feature article

Islam and Islamism Faith and Ideology

Daniel Pipes

Traditional Islam seeks to teach humans how to live in accord with GodÊs will, whereas Islamism aspires to create a new order·faith-based totalitarianism.

ne cannot emphasise too much the distinction their faith and their worldly success, to assume that between Islam—plain Islam—and its they were the favoured of God in both spiritual and O fundamentalist version. Islam is the religion mundane matters. of about one billion people and is a rapidly growing And yet, in modern times, battlefield victories and faith, particularly in Africa but also elsewhere in the prosperity have been notably lacking. Indeed, as early world. The United States, for example, boasts almost a as the 13th century, Islam’s atrophy and Christendom’s million converts to Islam (plus an even larger number advances were already becoming discernible. But, for of Muslim immigrants). some 500 years longer, Muslims remained largely Islam’s adherents find their faith immensely oblivious to the extraordinary developments taking place appealing, for the religion possesses an inner strength to their north. Ibn Khaldun, the famous Muslim that is quite extraordinary. As a leading figure in the intellectual, wrote around the year 1400 about Europe, Islamic Republic of Iran maintains, ‘Any Westerner who ‘I hear that many developments are taking place in the really understands Islam will envy the lives of Muslims.’ land of the Rum, but God only knows what happens Although Islam is temporally the last of the three major there!’ Middle Eastern monotheisms, Muslims believe that Such wilful ignorance rendered Muslims vulnerable their faith improves on the earlier ones. In their telling, when they could no longer ignore what was happening Judaism and Christianity are but defective variants of around them. Perhaps the most dramatic alert came in Islam, which is God’s final, perfect religion. July 1798, when Napoleon Bonaparte landed in Contributing to this internal confidence is the Egypt—the centre of the Muslim world—and memory of outstanding achievements during Islam’s first conquered it with stunning ease. Other assaults six or so centuries. Its culture was the most advanced, followed over the next century and more, and before and Muslims enjoyed the best health, lived the longest, long most Muslims were living under European rule. had the highest rates of literacy, sponsored the most As their power and influence waned, a sense of advanced scientific and technical research, and deployed incomprehension spread among Muslims. What had usually victorious armies. This pattern of success was gone wrong? Why had God seemingly abandoned them? evident from the beginning: in A.D. 622 the Prophet Muhammad fled Mecca as a refugee, only to return eight Daniel Pipes is Director of the Philadelphia-based Middle years later as its ruler. As early as the year 715, Muslim East Forum, and author of three books on Islam. Dr Pipes will conquerors had assembled an empire that extended from be a keynote speaker at The Centre for Independent StudiesÊ Spain in the west to India in the east. To be a Muslim annual public policy conference, Consilium, to be held this meant to belong to a winning civilisation. Muslims, August at Coolum, Queensland. Reprinted with permission. not surprisingly, came to assume a correlation between (c) The National Interest, No.59, Spring 2000,Washington, DC.

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The trauma of modern Islam results from this sharp own ways by adopting those of the West.’ To reach this and unmistakable contrast between medieval successes conclusion, reformers reread the Islamic scriptures in a and more recent tribulations. Put simply, Muslims have Western light. For example, the Koran permits a man had an exceedingly hard time explaining what went to take up to four wives—on the condition that he treat wrong. Nor has the passage of time made this task any them equitably. Traditionally, and quite logically, easier, for the same unhappy circumstances basically Muslims understood this verse as permission for a man still exist. Whatever index one employs, Muslims can to take four wives. But because a man is allowed only be found clustering toward the bottom—whether one in the West, the reformists performed a sleight of measured in terms of their military prowess, political hand and interpreted the verse in a new way: the Koran, stability, economic development, corruption, human they claim, requires that a man must treat his wives rights, health, longevity or literacy. Anwar Ibrahim, the equitably, which is clearly something no man can do if former deputy prime minister of Malaysia who now there is more than one of them. So, they conclude, Islam languishes in jail, estimates in The Asian Renaissance prohibits more than a single wife. (1997) that whereas Muslims make up just one-fifth of Reformists have applied this sort of reasoning across the world’s total population, they constitute more than the board. To science, for example, they contend half of the 1.2 billion people living in Muslims should have no objections, for abject poverty. There is thus a pervasive science is in fact Muslim. They recall sense of debilitation and encroachment that the word algebra comes from the in the Islamic world today. As the The trauma Arabic, al-jabr. Algebra being the imam of a mosque in Jerusalem put it of modern Islam essence of mathematics and not long ago, ‘Before, we were masters mathematics being the essence of of the world and now we’re not even results from science, all of modern science and masters of our own mosques.’ the sharp and technology thereby stems from work Searching for explanations for their unmistakable done by Muslims. So there is no reason predicament, Muslims have devised to resist Western science; it is rather a three political responses to contrast between matter of reclaiming what the West modernity—secularism, reformism medieval success took (or stole) in the first place. In case and Islamism. The first of these holds and more recent after case, and with varying degrees of that Muslims can only advance by credibility, reformists appropriate emulating the West. Yes, the secularists tribulations. Western ways under the guise of concede, Islam is a valuable and drawing on their own heritage. The esteemed legacy, but its public aim of the reformists, then, is to imitate dimensions must be put aside. In particular, the sacred the West without acknowledging as much. Though law of Islam (called the Shari’a)—which governs such intellectually bankrupt, reformism functions well as a matters as the judicial system, the manner in which political strategy. Muslim states go to war, and the nature of social interactions between men and women—should be The ideological response discarded in its entirety. The leading secular country is The third response to the modern trauma is Islamism. Turkey, where Kemal Ataturk in the period 1923-38 Islamism has three main features: a devotion to the sacred reshaped and modernised an overwhelmingly Muslim law, a rejection of Western influences, and the society. Overall, though, secularism is a minority transformation of faith into ideology. position among Muslims, and even in Turkey it is under Islamism holds that Muslims lag behind the West siege. because they’re not good Muslims. To regain lost glory Reformism, occupying a murky middle ground, requires a return to old ways, and that is achieved by offers a more popular response to modernity. Whereas living fully in accordance with the Shari’a. Were secularism forthrightly calls for learning from the West, Muslims to do so, they would once again reside on top reformism selectively appropriates from it. The reformist of the world, as they did a millennium ago. This, says, ‘Look, Islam is basically compatible with Western however, is no easy task, for the sacred law contains a ways. It’s just that we lost track of our own achievements, vast body of regulations touching every aspect of life, which the West exploited. We must now go back to our many of them contrary to modern practices. (The

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Shari’a somewhat resembles Jewish law, but nothing ideologies of the twentieth century. In fact, Islamism comparable exists in Christianity.) Thus, it forbids usury represents an Islamic-flavoured version of the radical or any taking of interest, which has deep and obvious utopian ideas of our time, following Marxism-Leninism implications for economic life. It calls for cutting off and fascism. It infuses a vast array of Western political the hands of thieves, which runs contrary to all modern and economic ideas within the religion of Islam. As an sensibilities, as do its mandatory covering of women Islamist, a Muslim Brother from Egypt, puts it, ‘We and the separation of the sexes. Islamism not only calls are neither socialist nor capitalist, but Muslims’; a for the application of these laws, but for a more rigorous Muslim of old would have said, ‘We are neither Jews application than ever before was the case. Before 1800, nor Christians, but Muslims.’ the interpreters of the Shari’a softened it somewhat. Islamists see their adherence to Islam primarily as a For instance, they devised a method by which to avoid form of political allegiance; hence, though usually pious the ban on interest. The fundamentalists reject such Muslims, they need not be. Plenty of Islamists seem in modifications, demanding instead that Muslims apply fact to be rather impious. For instance, the mastermind the Shari’a strictly and in its totality. of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, In their effort to build a way of life based purely Ramzi Yousef, had a girlfriend while living in the on the Shari’a laws, Islamists strain to reject all aspects Philippines and was ‘gallivanting around Manila’s bars, of Western influence—customs, strip joints and karaoke clubs, flirting philosophy, political institutions and with women’. From this and other values. Despite these efforts, they still The word ‘Islamism’ suggestions of loose living, his absorb vast amounts from the West in is a useful and biographer, Simon Reeve, finds ‘scant endless ways. For one, they need evidence to support any description modern technology, especially its accurate one, for of Yousef as a religious warrior’. The military and medical applications. For it indicates that FBI agent in charge of investigating another, they themselves tend to be Yousef concluded that, ‘He hid modern individuals, and so are far more this phenomenon is behind a cloak of Islam.’ imbued with Western ways than they an ‘ism’ comparable On a grander level, Ayatollah wish to be or will ever acknowledge. to other ideologies Khomeini hinted at the irrelevance of Thus, while the Ayatollah faith for Islamists in a letter to Khomeini, who was more traditional of the 20th Mikhail Gorbachev early in 1989, as than most Islamists, attempted to century. the Soviet Union was rapidly failing. found a government on the pure The Iranian leader offered his own principles of Shiite Islam, he ended up government as a model: ‘I openly with a republic based on a constitution that represents announce that the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the a nation via the decisions of a parliament, which is in greatest and most powerful base of the Islamic world, turn chosen through popular elections—every one of can easily help fill up the ideological vacuum of your these a Western concept. Another example of Western system.’ Khomeini here seemed to be suggesting that influence is that Friday, which in Islam is not a day of the Soviets should turn to the Islamist ideology— rest but a day of congregation, is now the Muslim converting to Islam would almost seem to be an equivalent of a sabbath. Similarly, the laws of Islam do afterthought. not apply to everyone living within a geographical Contrary to its reputation, Islamism is not a way territory but only to Muslims; Islamists, however, back; as a contemporary ideology it offers not a means understand them as territorial in nature (as an Italian to return to some old-fashioned way of life but a way of priest living in Sudan found out long ago, when he was navigating the shoals of modernisation. With few flogged for possessing alcohol). Islamism thereby exceptions (notably, the Taliban in Afghanistan), stealthily appropriates from the West while denying that Islamists are city dwellers trying to cope with the it is doing so. problems of modern urban life—not people of the Perhaps the most important of these borrowings is countryside. Thus, the challenges facing career women the emulation of Western ideologies. The word figure prominently in Islamist discussions. What, for ‘Islamism’ is a useful and accurate one, for it indicates example, can a woman who must travel by crowded that this phenomenon is an ‘ism’ comparable to other public transportation do to protect herself from groping?

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The Islamists have a ready reply: she should cover herself, The village elder, who is close to the religious body and face, and signal through the wearing of Islamic establishment and knows little of Western culture clothes that she is not approachable. More broadly, they (from which he refuses technology a priori) cannot offer an inclusive and alternative way of life for modern be confused with the young science student who persons, one that rejects the whole complex of popular is more than able to deliver a criticism of Western culture, consumerism and individualism in favour of a values, with which he is familiar and from which faith-based totalitarianism. he is able to appropriate certain dimensions. The traditionalist will reject television, afraid of the Deviations from tradition devastating modernism that it will bring; the While Islamism is often seen as a form of traditional Islamist calls for increasing the number of sets Islam, it is something profoundly different. Traditional . . . once he has gained control of the broadcasts. Islam seeks to teach humans how to live in accord with Most important from our perspective, traditionalists fear God’s will, whereas Islamism aspires to create a new the West while Islamists are eager to challenge it. The order. The first is self-confident, the second deeply late mufti of Saudi Arabia, ‘Abd al-’Aziz Bin-Baz, defensive. The one emphasises exemplified the tremulous old guard. individuals, the latter communities. In the summer of 1995, he warned The former is a personal credo, the latter Islamism rejects Saudi youth not to travel to the West a political ideology. for vacation because ‘there is a deadly The distinction becomes sharpest the whole complex poison in travelling to the land of the when one compares the two sets of of popular culture, infidels and there are schemes by the leaders. Traditionalists go through a consumerism and enemies of Islam to lure Muslims away static and lengthy course of learning in from their religion, to create doubts which they study a huge corpus of individualism about their beliefs, and to spread information and imbibe the Islamic in favour of sedition among them’. He urged the verities much as their ancestors did young to spend their summers in the centuries earlier. Their faith reflects faith-based ‘safety’ of the summer resorts in their more than a millennium of debate totalitarianism. own country. among scholars, jurists and theologians. Islamists are not completely Islamist leaders, by contrast, tend to impervious to the fear of these schemes be well educated in the sciences but and lures, but they have ambitions to not in Islam; in their early adulthood, they confront tame the West, something they do not shy from problems for which their modern learning has failed to announcing for the whole world to hear. The most crude prepare them, so they turn to Islam. In doing so they simply want to kill Westerners. In a remarkable ignore nearly the entire corpus of Islamic learning and statement, a Tunisian convicted of setting off bombs in interpret the Koran as they see fit. As autodidacts, they France in 1985-86, killing 13, told the judge handling dismiss the traditions and apply their own (modern) his case, ‘I do not renounce my fight against the West sensibilities to the ancient texts, leading to an oddly which assassinated the Prophet Muhammad. We Protestant version of Islam. Muslims should kill every last one of you [Westerners].’ The modern world frustrates and stymies traditional Others plan to expand Islam to Europe and America, figures who, educated in old-fashioned subjects, have using violence if necessary. An Amsterdam-based imam not studied European languages, spent time in the declared on a Turkish television program, ‘You must West, or mastered its secrets. For example, traditionalists kill those who oppose Islam, the order of Islam or Allah, rarely know how to exploit the radio, television and the and His Prophet; hang or slaughter them after tying Internet to spread their message. In contrast, Islamist their hands and feet crosswise . . . as prescribed by the leaders usually speak Western languages, often have lived Shari’a. An Algerian terrorist group, the GIA, issued a abroad, and tend to be well versed in technology. communique in 1995 that showed the Eiffel Tower The Internet has hundreds of Islamist sites. exploding and bristled with threats: Francois Burgat and William Dowell note this contrast We are continuing with all our strength our steps in their book, The Islamist Movement in North Africa of jihad and military attacks, and this time in (1993): the heart of France and its largest cities . . . It’s a

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pledge that [the French] will have no more sleep Economic decline begins immediately. Iran, where for and no more leisure and Islam will enter France two decades the standard of living has almost relentlessly whether they like it or not. declined, offers the most striking example of this. The more moderate Islamists plan to use non-violent Personal rights are disregarded, as spectacularly shown means to transform their host countries into Islamic by the re-establishment of chattel slavery in Sudan. states. For them, conversion is the key. One leading Repression of women is an absolute requirement, a American Muslim thinker, Isma’il R. AlFaruqi, put this practice most dramatically on display in Afghanistan, sentiment rather poetically: ‘Nothing could be greater where they have been, until recently, excluded from than this youthful, vigorous and rich continent [of schools and jobs. North America] turning away from its past evil and An Islamist state is, almost by definition, a rogue marching forward under the banner of Allahu Akbar state, not playing by any rules except those of expediency [God is great].’ and power, a ruthless institution that causes misery at This contrast not only implies that home and abroad. Islamists in power Islamism threatens the West in a way means that conflicts proliferate, society that the traditional faith does not, but Islamists is militarised, arsenals grow, and it also suggests why traditional repress moderate terrorism becomes an instrument of Muslims, who are often the first state. It is no accident that Iran was victims of Islamism, express contempt Muslims and treat engaged in the longest conventional for the ideology. Thus, Naguib non-Muslims war of the twentieth century (1980- Mahfouz, Egypt’s Nobel Prize winner 88, against Iraq) and that both Sudan for literature, commented after being as inferior and Afghanistan are in the throes of stabbed in the neck by an Islamist: ‘I specimens. decades-long civil wars, with no end pray to God to make the police in sight. Islamists repress moderate victorious over terrorism and to purify Muslims and treat non-Muslims as Egypt from this evil, in defence of people, freedom, inferior specimens. Its apologists like to see in Islamism and Islam.’ Tujan Faysal, a female member of the a force for democracy, but this ignores the key pattern Jordanian parliament, calls Islamism ‘one of the greatest that, as Martin Kramer points out, ‘Islamists are more dangers facing our society’ and compares it to ‘a cancer likely to reach less militant positions because of their that ‘has to be surgically removed’. Cevik Bir, one of exclusion from power . . . Weakness moderates Islamists.’ the key figures in dispatching Turkey’s Islamist Power has the opposite effect. government in 1997, flatly states that in his country, ‘Muslim fundamentalism remains public enemy Conclusion number one.’ If Muslims feel this way, so can non- Islamism has now been on the ascendant for more than Muslims; being anti-Islamism in no way implies being a quarter century. Its many successes should not be anti-Islam. understood, however, as evidence that it has widespread support. A reasonable estimate might find 10% of Islamism in practice Muslims following the Islamist approach. Instead, the Like other radical ideologues, Islamists look to the power that Islamists wield reflects their status as a highly state as the main vehicle for promoting their dedicated, capable and well-organised minority. A little programme. Indeed, given the impractical nature of their bit like cadres of the Communist Party, they make up scheme, the levers of the state are critical to the for numbers with activism and purpose. realisation of their aims. Toward this end, Islamists often Islamists espouse deep antagonism toward non- lead political opposition parties (Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Muslims in general, and Jews and Christians in Arabia) or have gained significant power (Lebanon, particular. They despise the West both because of its Pakistan, Malaysia). Their tactics are often murderous. huge cultural influence and because it is a traditional In Algeria, an Islamist insurgency has led to some opponent—the old rival, Christendom, in a new guise. 70,000 deaths since 1992. Some of them have learned to moderate their views so And when Islamists do take power, as in Iran, Sudan as not to upset Western audiences, but the disguise is and Afghanistan, the result is invariably a disaster. thin and should deceive no-one.

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