly perilous problems of our divided world.
ยท Karen Armstrong is
author of Islam: a Short History
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
