The attack
on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has heightened debate and acrimony
about Islam, Islamic theology, and the seeming propensity Muslims have to violence
- a perception that sometimes seems
universally shared by non-Muslims, but which is belied by empirical
studies.
It has
also fostered the view that Muslims should somehow take to the streets and
condemn, or worse, apologize for the actions of the few extremists in their
midst. This expectation emanates from
deep frustration with the turbulent acts of violence in the last two days, which
have confused and angered so many people around the world.
Logic
dictates, however, that Muslims should no more apologize for radical Islamism,
than Christians for radical Christian views or acts of violence. Nor should Buddhists
apologize and make amends for the action of Buddhist Rakhine extremists in
Myanmar, who have engaged in ethnic cleansing against minority Rohingya
Muslims. Nevertheless, Muslims must engage in a deep introspective look at the
sources of radicalism in their midst. Like any other religious text, the Quran
contains passages of war and violence. Without proper contextualization, however,
these passages can become dangerous in the violent hands of radical Islamists,
applying their fossilized religious interpretations.
Admittedly,
Muslim majority countries face challenges that go beyond religion, and include political
and socio-economic problems. The authoritarian edifice of most Middle Eastern
states and the lack of appropriate venues for dissent have radicalized a
generation of young Muslims in a quest to fight what many of them view as unjust, and un-Islamic governments. The deep sense of
alienation and marginalization of the young generation of European Muslims is also
of deep concern.
All this
notwithstanding, however, the greatest threat to Islam is the relatively modern
phenomenon of Wahhabism. A cancer that
has been allowed to fester and metastasize within Islam for several a couple of
centuries.
Muhammad
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-91) advocated a return to the example of the Prophet
and the salaf (companions of the Prophet,)
as a way to reform what he perceived at the time as a schism in Islam. Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab especially abhorred the popular cult of saints and idolatrous rituals at their tombs, which he
believed cast divinity on humans and threatened
Islam's monotheism. He opposed Sufism and Shi’sm as heretical
innovations (bid’a). Most dangerously, Ibn Abd al-Wahab called on Muslims
to reject the scholarly exegesis developed over the centuries by successive madhahib (schools of jurisprudence).
This call undermined the religious authority wielded by scholars in Muslim
world, and would ultimately enable generations of self-proclaimed religious
experts to interpret scriptures at will to fit their own political or
individual interests.
For all
of its reformist puritanical zeal, Wahhabism would have been relegated to a
mere footnote in the history of the region, if it were not for a literal pact
signed with the future founders of Saudi Arabia. Indeed, Saudi Arabia has
systematically financed and globalized Wahhabi, literalist interpretations of
Islamic texts.
Wahhabism's
globalization has had profound effects on the rise of radical interpretations
of Islam, outside the realm of learned theological hermeneutics. It has fueled extremists from Sayyid Qutb to Osama
bin Laden to ISIS, who have variously claimed the mantle of radical Islamic
reform and engaged in an extremist
takfirist war (a war against so-called apostates). This misguided and
nefarious battle has, in turn, effectively bastardized the noble concept of
greater jihad, as an inner struggle, and transformed it into a call for acts of
terrorism.
Wahhabi
thought bifurcates the world into two antithetical parts: the House of Islam and
the House of Unbelief. The former rests
on a dogmatic, rigid understanding of Islamic theology. The latter is the enemy
of Islam and consists of dictatorial Arab regimes, as well as moderate Muslims,
among others. Wahhabi extremists prescribe violence against those in the realm
of the unbelief, in accordance with
their radical interpretations of Islamic
texts.
Muslims
today must reject this radical bifurcation and tackle head on those literalist,
radical interpretations of Islamic texts. Unlike what Ibn Abd al-Wahhab may argue,
this task is not the responsibility of average Muslims. Rather it is the work of honest, brave, and learned
scholars of Islam and Islamic theology. In particular, passages in the Qur’an
and Hadith, on war, apostasy, and violence are in need of new, unequivocal
interpretations to fit the modern social and political realities of
Muslim-majority states.
In their
own ways, many Muslims have engaged in every day acts of resistance against these
assaults on their faith. These include education, outreach, interfaith
dialogue, and rejection of those amongst us who hold extremist Islamist views. But we must also tolerate positions that attack the holy in our
religion. Unless we, as Muslims, develop tolerance, not necessarily acceptance,
of negative discourses on Islam, we will
continue to cede ground to radicals who
seek to dictate the limits of the tolerable for Islam and all Muslims.
Acts of
violence, faux rage, and self-victimization serve only to foster a negative
image of our ability to solve the challenges facing our faith. Islam has lasted and largely flourished for
the last fourteen centuries. Surely, Allah, the Quran, and the Prophet do not
need protection from anyone, let alone the most heinous and criminal of
extremists and radicals.
