THIN DESCRIPTION: SEEKING DIVERSITY
IN MIDDLE EAST STUDIES
by
Sean Joseph Rooney
B.A., The University of West Florida, 2001
A thesis submitted to the Department of Anthropology College of Arts and Sciences The University of West Florida In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
2009
© 2009 Sean Joseph Rooney
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT...... iv
CHAPTER I. THE SUNNAH: A BRIEF OVERVIEW...... 1 A. Qur’an: Islamic Doctrine ...... 1 B. The ahadith: Words and Deeds of Muhammad...... 5 C. The Sira and al-Tabari: Earliest Biographies of Muhammad...... 8 D. The Doctrine of Abrogation: A Closer Look ...... 17
CHAPTER II. JIHAD AND DHIMMI STATUS...... 22 A. Classical Jihad...... 22 B. Contemporary Jihad Theory...... 26 C. Dhimmi Status...... 38 D. Jihad and Dhimmitude in Practice… Today...... 56
CHAPTER III. THE UNIVERSITIES: INTELLECTUAL JIHAD ...... 59 A. The Legacy of Edward Said: Who Are We to Judge? ...... 59 B. Deforming Logic to fit Political Prejudice ...... 76
REFERENCES CITED...... 92
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ABSTRACT
THIN DESCRIPTION: SEEKING DIVERSITY IN MIDDLE EAST STUDIES
Sean Joseph Rooney
With only a cursory look at most courses labeled “Islamic” or “Middle Eastern”
Studies or the like, one may be shocked to learn that there may be little “Islam” in the syllabi. In most courses, Islamic holy texts are conspicuous by their absence. For scholars who wish to present Islam in the most innocuous terms possible, this makes perfect sense.
For all of the Classical Islamic texts agree that perpetual violence towards unbelievers is incumbent upon every healthy Muslim. The motives of some scholars are most likely well-intentioned; they wish to further interreligious dialogue by skirting certain issues that have long been used as a vehicle for attacking Islam. Other scholars’ motives may not be as noble. Such obfuscation is fundamentally wrong, in addition to being judgmental to an extent that is, to say the least, open to debate on the basis of available evidence. Moreover, this coddling leads to further confusion among Western students who know little or nothing about Islam to ask, for example, why, if violence in Islam has no validity, is the doctrine of violent jihad so influential in the Muslim world? Why indeed.
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CHAPTER I
THE SUNNAH: A BRIEF OVERVIEW
Qur’an: Islamic Doctrine
Nadia Abu-Zahra notes “The fieldwork data [collected in Tunisia] would have been incomprehensible had I not consulted the Qur’an and the Arabic works of the commentators on the prophet’s traditions [ahadith and Sira]” (Abu-Zahra 1997:4; parenthetical mine). She is correct, for although the anthropologist is not likely to study
Islamic theology in order to determine its spiritual truth, “it is almost nonsensical that an ethnographer would attempt to study Muslims without knowing seminal texts like the
Qur’an, hadith collections, and relevant legal [and historical] texts” (Abu-Zahra 1997:4; parenthetical mine). Unfortunately, according to anthropologist Daniel Martin Varisco,
“The majority of anthropologists who have worked with Muslims probably have not read the entire Qur’an”… (Varisco 2005:152). Varisco’s contention is, of course, highly debatable. However, in order to study Muslims and Islam, it is necessary to read, and understand, the Islamic theological texts—at least strive to understand them in the way that the overwhelming majority of Muslims understand them cross-culturally.
Islam (note: not “fundamentalist” Islam or “radical” Islam) is both fully political and fully religious. Islam is a political system, a culture, and a religion—there is no separation between church and state. The core features of “Religious Islam” (the “Five
Pillars”) are prayer to Allah, charity to other Muslims (charity to non-Muslims is not required), fasting during Ramadan, pilgrimage to Mecca, and declaring Muhammad the 1 final prophet of Allah. Islam also has a complete legal code, the Sharia (The Center for the Study of Political Islam [CSPI] 2006:vii; parenthetical mine).
The five pillars in and of themselves do not tell us a lot about the faith or what a
Muslim is supposed to believe or how he or she should act. The second through fifth pillars—prayer, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage—are aspects shared by many religions.
The finality of the prophethood of Muhammad, however, is unique to Islam. To understand Islam and what it means to be a Muslim, we must come to understand
Muhammad as well as the revelations given through him by Allah, which make up the
Qur’an, ahadith, and the Sira.
The Five Pillars, the Sharia, and literally every other aspect, both public and private, of a true believer’s life are laid out in the Qur’an, the ahadith, and the Sira— again, anthropologists must, at least, familiarize themselves with the Qur’an before beginning any endeavor involving Islam or Muslims (this notion of an all-encompassing personal doctrine is more complicated than it seems at this point because the Qur’an, as we shall see, cannot be understood in and of itself).
The Qur’an, even for the average, unphilosophical Muslim, remains the perfect, eternal, universal, final, infallible word of Allah. For the believer, the Qur’an is:
The immediate word of God sent down, through the intermediary “spirit”
or “holy spirit” or Gabriel, to Muhammad in perfect, pure Arabic; and
every thing contained therein is eternal and uncreated. The original text is
in heaven. The angel dictated the revelation to the Prophet, who repeated it
after him, and then revealed it to the world. Modern Muslims also claim
that these revelations have been preserved exactly as revealed to
2 Muhammad, without any change, addition, or loss whatsoever. [Warraq
1995:105]
In other words, the Qur’an is a part of God. It is His perfect, eternal, and living word in every Arabic version of the holy book. Moreover, it was brought to men by Muhammad who embodies the ideal pattern for all behavior of all peoples for all times.
The Qur’an is divided into 114 chapters (suras or surahs) and about 6,200 verses
(ayah; plural, ayat). It contains approximately 80,000 words. Each sura, except the ninth
(called the “Chapter of the Sword” by many critics) and the first (the Fatihah), begins with the words “In the name of the Merciful, the Compassionate.” The suras are arranged in order of length, from longest to shortest, not in chronological order (with the notable exception of the brief Fatihah). Because of its arrangement, the Qur’an jumps from topic to topic, and stories are often repeated. The Center for the Study of Political Islam makes this analogy about Qur’anic storytelling:
[I]magine that you took a mystery novel and cut off the spine. Then you
rebound the book starting with the longest chapter and so on down to the
shortest chapter. As you read it you would jump back and forth in time
and be completely confused. The story would be lost. Likewise, when you
turn a page of the Koran, it could move forward or backward in time, and
the reader is completely lost. [CSPI 2006:viii-ix]
Moreover, the Qur’an is riddled with contradictions. However, the Doctrine of
Abrogation (al-naskh wa al-mansukhthe; abrogating and the abrogated) solves this puzzle;
Muslim theologians have concluded that certain passages of the Qur’an (early passages revealed in Mecca) are abrogated by verses with a different or contradictory meaning
3 revealed later (in Medina). This was taught by Allah through Muhammad in Qur’anic sura 2:105-2:106: “Whatever verses we [Allah] cancel or cause you to forget, we bring a better or its like. Know you not that Allah is able to do all things?” It seems that 2:105-
2:106 was revealed in response to skepticism directed at Muhammad that Allah’s revelations were not entirely consistent over time. Muhammad’s rebuttal was that “Allah is able to do all things”—even change his mind. Unfortunately for unbelievers, all the passages recommending preaching tolerance are found in the early Meccan suras (when
Muhammad was weak), and all the passages recommending killing, decapitating, and maiming infidels are later Medinan revelations (when Muhammad became a warrior- prophet). For example, according to Islamic scholar Ibn Warraq, “. . .the famous verse at sura 9:5, ‘Slay the idolaters wherever you find them,’ is said to have canceled 124 verses that dictate toleration and patience” (Warraq 1995:115; parenthetical mine).
So how can one understand the Qur’an in an Islamic (or any other) context? The key to its understanding lies in the life of Muhammad; and Muhammad’s life is compiled in the Sira and hadith collections. A common misconception by unbelievers (including many anthropologists, be they believers or not) is that the Qur’an is the basis of Islam.
However, Islam is founded upon the words of Allah (the Qur’an) and the Sunnah (the words and deeds of Muhammad found in the Sira and hadith collections). Surprisingly to many, Allah’s words comprise only about 17% of the total doctrinal texts. On the other hand, the words and deeds of Muhammad make up about 83% of Islamic doctrine (CSPI
2006:395).
4 The ahadith: Words and Deeds of Muhammad
For non-Muslims, because of its’ extreme, unending violence directed towards them, the Qur’an is a difficult, if not impossible, book to understand when it is viewed as a religious text: “But when it is viewed as a historical and political text as well as a religious text, it is a straight forward story” (CSPI 2006:x). In Islam, Muhammad is considered al-insan al-kamil (the “ideal man”). Muhammad is in no way considered divine, nor is he worshipped, but he is the model par excellence (uswa hasana) for all
Muslims in how they should conduct themselves. It is through Muhammad’s personal teachings and actions—which make up the “way of the Prophet,” the Sunnah—that
Muslims discern what is a good and holy life. Details about the Prophet—how he lived, what he did, his non-Qur’anic utterances, his personal habits—are indispensable knowledge for any faithful Muslim. These details can be as elementary as Muhammad’s sleeping position, choice of hair coloration, or hygiene.
Knowledge of the Sunnah comes primarily from the ahadith about Muhammad’s life, which were passed down orally until codified in the eighth century CE, some hundred years after Muhammad’s death. The ahadith comprise the most important body of Islamic texts after the Qur’an; they are basically a collection of anecdotes about
Muhammad’s life believed to have originated with those who knew him personally.
There are thousands upon thousands of ahadith, some running to multiple pages, and some barely a few lines in length. When the ahadith were first compiled, it became obvious that many were inauthentic. The early Muslim scholars of hadith spent tremendous labor trying to determine which ahadith were authoritative and which were suspect.
5 There were many collectors of ahadith, but the two most authoritative collectors were Muhammad Ibn Ismail Al-Bukhari, or Bukhari, and Abu Al-Husayn Muslim, or
Muslim. Bukhari took over 600,000 ahadith, whittled them down to the most reliable
6,720, and recorded them in his Sahih (authentic) Bukhari (Muslim’s work is called
Sahih Muslim). According to the Center for the Study of Political Islam “Bukhari recorded about one hadith in a hundred and threw out ninety-nine percent of the rest because he found them unreliable, due to political enhancement or romantic storytelling. . . There was another complication for Bukhari—politics” (CSPI:2006 vol. 2: ix). Rulers could actually order ahadith based upon the life of Muhammad.
The way the hadith collectors “purified” the ahadith was to use a chain of evidence (isnad[s]). Ahadiths were traced back to the time of Muhammad. At the beginning of the chain, there had to be someone who was known to be reliable who had heard it from Muhammad or one of his companions. Some isnads went back ten generations. The Shia Muslims use another set of (similar) ahadith. Shia (Shii) Muslims make up about 15% of the Muslim Ummah (World-wide Islamic community).
Because Muhammad is himself the measuring stick of morality, his actions are not judged according to an independent moral standard but rather establish what the standard for Muslims properly is, according to Sahih Bukhari:
Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88; Narrated Ursa: The Prophet wrote the
(marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and
consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she
remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).
6 Volume 8, Book 82, Number 795; Narrated Anas: The Prophet cut off the
hands and feet of the men belonging to the tribe of Uraina and did not
cauterize (their bleeding limbs) till they died.
Volume 2, Book 23, Number 413; Narrated Abdullah bin Umar: The Jews
[of Medina] brought to the Prophet a man and a woman from amongst
them who have committed (adultery) illegal sexual intercourse. He
ordered both of them to be stoned (to death), near the place of offering the
funeral prayers beside the mosque.
Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57; Narrated Ikrima: Some Zanadiqa
(atheists) were brought to Ali {the fourth Caliph} and he burnt them. The
news of this event, reached Ibn ‘Abbas who said, ‘If I had been in his
place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah’s Apostle forbade it,’ saying,
‘Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire).’ I would have
killed them according to the statement of Allah’s Apostle, ‘Whoever
changes his Islamic religion, then kill him.’
Volume 1, Book 2, Number 25; Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah’s Apostle
was asked, ‘What is the best deed?’ He replied, ‘To believe in Allah and
His Apostle’ (Muhammad). The questioner then asked, ‘What is the next
(in goodness)?’ He replied, ‘To participate in Jihad (religious fighting) in
Allah’s Cause.’ [Muslim Student’s Association (MSA) 2008]
In Islam, there is no ‘natural’ sense of morality or justice that transcends the specific examples and injunctions outlined in the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Because
Muhammad is considered Allah’s final prophet and the Qur’an the eternal, unalterable
7 words of Allah himself, there is also no evolving morality that permits the modification or integration of Islamic morality with that from other sources. The entire Islamic moral universe devolves solely from the life and teachings of Muhammad.
The Sira and al-Tabari: Earliest Biographies of Muhammad
Along with the reliable hadith collections, a further source of accepted knowledge about Muhammad comes from the Sira (life) and biographies of the Prophet. The primary sources of all biographical material on Muhammad are composed by some of Islam’s greatest scholars, including Muhammad bin Ishaq’s eighth century CE masterpiece
(usually referred to as the Sira). Ishaq’s Sira is a detailed manual that lays out the complete strategy of political Islam and jihad (literally “striving,” but the most common usage is “holy war”). Much of the Sira is about how Muhammad dealt with those people who disagreed with him. Violent political action with a religious motivation was taken against non-Muslims: Under Islam, their only political freedom was to submit (Islam means “submission”). At approximately the same time, al-Tabari composed the History of Prophet’s and Kings, here rendered as The History of al-Tabari (al-Tabari 1992). al-
Tabari’s history consists of thirty-nine volumes, four of which are about Muhammad’s life. It also covers the expansion of Islam as it conquered much of the known world over the centuries.
As noted earlier, Muhammad’s prophetic career is meaningfully divided into two segments: the first in Mecca, where he labored for fourteen years to make converts to
Islam; and later in the city of Medina, where he became a powerful political and military leader. In Mecca, we see a “Man of Peace,” preaching repentance and charity, harassed and rejected by those around him; later, in Medina, we see an able commander and
8 strategist who systematically conquered and killed those who opposed him. It is the later years of Muhammad’s life, from 622 CE to his death in 632, that are rarely broached on
Western college campuses. In 622, when the Prophet was better than fifty years old, he and his followers made the Hijra (emigration or flight), from Mecca to the oasis of
Yathrib—later renamed Medina (the City of the Apostle of God)—some 200 miles to the north. Muhammad’s new monotheism had angered the pagan leaders of Mecca, and the flight to Medina was precipitated by a probable attempt on Muhammad’s life.
Muhammad had sent emissaries to Medina to ensure his welcome. He was accepted by the Medinan tribes as the leader of the Muslims and as arbiter of inter-tribal disputes.
Shortly before Muhammad fled the hostility of Mecca, a new batch of Muslim converts pledged their loyalty to him on a hill outside Mecca called Aqaba. Ishaq here conveys in the Sira the significance of this event:
Sira:208:
When God gave permission to his Apostle to fight, the second [oath of
allegiance at] Aqaba contained conditions involving war which were not
in the first act of fealty. Now they [Muhammad’s followers] bound
themselves to war against all and sundry for God and his Apostle, while he
promised them for faithful service thus the reward of paradise. [Ishaq 2002]
That Muhammad’s nascent religion underwent a significant change at this point is plain. The scholarly Ishaq clearly intends to impress on his (Muslim) readers that, while in its early years, Islam was a relatively tolerant creed that would “endure insult and forgive the ignorant,” Allah soon required Muslims “to war against all and sundry for
God and his Apostle.” The Islamic calendar testifies to the paramouncy of the Hijra by
9 setting year one from the date of its occurrence. The year of the Hijra, 622 CE, is considered more significant than the year of Muhammad’s birth or death or that of the first Qur’anic revelation because Islam is first and foremost a political-military enterprise.
It was only when Muhammad left Mecca with his paramilitary band that Islam achieved its proper political-military articulation. The years of the Islamic calendar (which employs lunar months) are designated in English “AH” or “After Hijra.”
According to Islamic tradition, the Battle of Badr was the first significant engagement fought by the Prophet. Upon establishing himself in Medina following the
Hijra, Muhammad began a series of razzias (raids) on caravans of the Meccan Quraish tribe on the route to Syria. Sahih Bukhari: Volume 5, Book 59, Number 287; Narrated
Kab bin Malik: “The Apostle had gone out to meet the caravans of Quraish, but Allah caused them (Muslims) to meet their enemy unexpectedly (with no previous intention).”
[MSA 2008]
Volume 5, Book 59, Number 289; Narrated Ibn Abbas:
On the day of the battle of Badr, the Prophet said, “O Allah! I appeal to
You (to fulfill) Your Covenant and Promise. O Allah! If Your Will is that
none should worship You (then give victory to the pagans).” Then Abu
Bakr took hold of him by the hand and said, “This is sufficient for you.”
The Prophet came out saying, “Their multitude will be put to flight and
they will show their backs.” [also in Y.A. Ali 2003:Q:54:45]
Having returned to Medina after the battle, Muhammad admonished the resident
Jewish tribe of Qaynuqa to accept Islam or face a similar fate as the Quraish (Y.A. Ali
2003:Q:3:12-13). The Qaynuqa agreed to leave Medina if they could retain their property,
10 which Muhammad granted. Following the exile of the Bani Qaynuqa, Muhammad turned to individuals in Medina he considered to have acted treacherously. The Prophet particularly seems to have disliked the many poets who ridiculed his new religion and his claim to prophethood—a theme evident today in the violent reactions of Muslims to any perceived or real mockery of Islam. In taking action against his opponents, “the ideal man” set precedents for all time as to how Muslims should deal with detractors of their religion.
Sira:367:
Then he [Kab bin al-Ashraf] composed amatory verses of an insulting
nature about the Muslim women. The Apostle said… “Who will rid me of
Ibnul-Ashraf?” Muhammad bin Maslama, brother of the Bani Abdu’l-
Ashhal, said, “I will deal with him for you, O Apostle of God, I will kill
him.” He said, “Do so if you can”… “All that is incumbent upon you is
that you should try” [said the Prophet to Muhammad bin Maslama]. He
said, “O Apostle of God, we shall have to tell lies.” He [the Prophet]
answered, “Say what you like, for you are free in the matter.” [Ishaq 2002]
Sahih Bukhari: Volume 4, Book 52, Number 270; Narrated Jabir bin
‘Abdullah: The Prophet said, “Who is ready to kill Kab bin Al-Ashraf
who has really hurt Allah and His Apostle?” Muhammad bin Maslama
said, “O Allah’s Apostle! Do you like me to kill him?” He replied in the
affirmative. So, Muhammad bin Maslama went to him (Kab) and said,
“This person (the Prophet) has put us to task and asked us for charity.”
Kab replied, “By Allah, you will get tired of him.” Muhammad said to
11 him, “We have followed him, so we dislike to leave him till we see the
end of his affair.” Muhammad bin Maslama went on talking to him in this
way till he got the chance to kill him. [MSA 2008]
A significant portion of the Sira is devoted to poetry composed by Muhammad’s followers and his enemies in rhetorical duels that mirrored those in the field. There seems to have been an informal competition in aggrandizing oneself, one’s tribe, and one’s God while ridiculing one’s adversary in eloquent and memorable ways. Kab bin Malik, one of the assassins of his brother, Kab bin al-Ashraf, composed the following:
Sira:368:
Kab bin Malik said: Of them Kab was left prostrate there [After his fall
(the Jewish tribe of) al-Nadir were brought low]. Sword in hand we cut
him down by Muhammad’s order when he sent secretly by night Kab’s
brother to go to Kab. He beguiled him and brought him down with guile
Mahmud was trustworthy, bold. [Ishaq 2002; parenthetical in original]
The Meccan Quraish regrouped for an attack on the Muslims at Medina.
Muhammad got wind of the Meccan force coming to attack him and encamped his forces on a small hillock north of Medina named Uhud, where the ensuing battle took place.
Sahih Bukhari: Volume 5, Book 59, Number 377; Narrated Jabir bin Abdullah:
“On the day of the battle of Uhud, a man came to the Prophet and said, ‘Can you tell me where I will be if I should get martyred?’ The Prophet replied, ‘In Paradise.’ The man threw away some dates he was carrying in his hand, and fought till he was martyred”
(MSA 2008).
Volume 5, Book 59, Number 375; Narrated Al-Bara:
12 When we faced the enemy, they took to their heel till I saw their women
running towards the mountain, lifting up their clothes from their legs,
revealing their leg-bangles. The Muslims started saying, “The booty, the
booty!” Abdullah bin Jubair said, “The Prophet had taken a firm promise
from me not to leave this place.” But his companions refused (to stay). So
when they refused (to stay there), (Allah) confused them so that they could
not know where to go, and they suffered seventy casualties. [MSA 2008]
Though deprived of victory at Uhud, Muhammad was by no means vanquished.
He continued making raids that made being a Muslim not only virtuous in the eyes of
Allah but lucrative as well. In an Islamic worldview, there is no incompatibility between wealth, power, and holiness. Indeed, as a member of the true faith, it is only logical that one should also enjoy the material bounty of Allah—even if that means plundering it from infidels.
As Muhammad had neutralized the Jewish tribe of Bani Qaynuqa after Badr, he now turned to the Bani Nadir after Uhud. According to the Sira, Allah warned
Muhammad of an attempt to assassinate him, and the Prophet ordered the Muslims to prepare for war against the Bani Nadir. The Bani Nadir agreed to go into exile if
Muhammad permitted them to retain their movable property. Muhammad agreed to these terms save that they leave behind their armor.
In 627 CE, Muhammad faced the greatest challenge to his new community. In that year, the Quraish of Mecca made their most determined attack on the Muslims at
Medina itself. Muhammad thought it advisable not to engage them in a pitched battle as at Uhud but took shelter in Medina, protected as it was by lava flows on three sides. The
13 Meccans would have to attack from the northwest in a valley between the flows, and it was there that Muhammad ordered a trench dug for the city’s defense.
Sahih Bukhari: Volume 4, Book 52, Number 208; Narrated Anas:
On the day (of the battle) of the Trench, the Ansar [new converts to
Islam]… [said] “We are those who have sworn allegiance to Muhammad
for Jihad (for ever) as long as we live.” The Prophet replied to them, “O
Allah! There is no life except the life of the Hereafter. So honor the Ansar
and emigrants [from Mecca] with Your Generosity” [and fight the
Meccans]. [MSA 2008]
Moreover, Narrated Mujashi:
My brother and I came to the Prophet and I requested him to take the
pledge of allegiance from us for migration. He said, “Migration has passed
away with its people.” I asked, “For what will you take the pledge of
allegiance from us then?” He said, “I will take (the pledge) for Islam and
Jihad.” [MSA 2008]
The Meccans were foiled by the trench and only able to send small raiding parties across it. After several days, they turned back for Mecca. Following his victory,
Muhammad turned to the third Jewish tribe at Medina, the Bani Quraiza. While the Bani
Qaynuqa and Bani Nadir had suffered exile, the fate of the Bani Quraiza would be considerably more dire.
Sira:463-4:
Then they [the tribe of Quraiza] surrendered, and the apostle confined
them in Medina in the quarter of d. al-Harith, a woman of Bani al-Najjar.
14 Then the apostle went out to the market of Medina and dug trenches in it.
Then he sent for them and struck off their heads in those trenches as they
were brought out to him in batches. Among them was the enemy of Allah
Huyayy bin Akhtab and Kab bin Asad their chief. There were 600 or 700
in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900. As they were
being taken out in batches to the Apostle they asked Kab what he thought
would be done with them. He replied, “Will you never understand? Don’t
you see that the summoner never stops and those who are taken away do
not return? By Allah it is death!” This went on until the Apostle made an
end of them. [Ishaq 2002]
Thus do we find the clear precedent that explains the penchant of Islamists to behead their victims: it is merely another precedent bestowed by their Prophet.
Following yet another of the Muslims’ raids, this time on a place called Khaibar,
“The women of Khaibar were distributed among the Muslims, as was usual practice”
(Ishaq 2002). The raid at Khaibar had been against the Bani Nadir, whom Muhammad had earlier exiled from Medina.
Sira:515:
Kinana bin al-Rabi, who had the custody of the treasure of Bani al-Nadir,
was brought to the Apostle who asked him about it. He denied that he
knew where it was. A Jew came to the Apostle and said that he had seen
Kinana going round a certain ruin every morning early. When the Apostle
said to Kinana, “Do you know that if we find you have it I shall kill you?”
he said, Yes. The Apostle gave orders that the ruin was to be excavated
15 and some of the treasure was found. When he asked him about the rest he
refused to produce it, so the Apostle gave orders to al-Zubayr bin al-
Awwam, “Torture him until you extract what he has,” so he kindled a fire
with flint and steel on his chest until he was nearly dead. Then the Apostle
delivered him to Muhammad bin Maslama and he struck off his head, in
revenge for his brother Mahmud. [Ishaq 2002]
Muhammad’s greatest victory came in 632 CE, ten years after he and his followers had been forced to flee to Medina. In that year, he assembled a force of some ten thousand Muslims and allied tribes and descended on Mecca. “The Apostle had instructed his commanders when they entered Mecca only to fight those who resisted them, except a small number who were to be killed even if they were found beneath the curtains of the Kaba” (Ishaq 2002).
Sahih Bukhari: Volume 3, Book 29, Number 72; Narrated Anas bin Malik:
Allah’s Apostle entered Mecca in the year of its Conquest wearing an
Arabian helmet on his head and when the Prophet took it off, a person
came and said, “Ibn Khatal is holding the covering of the Kaba (taking
refuge in the Kaba).” The Prophet said, “Kill him.” [MSA 2008]
Following the conquest of Mecca, Muhammad outlined the future of his religion.
Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177; Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah's Apostle said, ‘The Hour [of the Last Judgment] will not be
established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a
Jew will be hiding will say, “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me,
so kill him.” [MSA 2008]
16 Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24; Narrated Ibn Umar:
Allah’s Apostle said: “I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the
people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah
and that Muhammad is Allah’s Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly
and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform that, then they save
their lives and property from me except for Islamic laws and then their
reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah.” [MSA 2008]
It is from such warlike pronouncements as these that Islamic scholarship divides the world into dar al-Islam (the House of Islam, i.e., those nations who have submitted to
Allah) and dar al-harb (the House of War, i.e., those who have not). It is this dispensation that the world lived under in Muhammad’s time and that it lives under today.
Then as now, Islam’s message to the unbelieving world is the same: submit or be conquered. Anthropologists must not dismiss these messages as hearsay; they must read the Islamic texts before entering the field. This is not to say that all Muslims are hell-bent on conquest or subjugation. However, social scientists should at least be aware of those aspects of Islamic texts and juridical rulings that form the basis of modern (and classical) jihadist calls for violence.
The Doctrine of Abrogation: A Closer Look
The “There is no compulsion in Islam” and “Islam is a religion of peace” memes run deep in academic circles (see for example Esposito 2002, Delong-bas 2006, Feldman
2003). However, many of today’s academics skillfully choose to ignore the Islamic
Doctrine of Abrogation. This willful ignorance flies in the face of the overwhelming majority of Classical Islamic scholars, who argue[d] that anyone who studies the Qur’an
17 without having mastered the doctrine of abrogation is “deficient” (Ibn Salama 1966:4-5,
123). Those who do not accept abrogation fall outside the mainstream (be they Sunni or
Shia), and most are considered apostates. The Ahmadiyah sect, for example, today concentrated in Pakistan, rejects abrogation because it undercuts the notion that the
Qur’an is free from errors (Ali 2005:32). In fact, Ahmadis are legally forbidden to refer to themselves as Muslims (Gualtieri 1989:35).
Moreover, according to Sahih Muslim (MSA 2008), abrogation is not limited to
Qur’anic revelation, or even ahadith storytelling, earlier Biblical revelations are also
“made better” (003:0675). The Qur’anic translator and commentator Abdullah Yusuf Ali
(2003) notes that Allah’s message crosses all time barriers, although its “form” may shift
(Q2:106). However, the Pakistani commentator, al-Daryabadi suggests that laws might differ across time, but there should be no shame in the same lawgiver replacing temporary laws with permanent ones (al-Daryabadi 1985:36). Some scholars go so far as to question whether Allah withdrew revelations from Muhammad’s (and his followers’) memory, causing such revelations to completely disappear1.
Classical Islamic scholars (both past and present) agree about abrogation—in principle. These scholars also examine[d] the pattern in which Muhammad engaged in abrogation during revelation because Qur’anic laws were brief and insufficient for the needs of the huge Muslim community (Dashti 1994:54). One pattern which stands out is
Allah’s proclivity to change the rules according to Muhammad’s circumstance— especially his sexual circumstance. For instance, Allah sent several abrogating revelations
1 Badr al-din Muhammad bin ‘Abdullah al-Zarkasi, Al-Burhan fi ‘Ulum al-Qur'an, vol. 1. Cairo: Matba'at al-Halabi, 1957, p. 235; as-Suyuti, Jalaluddin, Al-Itqan fi ‘Ulum al- Qur’an. Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi, 1973, part 1, p. 47. 18 which sanctioned Muhammad’s personal sexual appetite: (Q33:37) allowed Muhammad to marry his daughter-in-law; (Q33:50) allowed Muhammad virtually unlimited sex with any female; (Q33:51) allowed Muhammad to sleep with any of his wives at any time, without the burden of ever having to hear any of them complain; (Q66:1-5) allowed
Muhammad to silence his wives when he wished to sleep with a slave girl; (Q4:24) allowed Muhammad—and his men—to have sex with married slaves, such as those captured in battle. Many such abrogating revelations appear in the Qur’an and ahadith pertaining to everything from war (Q4:95) to lying (Q16:108) to friendship (Q3:28).
According to many Islamic scholars, Allah’s ability to add or delete verses according to questions or contemporary issues simply demonstrates the flexibility of the Qur’an (al-
Suyuti 1973: I:82).
Similarly, there are also internal debates about various manners of abrogation.
Among Sunni theologians, there are disputes about whether the sunnah and Qur’an can abrogate each other. For instance, the Maliki and Hanafi schools believe in cross- abrogation, but the Shafi’is do not.
Contemporary theologians and populists have reopened the debate about the legitimacy of abrogation. One famous Iranian dissident, Ali Dashti, accepts the explanation that Qur’anic abrogation was linked to Muhammad’s need to answer queries and his need to respond to random incidents (Dashti 1994:54). German convert, Ahmad von Denffer, notes that abrogation must be included in any Islamic study in order to correctly apply Allah’s laws and is among the most important preconditions for interpretation of the Qur’an (von Denffer 1989:Ch. 5). However, few of the Ulema reject the Doctrine of Abrogation outright.
19 So how does the theological debate over abrogation affect us today?
Unfortunately, on most college campuses, it does not because abrogation is rarely explored. Because of this silence, it is important for students (and all kuffar [non-
Muslims]) to realize that what most university scholars teach (Islam is peaceful), and what most Muslims believe (Islam literally means submission to Allah), can be two vastly different things.
To bring the point home, Sura 9 (“Ultimatum”) is the most important Qur’anic revelation in terms of abrogation. It is the only chapter that does not begin “in the name of God, most benevolent, ever-merciful.” Commentators agree that Muhammad received this revelation in 631 CE, the year before his death, when he had returned to Mecca and was at his strongest (Ishaq 2002:617-619). In Sahih Bukhari, we read that “Ultimatum” was the last chapter revealed to Muhammad (MSA 2008) although others suggest it might have been penultimate. Regardless, coming at or near the very end of
Muhammad’s life, “Ultimatum” trumps earlier revelations.
Sahih Bukhari notes that Allah revealed “Ultimatum” in order to discard restraint and to command Muslims to fight against all the pagans as well as against the People of the Book if they do not embrace Islam, or until they pay humiliating religious taxes. It is important to note, once again, that early in Muhammad’s career, Allah forbids aggressive fighting (jihad). Unfortunately, it later became permissible in (Q2:190) which states
“Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits, for Allah does not love transgressors,” and subsequently obligatory in (Q9:5) which orders all
Muslims to “Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them…” Sura 9, which is often
20 called “the verse of the sword” abrogated, canceled, and replaced 124 verses that called for tolerance, compassion, and peace (Warraq 1995:115).
21
CHAPTER II
JIHAD AND DHIMMI STATUS
Classical Jihad
Most Westerners are taught (rightfully) in detail, about Western colonialism, conquest, slavery, hegemony, and other Western transgressions. However, most
Westerners are shielded from the equally violent Islamic past. French philosopher Jacque
Ellul laments how contemporary scholars whitewash a basic tenet of Islam: jihad:
In a major encyclopedia, one reads phrases such as: “Islam expanded in
the eight or ninth centuries . . . This or that country passed into Muslim
hands.” But care is taken not to say how Islam expanded, how countries
“passed into [Muslim] hands.” . . . Indeed, it would seem as if events
happened by themselves, through a miraculous or amicable operation. . .
Regarding this expansion, little is said about jihad. And yet it all happened
through war!
. . .the jihad is an institution, and not an event, that is to say it is a part of
the normal functioning of the Muslim world. . .The conquered populations
change status (they become dhimmis), and the shari’a tends to be put into
effect integrally, overthrowing the former law of the country. The
conquered territories do not simply change “owners”! [Ellul
1991:Foreward; parenthetical in original]
22 Ellul is correct, and Classical Muslim scholars, historians, and theologians back up his claims.
As noted in Chapter I, Islamic history begins with the Hijra (622 CE), and it is in this context (Muhammad’s transformation from a position of weakness into one of strength) that jihad arose. Professor David Cook observes that “[. . .] the campaigns to gain adherence and control territory constituted the focus of the [Islamic] community’s activity during the last nine years of the Prophet’s life.” Furthermore, Cook points out,
Muhammad “participated in at least twenty-seven campaigns and deputized some fifty- nine others—an average of . . . nine campaigns annually (Cook 2005:6; parenthetical in original).
The religious codification of aggressive warfare began a short time after the
Prophet’s death. Physician and historian Andrew Bostom notes, “The essential pattern of the jihad war is captured in the great Muslim historian al-Tabari’s recording of the recommendation given by Umar b. al Khattab to the commander of his he sent to al-
Basrah (636 CE), during the conquest of Iraq” (Bostom 2005:26). Umar, considered by
Muslims to be the second “Rightly Guided Caliph” said, “Summon the people
[kuffar/infidels] to Allah; those who respond to your call, accept it from them, but those who refuse must pay the poll tax out of humiliation and lowliness (as per Q9:29). If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency (al-Tabari 1992; parenthetical mine).
Jihad continued, virtually uninterrupted from the seventh century onward, because jihad “embodied an ideology and a jurisdiction.” Moreover, “both were formally conceived by Muslim jurisconsults and theologians from the eight and ninth centuries” based on their Qur’anic, ahadith, and biography interpretations. “The consensus on the
23 nature of jihad” from the main Sunni, Shia, and even Sufi schools of Islamic jurisprudence is clear: jihad means primarily an obligation of all “healthy” Muslims to wage aggressive warfare against all infidels, unless the infidels convert to Islam or accept dhimmi status [second-class “citizenship” subordinate to Islam] (Bostom 2005:27-28; parenthetical mine).
Even ascetics (proto-Sufis) accepted the notion of “violent” jihad. Ascetics were some of the earliest converts to Islam, and they were fervent practitioners of jihad warfare. In fact, the earliest known “jihad commentator” is the well-respected warrior- ascetic Abdallah b. al-Mubarak (d. 797). In his work entitled, appropriately, Kitab al- jihad, he shows us that asceticism and war are not mutually exclusive. For example, in book 16, chapter 36 al-Mubarak tells us “Every community has a form of asceticism, and the asceticism of this community is jihad in the path of Allah” (al-Mubarak 1971:016:36).
The Kitab al-jihad painstakingly documents the evolution of the Islamic conception of warfare during a time of great jihad victories:
The slain [in jihad] are three [types of] men: a believer, who struggles
with himself and his possessions in the path of Allah, such that when he
meets the enemy [in battle] he fights them until he is killed. This martyr
(shahid) is tested, [and is] in the camp of Allah under His throne; the
prophets do not exceed him [in merit] except by the level of prophecy.
[Then] a believer, committing offenses and sins against himself, who
struggles with himself and his possessions in the path of Allah, such that
when he meets the enemy [in battle] he fights until he is killed. This
cleansing wipes away his offenses and his sins—behold the sword wipes
24 [away] sins!—and he will be let into heaven from whatever gate he
wishes. . . [Then] a hypocrite, who struggles with himself and his
possessions in the path of Allah, such that when he meets the enemy [in
battle] he fights until he is killed. This [man] is in hell since the sword
does not wipe away hypocrisy. [al-Mubarak 1971:007:30-31; parenthetical
mine]
Al-Mubarak’s example is representative of the overwhelming majority of Classical
Islamic scholars’ jihad interpretations: Jihad is divinely mandated warfare as per Q9:111.
Today, all four major schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence, and the major Shi’a school, define jihad as primarily aggressive.
Thus, we can see the manifestation of today’s Islamic shahids, from Gaza to
Indonesia to Madrid, “. . . the sword, together with the pure intention of the fighter
[suicide murderer, homicide bomber, terrorist, etc.], wipes away the believer’s sins”
(Cook 2005:14). Most importantly, the six Sunni canonical hadith collections—al-
Bukhari, Muslim, al-Tirmidhi, Abu Da’ud, al-Nasa’i, and ibn Maja—all accommodate a prominent place for violent jihad. Moreover, “these traditions are very powerful and disruptive,” which “reflect[s] a belief system capable of inspiring the conquest of so much territory and achieving what the early Muslims achieved” (Cook 2005:14-15).
These early Islamic conquests are among the greatest military expansions in history. Unfortunately for infidels, these conquests had a remarkably destructive staying power. By the time of al-Tabari’s death in 923, jihad wars had expanded the Muslim empire from Portugal to the Indian subcontinent. Subsequent Muslim conquests continued in Asia, as well as Eastern Europe. The Christian kingdoms of Armenia,
25 Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, and Albania, as well as parts of Poland and Hungary, were also conquered and Islamized. When Muslim armies were defeated at the Gates of Vienna in 1683, more than a millennium of jihad had transpired
(Hazard 1951). These remarkable military successes spawned a triumphalist jihad literature:
Muslim historians recorded in detail the number of infidels slain or
enslaved, the cities and villages that were pillaged, and the lands, treasure,
and movable goods seized. Christian . . . as well as Hebrew sources and
even the scant Hindu and Buddhist writings that survived the ravages of
the Muslim conquests independently validate this narrative, and
complement the Muslim perspective by providing testimonies of the
suffering of the non-Muslim victims of jihad wars. [Bostom 2005:28]
None of this information is new, provocative, or ground-breaking, yet Jacque Ellul’s observation still holds: “Indeed, it would seem as if events happened by themselves, through a miraculous or amicable operation. . . Regarding this [Islamic] expansion, little is said about jihad.”
Contemporary Jihad Theory
Beginning in the late eighteenth century, modern jihad movements were stimulated and consolidated by the impact of Westernization which eroded the dogma of
Islam’s superiority. Hence, the need arose to radically redefine the meaning of jihad.
Most shocking to the Islamic world was the dismantling of the Caliphate in 1924, for
“Islam mandates that Muslims must be in an obviously dominant position in this world so as to manifest the truth” (Yohanan Friedman in Cook 2005:93).
26 By the start of the twentieth century, most of the dar al-Islam was colonized and/or in shambles. Still, with the possible “exception of a Westernized minority,” says historian Bat Ye’or (2003), “[violent] jihad constituted the driving force and the ideological foundation for the claims on European states and the decolonization wars against them”. Moreover, according to Ye’or, “Muslim intellectuals have been surprised at the Western interpretation of these movements as new developments, when they are actually integrated into the historical and sociological fabric of the Muslim peoples”
(Ye’or 2003:195; parenthetical in original). In fact, Pakistan’s former Minister of
Planning and Development gloats over the fact that Western observers continue to omit the historical and contemporary jihad movements against unbelievers (Khurshid Ahmad in Esposito 1983:222-225).
According to Ye’or, the originality of contemporary Islamist movements “is not the statement of a millennial politicoreligious ideology . . . but their actualization through ideologies and modern state structures, their worldwide diffusion, and their transposition into international policy” (Ye’or 2003:195). Moreover, most of these ideologies were developed by Western/Westernized academics; not in some far off madrassa.
Nevertheless, when confronted with their newly inferior position, some late nineteenth and early twentieth century Muslim scholars did try to reinvent jihad as something other than aggressive fighting.
The first one to do so was the Indian Muslim scholar Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d.
1898). After the Mutiny of 1857, the British realized that aggressive jihad was the driving force behind Islamic insurgency. Because of this realization, the British began favoring
Hindus over Muslims in the army and in government service. This new status-shift
27 encouraged Khan to reinterpret jihad in order to pacify the British colonial government.
On the basis of a new reading of the Qur’an, Khan asserted that jihad was only obligatory in the case of “positive oppression or obstruction in the exercise of their faith… impair[ing]… the foundation of some of the pillars of Islam” (Khan in Peters
1996:7). For Khan, since the British did not interfere with the practicing of Islam, jihad against them was not allowed.
Later, in 1912, the Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Reshid Rida (d. 1935) wrote an article in which he claimed that Christians completely misunderstood jihad, and denied that jihad refers primarily to war or warlike action—it simply means “strenuous exertion.” Rida even compared Islamic commentators on jihad to the Christian Apostle
Paul when he exhorts his followers to “fight the good fight of faith” (Rida 1912:14). Rida, and his mentor Muhammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905) had developed a paradigm shift for jihad.
Uncomfortable with questions concerning Muhammad’s (and other early Muslims’) wars of aggression, Rida maintained that war was the common state of the time, and that in such a state, there is no issue of “aggression” because war is continuous. Muhammad’s later wars were fought in order to protect the right of Muslims to proclaim the truth of
Islam. All Islamic “defensive” wars were provoked by “Others,” such as the Byzantines
(Rida claimed that the Byzantines aggressively attempted to starve the Muslims to death).
David Cook (2005) notes that “there is not a shred of evidence for this [starvation attempt] in the historical literature.” In fact, Cook (2005) emphasizes, “the Byzantines had always maintained good relations with the Syrian Arab tribes, and it is doubtful that nomads would have necessarily died of famine in the desert.” In Rida’s revisionist history,
28 however, since the Byzantines’ had prevented the proclamation of the Truth, “the
Muslims were obliged to fight them” (Cook 2005:96).
Rida then makes the Islamic definition of “defense” clear: “Our religion is not like others that defend themselves . . . but our defense of our religion is the proclamation of truth and the removal of the distortion and misrepresentation of it” (Rida in Cook
2005:1996). Of course, this definition of “defense” is semantic gymnastics which eliminates any distinction between “offense” and “defense.” Moreover, Aduh and Rida play further semantic games with several “violent” Qur’anic and ahadith stories, and concoct conclusions that have never held sway in any of the mainstream Islamic traditions—be they Sunni, Shi’a, or even Sufi. “Clearly,” according to David Cook,
“these conclusions were at odds with most earlier Muslim teachings about jihad, but they resonated with some Muslims [such as the Ahmadiyya, who reject violent jihad and indeed all forms of violence, so much so that they are persecuted all over the Islamic world]. Others, however, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, took exception to this version of jihad” (Cook 2005:97; parenthetical mine).
Founded by Hasan al-Banna in Egypt in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood became the first mass-based, overtly political movement to oppose the ascendancy of secular and
Western ideas in the Middle East. The brotherhood saw in these ideas the root of the decay of Islamic societies in the modern world, and advocated a return to Islam as a solution to the ills that had befallen Muslim societies. Al-Banna’s leadership was critical to the spectacular growth of the brotherhood during the 1930s and 1940s. By the early
1950s, branches had been established in Syria, Sudan, and Jordan. Soon, the movement’s influence would be felt in places as far away as the Gulf and non-Arab countries such as
29 Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Driving this expansion was the appeal of the organizational model embodied in the original, Egypt-based section of the brotherhood, and the success of al-Banna’s writings. Translated into several languages, these writings have shaped several generations of Sunni religious activists across the Islamic world.
In one of his most famous works, aptly entitled “Jihad,” al-Banna (n.d.) cites the
Qur’an and the ahadith compilers to make his message clear—and Authoritative. He notes in “The Scholars of Jihad”:
The author of the Majma' al-Anhar fi Sharh Multaqal-Abhar, in describing
the rules of jihad according to the Hanafi School, said: ‘Jihad linguistically
means to exert one’s utmost effort in word and action; in the Sharee’ah it
is the fighting of the unbelievers, and involves all possible efforts that are
necessary to dismantle the power of the enemies of Islam including
beating them, plundering their wealth, destroying their places of worship
and smashing their idols. This means that jihad is to strive to the utmost to
ensure the strength of Islam by such means as fighting those who fight you
and the dhimmies [if they violate any of the terms of the treaty] and the
apostates [who are the worst of unbelievers, for they disbelieved after they
have affirmed their belief].
It is fard (obligatory) on us to fight with the enemies. The Imam must send
a military expedition to the Dar-al-Harb [land of the infidels—literally, the
‘House of War’] every year at least once or twice, and the people must
support him in this. If some of the people fulfill the obligation, the
remainder are released from the obligation. If this fard kifayah [communal
30 obligation] cannot be fulfilled by that group, then the responsibility lies
with the closest adjacent group, and then the closest after that etc., and if
the fard kifayah cannot be fulfilled except by all the people, it then
becomes a fard ‘ayn [individual obligation], like prayer on everyone of the
people. This obligation is by virtue of what He, the Almighty, said . . . [al-
Banna nd:295; parenthetical mine]
Later, al-Banna asks “Why do the Muslims Fight?” He responds:
The Muslims in war had only one concern and this was to make the name
of Allah Supreme, there was no room at all for any other objective. The
wish for glory and reputation were forbidden to the Muslims. The love of
wealth, the misappropriation of the benefits of war and striving to conquer
through unjust methods are all made forbidden to the Muslim. Only one
intention was possible and that was the offering of sacrifice and the taking
of pains for the guidance of mankind. [al-Banna nd:297]
Here al-Banna twists the definition of “Classical” jihad into “defensive” warfare to make
Islam supreme. He is also “concerned that Muslims are losing their desire for the next world because of their fear of death . . . and their interest in the good life of the modern world” (Cook 2005:99).
The great Islamic theorist Sayyid Abdul A’la Maududi (d. 1979) also spoke contemptuously of the love of the here and now that he saw permeating the Islamic world.
“Oh people, worship your Lord who created you. . .” Qur’an 2:21 is the core of his message. Moreover, “it [Islam] does not speak to the inhabitants of this globe in the name of workers or peasants or landowners or capitalists. . .” (Maududi 1984:25). David Cook
31 comments that “[. . .] it is the. . .responsibility of Muslims to proclaim and expose the corruption in the present world system” (Cook 2005:100). Moreover, in a sea change from Classical jihad scholarship, “Jihad is basically designed to [overthrow]. . .those illegitimate and tyrannical rulers and their supporters who prevent [the formation of a
Caliphate]” (Cook 2005:100). For Maududi, jihad is primarily a tool for Muslims to
“protect the weak” (Cook 2005:100; parenthetical in original).
More importantly, this Indo-Pakistani thinker blamed Western colonialism for forcing apologies from Muslims:
When we saw this picture of ours painted by the foreigners, we. . .started
offering apologies in this manner—Sir, what do we know of war and
slaughter? We are pacifist preachers like the mendicants and religious
divine’s. To refute certain religious beliefs and convert the people to some
other faith instead, that is the be-all and ends all [sic] of our enthusiasm.
What concern have we with sabers! [Maududi 1939]
Maududi also ascribed “defensive jihad” and the predominance of nonviolent forms of jihad to this Muslim cringing before their colonial masters:
Yes, indeed, we plead guilty to one crime, though, that whenever someone
else attacked us, we attacked him in self-defense. Now, of course, we have
renounced that also. The crusade which is waged by swords has been
abrogated for the satisfaction of your honor. Now “Jihad” only refers to
waging war with the tongue and pen. To fire cannons and shoot with guns
is the privilege of your honor’s government and wagging tongues and
scratching with pens is our pleasure. [Maududi 1939]
32 Within his anti-colonial polemic, he does confront the question that so haunted Rida and
Abduh: “Were the first Muslims colonialists who waged offensive jihad?” He answers with a tinge of honesty: Maududi admits that the conquered infidels at least initially saw the early Muslim conquerors as imperialists. Then his fantasy arises: the infidels resisted the Muslims only until they realized that “the purpose of the Muslims, and the reason why they came out of their homeland [the Arabian Penninsula]. . .was their [the Muslim’s] desire to spread and to propagate. . .[the Islamic] belief system to the corners of the earth” (1984 50-51; parenthetical mine).
So, for Maududi, the early Muslims were freedom fighters, not aggressive imperialists. However, Maududi never provides specific examples to back-up his conclusions. Moreover, in his description of jihad, he straddles the fence, claiming that jihad is “simultaneously offensive and defensive.” Perhaps surprisingly—perhaps not,
Qur’anic verses that are traditionally linked with jihad “are ignored throughout
[Maududi’s “al-Jihad fi al-Islam”]. . .and Muslim history is hardly touched upon until the last apologetic note, which concerns the question of whether the first Muslims were colonialists” (Cook 2005:99; parenthetical in original).
Although Maududi has a huge influence on Jihadists today, the Egyptian Sayyid
Qutb (executed 1966) has made the biggest impact on the contemporary Jihad movement
(many consider him the founder) because Gamel Abdel Nasser made Qutb a martyr.
Nasser’s greatest concern may have been with Qutb’s exhortations to jihad, which were predicated upon the notion that the establishment of Allah’s rule would be multifaceted and filled with obstacles. “Since this movement [Islam] comes into conflict with the
Jahiliyyah [ignorance of the infidels],” Qtub wrote, “which prevails over ideas and
33 beliefs, and which has a practical system of life and a political and material authority behind it, the Islamic movement had to produce parallel resources to confront this
Jahiliyyah” (Qtub nd:55; parenthetical mine).
Chief among those resources is jihad. According to Qutb:
This movement uses the methods of preaching and persuasion for
reforming ideas and beliefs and it uses physical power and Jihaad for
abolishing the organizations and authorities of the Jahili system which
prevents people from reforming their ideas and beliefs but forces them to
obey their erroneous ways and make them serve human lords instead of
the Almighty Lord. [Qtub nd:55]
Jihad was a necessity: “Those who have usurped the authority of Allah and are suppressing Allah’s creatures are not going to give up their power merely through preaching.” Later, Qtub writes, This is contrary to the evidence from the history of the
Prophets and the story of the struggle of the true religion, spread over generations” (Qtub nd:58-59).
According to Qtub, Muslims must not only preach, but also “strike hard at all those political powers which force people to bow before them and which rule over them”
(Qtub nd:61). Then, “After annihilating the tyrannical force, whether it be in a political or a racial form, or in the form of class distinction within the same race, Islam establishes a new social, economic, and political system, in which the concept of freedom of man is applied in practice” (Qtub nd:61).
Here, unlike the apologists, Qtub’s reference to the history of the prophets is one indication of how firmly his view of jihad is based on a close and careful reading of the
34 Qur’an and study of the example of Muhammad. In “Milestones,” Qtub quotes at length from the great medieval scholar Ibn Qayyim (d. 1350), who, says Qtub, “has summed up the nature of Islamic Jihad” (Ibn Qayyim in Qtub nd:53). Ibn Qayyim outlines the stages of Muhammad’s prophetic career:
For thirteen years after the beginning of his Messengership, he called
people to Allah through preaching, without fighting or Jizyah, and was
commanded to restrain himself and to practice patience and forbearance.
Then he was commanded to migrate, and later permission was given to
fight. Then he was commanded to fight those who fought him. Later he
was commanded to fight the polytheists until Allah’s religion was fully
established.” [Ibn Qayyim in Qtub nd:53]
Qtub summarizes these stages: “Thus. . .the Muslims were first restrained from fighting; then they were permitted to fight; then they were commanded to fight against the aggressors; and finally they were commanded to fight against all the polytheists” (Qtub nd:64). That these jihad stages are found in the works of Qtub, the Deobandis, the
Wahhabis, medieval Muslim scholars, and many other well-respected Muslim commentators robustly underscore the traditional character of contemporary Jihadis.
Modern mujahedin (holy warriors) are not “hijacking” Islam—they are restoring it.
Although it is true that most Muslims are not physically attacking non-believers, I contend that there is not, for example, one major Western Islamic organization or scholar that criticizes these holy warriors (for example, many Imams have issued fatwas condemning Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Wafa Sultan to death for apostasy.
However, not one has done the same to bin Laden).
35 Qtub speaks harshly of modernist and apologetic Islamic scholars who recast jihad as a struggle for self defense. He says that these apologists do not understand the
Doctrine of Abrogation, which leads to further errors and misconceptions. The overwhelming majority of these “apologists,” such as Irshad Manji, Michael Sells, or
D’nesh D’souza, blatantly ignore, hide, or re-write the Medinan suras—hence the rub.
Although this type of argument may be soothing to the kuffar, the Jihadis will always win out in this battle of ideas with Muslims themselves because they say, rightly and with much more authority than any reformer, that the Qur’an is the unalterable final word of
Allah. Although Qtub ascribes the growth of the “defensive jihad” idea to a defeatist attitude (Qtub nd:56-62). Ironically, Qtub claims that “orientalists” are ultimately responsible for this misinterpretation of jihad (as does Edward Said). “This narrow meaning,” says Qtub, “is ascribed to it by those who are under the pressure of circumstances and are defeated by the wily attacks of the orientalists, who distort the concept of Islamic Jihaad” (Qtub nd:62).
For Qtub, jihad is a necessary part of establishing true peace, which equals the supremacy of the Sharia:
When Islam strives for peace, its objective is not that superficial peace
which requires that only that part of the earth where the followers of Islam
are residing remain secure. The peace which Islam desires is that the
religion (i.e., the Law of the society) be purified for God, that the
obedience of all people be for God alone, and that some people should not
be lords over others. After the period of the Prophet—peace be upon
36 him—only the final stages of the movement of Jihaad are to be followed;
the initial or middle stages are not applicable.” [Qtub nd:63]
Not only is the call to Islam universal—it is eternal: “This struggle is not a temporary phase but an eternal state—an eternal state, as truth and falsehood cannot co-exist on this earth” (Qtub nd:65). Thus peace means a society under Sharia law. Jihad is war in defense of Allah’s law. The imposition of Sharia is the liberation of mankind.
Nevertheless, not all contemporary Muslim “jihad” commentators are radical
Muslims or their associates. However, the overwhelming majority of these scholars are apologists. These Muslim thinkers include the Syrian Muhammad Sa’id al-Buti, who insists that aggressive jihad, is an oxymoron (al-Buti 1993:93); M. Amir Ali, founder of the Chicago-based Institute of Islamic information and Education, who claims that
“violent jihad” is the invention of “Western oppressors” (M. Amir Ali 2003); and
Professor Khaleel Mohammed of San Diego State, who states that since he is a professor, he “should not seek learned discussion with those whose views are clouded by faith”
(Mohammed 2008)—religious Jews, Christians, Hindus, etc. need not bother contacting
Dr. Mohammed, for their faith does not allow them to argue about Islam logically.
Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of evidence, from the most well- respected (or even revered) Islamic scholars and Islamic texts, from the Muhammad and the Qur’an onward, points to one uncomfortable fact: Islam prescribes violence toward unbelievers until the entire world is ruled by Allah—in other words, violence is never ruled out; if conversion is carried out through peaceful means, it is simply Allah’s will.
More importantly, today’s jihad fighters are legitimized by this uncomfortable fact (the
37 only major difference may be that today), no “authority, such as a caliph or an imam
[must] declare a jihad” (Cook 2005:164; parenthetical in original).
However, as will be shown below, many Western scholars and Islamic apologists attempt to obfuscate these facts (I will leave their motives up to the reader). It is true that other religions have had violent pasts, and some violent prescripts may even linger on today, but most violent texts and teachings (such as those in Joshua or Leviticus, for example), have been reinterpreted (or, for example, have always been interpreted temporally) and accepted by the vast majority of Christians and Jews—including the
Orthodox, or even completely abandoned (the Hindu practice of suttee). Islam, despite the kind rhetoric of apologist, has never reached this stage of development. “If and when this happens,” says David Cook, “it will probably happen along the lines of a definition of jihad [redefined by the ulema—Islamic legal scholars—or other authoritative Islamic figures, ‘Westernized’ or ‘occupied’ theorists’ redefinitions simply do/will not work] that will exclude violence and embrace true religious diversity and tolerance, and it may very well start with emphasizing the spiritual jihad [‘striving to better oneself’]” (Cook
2005:166; parenthetical in original). This would truly be a revolutionary redefinition.
Dhimmi Status
The “Reliance of the Traveller” is a manuscript of Sharia law from the Shafi’i school of Sunni Islam. Noted Shafi’is in Muslim history include all the compilers of the six canonical hadith collections: al-Bukhari, Muslim, al-Tirmidhi, Abu Da’ud, al-Nasa’i, and ibn Maja. These collections are second only to the Qur’an in importance for Muslims.
“Reliance” is also officially certified by the renowned scholars from Al-Azhar University as “conform[ing] to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni Community” (in al-Misri
38 1997:xx). A section of “Reliance” entitled, “NON-MUSLIM SUBJECTS OF THE
ISLAMIC STATE (AHL AL-DHIMMA), states that:
A formal agreement of protection is made [between Muslim rulers] and
citizens who are. . .Jews. . .Christians. . .and Zoroastrians;. . .Samarians
and Sabians [may also become ‘protected’], if their religions do not
respectively contradict the fundamental bases of Judaism and Christianity;
and those who adhere to the religion of Abraham or one of the other
prophets. . .
Such an agreement may not be effected with those who are idol
worshipers. . .or those who do not have a Sacred Book or something that
could have been a book. . .(including Sikhs, Baha’is, Mormons, Qadianis,
etc.), [because] they neither are nor could be a Book, since the Koran is
the final revelation. . .[al-Misri 1997:o11.0-o11.2 (607)]
But from whom are these “People of the Book” to be protected, and how did such a system arise?
Muhammad’s final elimination of the Medinan Jews in 627 produced a windfall for the ummah. The vanquished Jews’ property (including women, child-slaves, etc.) formed an enormous share of the Muslim war treasure, with a quarter of the booty divvied up between the mujahadin, and a fifth apportioned to the Prophet. In 628, benefiting from a nonaggression treaty with the pagan Meccans, Muhammad attacked the
Khaybar Jews, who surrendered after a short siege. According to Muslim jurisconsults some centuries later, the agreement (dhimma) made at Khaybar formed the basis of dhimmi status. Muhammad allowed the Jews to farm their lands, but only as tenants; he
39 demanded delivery of half their harvest and reserved the right to drive them out when he wished. In fact, the caliph Umar Ibn al-Khattab cited the dhimma of Khaybar when he expelled every last Jew and Christian from the Arabian Peninsula in 640: “the land belongs to Allah, and his Messenger, the Messenger of Allah can annul his pact if he so wishes” (Ishaq 2002:525). Umar then referred to the Prophet’s (many believe last) wish:
“Two religions shall not remain together in the peninsula of the Arabs” (Ishaq 2002:525)
Like the rules of jihad, the rules of dhimmitude are elaborated from the Qur’an, the ahadith and the biographies on the Prophet. Those laws and their religious justification were taught throughout the Islamic Empires. Despite some differences in the four schools of Islamic Sunni jurisprudence (and of course, the Shia school), there is quasi-unanimity in matters concerning the dhimmis. The fundamental rulings relevant to them were established early in Islamic history. Islamic jurist Ya’koub Abu Yusuf (d. 798), a follower of Abu Hanifa (d. 767), (the founder of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence), expounded them in his treatise “Kitab el-Kharadj,” written for the caliph Harun al-Rashid
(d. 809) (Abu Yusuf 1921). Their implementation over the dhimmi populations is mentioned by numerous Muslim jurists throughout the centuries.
In “The Laws of Islamic Governance,” al-Mawardi (d. 1058), a renowned
Baghdadian jurist, examined the uniquely Islamic system of dhimmitude (regulations pertaining to non-Muslim populations subjugated by jihad). The non-Muslim
“dhimmi[s]” (most commonly translated as “pact,” but an equally accurate translation is
“guilty”—more specifically, “guilty” of religious error), are protected from jihad laws which command killing, slavery, ransom, or deportation for non-Muslims. Peace and security for infidels are recognized only after their submission. Protection status is
40 provided through the Islamization of conquered lands (al-Mawardi 1996). Thus, dhimmitude can only be understood in the context of jihad because it originates from this ideology. Infidels who submit to the Islamic armies, are granted a tenuous pledge of security.
The dhimmis’ rights are subject to two conditions: the payment of a poll tax (the jizya) and submission to the provisions of Islamic law (which may include other types of taxation). The jizya has its origins in Qur’an 9:29, where it is explicitly revealed as a tribute, and a sign of subjugation2.
Yusuf Ali’s commentary clarifies this:
1281 Jizya: the root meaning is compensation. The derived meaning,
which became the technical meaning, was a poll-tax levied from those
who did not accept Islam, but were willing to live under the protection of
Islam, and were thus tacitly willing to submit to its ideals being enforced
in the Muslim State. There was no amount permanently fixed for it. It was
in acknowledgment that those whose religion was tolerated would in their
turn not interfere with the preaching and progress of Islam. Imam Shafi’i
suggests one dinar per year, which would be the Arabian gold dinar of the
Muslim States. The tax varied in amount, and there were exemptions for
the poor, for females and children [according to Abu Hanifa], for slaves,
and for monks and hermits. Being a tax on able-bodied males of military
2 Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His apostle nor acknowledge the religion of truth (even if they are) of the People of the Book until they pay the Jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued. 41 age, it was in a sense a commutation for military service. But see the next
note. [Ali 2003; parenthetical in original]
In theory, the poor, women, children, slaves, etc. were exempt from the poll tax; in reality, however, there is abundant proof from Armenian, Syriac, Serbian,
Jewish, and Islamic sources that show that the jizya was demanded from all of these people—living or dead. For instance, the Shafi’ites believe that:
Our religion compels the poll tax to be paid by dying people, the
old, even in a state of incapacity, the blind, monks, workers, and
the poor, incapable of practicing a trade. As for people who seem
to be insolvent at the end of the year, the sum of the poll tax
remains a debt to their account until they should become solvent.
[an-Nawawi 1977:Ch 3:277]
Moreover, in 691, caliph abd al-Malik, while sitting in Damascus, allowed tax collectors to demand “gifts for themselves,” and had “widows and orphans. . .pillaged and despoiled” (pseudo-Dionysius 1895:pt 4:104). In fact, “They mercilessly struck honorable men and old hoary elders” (pseudo-Dionysius 1895:pt 4:105). Furthermore,
Methodius’ Syriac “Apocalypse,” written in the Sinjar region (Mesopotamia) in 690 or
691, reveals that even widows, orphans, and priests paid the poll tax (in Brock 1976:19).
The chronicle of Ghevond, written in eighth century Armenia, describes the
Armenian’ suffering under Abbasid rule:
One saw... horrible scenes of every sort of torture; nor did [they] forget to
tax the dead; the multitude of orphans and widows suffered the same
cruelty; priests and ministers at the holy sanctuary were forced by the vile
42 punishments of flogging and whipping to disclose the names of the dead
and their parents; in short the whole population of the country, smitten
with enormous taxes, after having paid large sums of zuze [silver coins],
also had to wear a lead seal around their necks. . .as for the lower classes
of the population, it had been exposed to different sorts of torture: some
suffered flagellation for being unable to pay exorbitant taxes; others were
hanged on gibbets, or crushed under presses; and others were stripped of
their clothing and thrown into lakes in the depths of an extremely cold
winter: and soldiers spaced out on the banks prevented them clambering
ashore and forced them to perish wretchedly. [in Bostom 2005:30;
parenthetical in original]
In Aleppo in 1683, French Consul Chevalier Laurent d’Arvieux noted that even ten-year- old Christian children paid the jizya (d’Arvieux 2002:439). However, Yusef Ali continues to obfuscate:
1282 ‘An Yadin [literally, from the hand] has been variously interpreted.
The hand being the symbol of power and authority. I accept the
interpretation “in token of willing submission.” The Jizya was thus partly
symbolic and partly a commutation for military service, but as the amount
was insignificant and the exemptions numerous, its symbolic character
predominated. See the last note. [Ali 2003; parenthetical in original]
Here we see Ali incorporating a common apologetic: the jizya was simply a commutation for military service, or that the jizya was simply a (financially insignificant) replacement for the Muslim zakat (“charity” obligation)—nothing could be further from the truth.
43 The record on jizya is clear: Along with jizya, infidels in Muslim lands were also forced to pay kharaj (land tax). Historian A.S. Tritton equates the two, “Hafs, another governor of Egypt, announced that all dhimmis who abandoned their religion would be free from kharaj, which is jizya” (Tritton 1970:35-36). It is important to remember the two names because while the jizya was generally set at a fixed amount by the jurists
(although this was highly adjustable), the kharaj was another matter. In the “Hedaya,” an
Islamic legal manual, in a discussion about the purchase of land by a dhimmi, it declares,
“it is lawful to require twice as much of a Zimmee as of a Mussulman, whence it is that, if such an one were to come before the collector with merchandise, twice as much would be exacted of him as of a Mussulman” (Hamilton 1988:vol i:vi). Moreover, Islamic scholar A. Ben Shemesh states:
The voluntary character of the zakat contribution as a religious duty is
emphasized by Qudama in the beginning of Chapter Thirteen, where he
states that Muslims are trusted with the declaration of what is due from
them, in contradistinction to other taxes which are compulsory and
pursuable. The Saudi law by charging Muslims with this religious tax is
following the old precepts who lay down that the rate of the tax is fixed in
accordance with the persons from whom it is collected, i.e., from a
Merchant of a foreign country 10 per cent, from a merchant of an allied
country 5 per cent, and from a Muslim 2.5 per cent. [Shemesh 1965:14]
The great Indian historian K.S. Lal adds:
There is a desire to equate Zakat with Jiziyah to emphasize the fairness of
the Islamic fiscal system. The Muslims pay Zakat and the non-Muslims
44 Jiziyah. But the analogy is fallacious. The rate of Zakat tax is as low as
2.5 per cent and that on the apparent property only. All kinds of
concessions are given in Zakat with regard to nisah or taxable minimum.
In its collection no force is applied because force vitiates its character. On
the other hand, the rate of Jiziyah is very high for the non-Muslims—48,
24, and 12 silver tankahs for the rich, the middling and the poor, whatever
the currency and whichever the country. Besides, what is central to
Jiziyah is the humiliation of infidel always, particularly at the time of
collection. What is central in Zakat is that it is voluntary; at least it cannot
be collected by force. In India Zakat ceased to be a religious tax imposed
only on the Muslims. Here Zakat was levied in the shape of customs
duties on merchandise and grazing fee on all milk-producing animals or
those which went to pasture, and was realized both from Muslims and
non-Muslims. According to the Islamic law, ‘import duties for Muslims
were 5 per cent and for non-Muslims 10 per cent of the commodity’. For,
Abu Hanifa, whose Sunni school of law prevailed in India, would tax the
merchandise of the Zimmis as imposts at double the Zakat fixed for
Muslims. [Lal 1999:139-140]
Note that both have jizya as double the rate of zakat, as per the “Hedaya.”
Even Maududi, who was a jihad apologist, was quite unapologetic about jizyah:
[M]uslims should feel proud of such a humane law as that of Jizya. For it
is obvious that a maximum freedom that can be allowed to those who do
not adopt the way of Allah but choose to tread the ways of error is that
45 they should be tolerated to lead the life they like. . . .Jews and the
Christians. . .should be forced to pay Jizya in order to put an end to their
independence and supremacy so that they should not remain rulers and
sovereigns in the land. These powers should be wrested from them by the
followers of the true Faith, who should assume the sovereignty and lead
others towards the Right Way. [Maududi 1993:vol 2:183]
Here, the mask slips, and Maududi consciously or not, reveals the true meaning of
“Islamic Peace”—subjugation of all non-Muslims.
Note that neither of our Muslim scholars (Yusef Ali or Maududi—nor any of the most well-respected Islamic scholars on most Western campuses—John Esposito, Rashid
Khalidi, Karen Armstrong, et. al.) ever mentions the jizya payment ceremonies as determined by revered Muslim jurisconsults. According to Shafi’i rite:
The infidel who wishes to pay his poll tax must be treated with disdain by
the collector: the collector remains seated and the infidel remains standing
in front of him, his head bowed and his back bent. The infidel personally
must place the money on the scales, while the collector holds him by his
beard and strikes him on both cheeks. However. . .these practices are
recommended but not. . .compulsory. [an-Nawawi 1977:280-281]
According to Moroccan jurist al Maghili (d.1504):
On the day of payment they [the dhimmis] shall be assembled in a public
place like the suq. They should be standing there waiting in the lowest and
dirtiest place. The acting officials representing the Law shall be placed
above them and shall adopt a threatening attitude so that it seems to them,
46 as well as to the others, that our object is to degrade them by pretending to
take their possessions. They will realize that we are doing them a favor
(again) in accepting from them the jizya and letting them (thus) go free.
Then they shall be dragged one by one [to the official responsible] for the
exacting of payment. When paying, the dhimmi will receive a blow and
will be thrust aside so that he will think that he has escaped the sword
through this (insult). This is the way that the friends of the Lord, of the
first and last generations, will act toward their infidel enemies, for the
might belongs to Allah, to His Apostle, and to the Believers. [in l’Africain
1956:436-437; parenthetical in original]
Here is our last Islamic scholar on the jizya “ceremony” (and other kuffar unpleasantries),
(arguably) the greatest Sufi scholar of all time, Al-Ghazali (d. 1111), evidently with no intention of departing either from Sufism or Muslim orthodoxy, writing about jihad war and the treatment of the vanquished non-Muslim dhimmi peoples:
[O]ne must go on jihad at least once a year. . .one may use a catapult
against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among
them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown
them. . .If a person of the Ahl al-Kitab [People of The Book] is enslaved,
his marriage is [automatically] revoked. . .One may cut down their trees. . .
One must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty
whatever they decide. . .they may steal as much food as they need. . .
[T]he dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle. . .Jews,
Christians, and Majians must pay the jizya. . .on offering up the jizya, the
47 dhimmi must hang his head while the official takes hold of his beard and
hits [the dhimmi] on the protuberant bone beneath his ear [i.e., the
mandible]. . .They are not permitted to ostentatiously display their wine or
church bells. . .their houses may not be higher than the Muslim’s, no
matter how low that is. The dhimmi may not ride an elegant horse or mule;
he may ride a donkey only if the saddle[-work] is of wood. He may not
walk on the good part of the road. They [the dhimmis] have to wear [an
identifying] patch [on their clothing], even women, and even in the [public]
baths. . .[dhimmis] must hold their tongue. . .[Al-Ghazali 1979:186, 190-
191; 199-200; 202-203; parenthetical in original]
As our proto-Sufi and Sufi scholars make clear, Sufism is not “inherently non-violent”— at least when applied to non-Muslims.
As the next two Western jizya collection accounts attest, violent collection measures were carried out until at least the end of the nineteenth century. In 1894, an
Italian Jew traveling in Morocco, recorded that:
[T]he kaid Uwida and the kadi Mawlay Mustafa. . .summoned the Jews in
order to collect. . .the jizya. . .They had me summoned also. . .After
having remitted the amount of the tax to the two officials, I received from
the kadi’s guard two blows in the back of the neck. Addressing the kadi
and the kaid, I said: “Know that I am an Italian-protected subject.”
Whereupon the kadi said to his guard: “Remove the kerchief covering his
head and strike him strongly; he can then go and complain wherever he
wants.”
48 The guards hastily obeyed and struck me once again more violently. This
public mistreatment of a European-protected subject demonstrates to all
the Arabs that they can, with impunity, mistreat the Jews. [Littman
1997:45]
The Hungarian orientalist, Arminius Vambery, while traveling in central Asia in 1863, noted:
The Jews in the Khanate are about 10,000 in number, dwelling for the
most part in Bukhara, Samarcand, and Karshi, and occupying themselves
rather with handicrafts than with commerce. In their origin they are Jews
from Persia, and have wandered hither from Kazvin and Merv, about 150
years ago. They live here under the greatest oppression, and exposed to the
greatest contempt. They only dare to show themselves on the threshold
when they pay a visit to a “believer”; and again when they receive visitors,
they are bound in all haste to quit their own houses, and station themselves
before their doors. In the city of Bokhara, they yield yearly 2,000 Tilla
Djizie (tribute), which the chief of the whole community pays in,
receiving as he does so, two slight blows on the cheek, prescribed by the
Koran as a sign of submission. The rumor of the privileges accorded to the
Jews in Turkey has attracted some to Damascus and other places in Syria;
but this emigration can only occur secretly, otherwise they would have to
atone for the very wish by confiscation or death. [Vambery 1996:372-373]
The “rumors” were true; the Ottomans collected the levy directly from representatives of the heads of various communities.
49 The dhimma contract “encompassed other obligatory and recommended obligations. . .” These practices “formed the discriminatory system of dhimmitude imposed upon non-Muslims—Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians [and later on], Hindus and
Buddhists—subjugated by jihad” (Bostom 2005:31-32). Such features include political as well as socio-religious aspects. As for the political, because protection was set in a context of war, some rules pertaining to the dhimmis have a military character. Among the military elements of the dhimmi condition is the prohibition for dhimmis to carry or possess weapons. It is mentioned in the earliest legal texts, from the beginning of the
Islamic conquest and is attributed to the second caliph Umar b. al-Khattab (d. 644). It was confirmed throughout the centuries and in different regions by many witnesses until the twentieth century. Thus, dhimmis became prey to marauding, pillage, and massacre especially during periods of insecurity, such as rebellions and invasions. With the spread of the Islamic conquest, this prohibition was applied also in Anatolia and in the European
Islamized provinces (Ye’or 1996:2003)3. British Consul Blunt noticed in his report to the
Foreign Office in 1860 that Christians in the Ottoman province of Macedonia were not allowed to carry arms (Ye’or 1996:418). British Consul in Jerusalem, James Finn, attributed to this interdiction, the cowardice of dhimmis (Ye’or 2003:402). William
Shaler, the American consul in Algiers (1816-26) mentions the prohibition for Jews and
Christians to bear arms (Ye’or 2003:57). In Yemen, Jews were forbidden to carry arms until their departure to Israel in 1949-50 (Ye’or 2003:57).
The deportations of dhimmi populations for slavery or for strategic reasons are mentioned in time of war, and in time of peace. During the Arab conquests many
3 For detailed sources, see Bat Ye’or’s complete works 50 populations were deported as booty all over the newly Muslim lands. Speros Vryonis has extensively documented this phenomenon for Anatolia, using contemporary Greek and
Muslim sources, as did Greek, Serb and Bulgarian historians for the Ottoman period
(Vryonis 1971). Population transfers motivated by economic causes affected dhimmi populations and were not restricted to newly subjugated or enslaved populations. Some chronicles provide information on these transfers. Departure had to take place on the same day or at very short notice—two or three days—making it impossible for the deportees to sell their possessions. In order to discourage flight, they were counted, closely supervised, and forbidden to move from their new place of residence, generally very far from their places of origin. After all had been deported, their houses were burnt down and the entire village destroyed (Ye’or 2003:57-58).
Arakel of Tabriz recorded the deportation of Armenians from Julfa by Shah
Abbas in 1604, in horrific detail, including the killing and abductions of girls and boys.
He also describes the expulsion of the Armenians from Isfahan by Shah Abbas II, and the expulsion and forced conversions of the Jews in several cities of Persia at the same time
(1657-61). Abraham of Crete, an Armenian priest, witnessed the deportation of
Armenians by Nadir Shah in 1735 from the Ararat region. Mattatya Gargi, the head of the
Jewish community of Mashad, described the deportation of Jews from Mashad (1839) and from Herat (1857-59). At the same time, there was a huge Islamic immigration into the conquered lands, which altered the ethnoreligious composition of the populations4.
Billeting and provisioning soldiers and horses were imposed on dhimmis— another obligation which is stressed in every legal treatise on dhimmis. Abu Yusuf
4 For deportation references, see Bat Ye’or:1996:Documents Section 51 attributed it to the second caliph, Umar b. al-Khattab. Soldiers and animals had to be lodged in the best houses, or in churches or synagogues, which were then abandoned because they became refuse dumps or stables. In the nineteenth century, British and
French consuls and travelers mentioned this obligation in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Greece,
Armenia, Syria and the Holy Land (Hyamson 1979:vol I:211).
At most times and in most places where Islam “spread” (until the fall of the
Caliphate), Jewish quarters were plundered, men were slaughtered or ransomed, and women and children were enslaved. Abduction of women and children for slavery or ransom in times of war and rebellion, or during “peace” time razzias (raids), was recurrent. Documentation is provided in Jewish dhimmi sources, but mainly in Coptic chronicles of the Middle Ages mention the abduction of Christian children as slaves or as a deduction of unpaid taxes. In Yemen, Jewish children under the age of 12, upon the death of their father, were removed from their families and converted to Islam. The law was retroactive, and was applied until the departure of the Jews to Israel in
1950. Religious slavery was also widespread throughout the Islamic lands, including the unique (and equally cruel) Ottoman devshirme-janissary system, which lasted over 300 years—and in which an untold number of Christian children were requisitioned annually
(Vacalopoulos 1976:41). Of course if and when the dhimmis revolted, the rule of jihad is restored, resulting in slaughter of the rebels, and slavery for their women and children, and effectively forfeiting the dhimmis “protection.”
However, the socio-religious domain projects a much wider and deeper pattern of dhimmitude because one can say that the Muslim peasantry was also—though in a much less severe way—a victim of the period’s vicissitudes. In wars, invasions and rebellions,
52 there is a degree of uncertainty. This is not the case with the legal regulations determining the economic and social status of the dhimmis. Repugnant obligations, such as executioner, gravedigger, cleaner of public latrines and the like, were forced on dhimmis.
Religious restrictions were numerous, ranging from prohibitions in building, repair, and enlargement of synagogues and churches to regulations imposing humility, silence, and secrecy in prayer and during burial. The destruction, confiscation and Islamization of synagogues, and more often churches, were common and are often mentioned in legal treatises and dhimmi chronicles (Bostom 2005:29-37).
In the legal domain, specific laws ordained permanent inferiority and humiliation for the dhimmis. Their lives were valued at considerably less than that of a Muslim. The penalty for murder was much lighter if the dhimmi was the victim. Likewise, penalties for offenses were unequal between Muslims and non-Muslims. Dhimmis were deprived of two fundamental rights: the right of self-defense against physical aggression, and the right to defend themselves in an Islamic law court as their testimony was refused.
Dhimmis could be judged under the provisions of their own legislation. However dhimmi legislation was not recognized in Muslim courts, whose judgments superseded dhimmi legal decisions. Dhimmis were also forbidden to have authority over Muslims, to possess or buy land, to marry Muslim women, to have Muslim slaves or servants, or to use the
Arabic alphabet (Ye’or 1996:81-83).
In the social domain dhimmis had to be recognized by their discriminatory clothes whose shape, color, and texture were prescribed from head to foot, likewise, their houses
(color and size) and their separate living quarters. Dhimmis were forbidden to ride a horse or a camel, since these animals were considered too noble. A donkey could be ridden in
53 towns but only on a pack-saddle, the dhimmi sitting with both legs on one side and dismounting on sight of a Muslim. A dhimmi had to hurry through the streets, always passing to the left (impure) side of a Muslim, who was expected to force him to the narrow side or into the gutter. He had to walk humbly with lowered eyes, to accept insults without replying, to remain standing in a meek and respectful attitude in the presence of a
Muslim and to leave him the best place. If he was admitted to a public bath, he had to wear bells to signal his presence. Stoning Jews and Christians—especially in
Arab-populated regions—was not unusual—likewise disdain, insults and disrespectful attitudes toward them were customary. Some regional rules represent an aggravation of this pattern. In Morocco and Yemen, Jews were forbidden any footwear outside their segregated quarter [in Yemen, and parts of Morocco, this footwear prohibition lasted until 1950] (Ye’or 1996:91-99; parenthetical in original).
Often the restrictions are considerably more severe. In the treatise “Lightning
Bolts Against the Jews,” al Majlisi, perhaps the most influential Muslim cleric in the
Savafid Shi’ite theocracy in Persia, made a list of the laws concerning the dhimmis:
And, that they [the dhimmis] should not enter the pool while a Muslim is
bathing at the public baths... It is also incumbent upon Muslims that they
should not accept from them victuals with which they had come into
contact, such as distillates, which cannot be purified. If something can be
purified, such as clothes, if they are dry, they can be accepted, they are
clean. But if they [the dhimmis] had come into contact with those clothes
in moisture they should be rinsed with water after being obtained. . .It
would also be better if the ruler of the Muslims would establish that all
54 infidels could not move out of their homes on days when it rains or snows
because they would make Muslims impure. [Bostom 2005:33;
parenthetical in original]
Moreover, in an Islamic State, infidels must be denied government posts, since the state exists exclusively for Muslims, who alone are true citizens, while non-Muslims are merely conquered residents, according to Maududi’s edict:
That is why the Islamic state offers them protection, if they agree to live as
Zimmis by paying Jizya, but it can not allow that they should remain
supreme rulers in any place and establish wrong ways and establish them
on others. As this state of things inevitably produce chaos and disorder, it
is the duty of the true Muslims to exert their utmost to bring an end to their
wicked rule and bring them under a righteous order. [Maududi 1993:vol
2:186]
Only by the wildest stretch of the imagination could the situation of non-Muslims under Islamic law be seen as one conferring equal citizenship, whatever Muslim apologists (such as John Esposito, Karen Armstrong, or even the “Islamophobe” Bernard
Lewis) claim. Similarly, only a leap of fantasy could ever believe that such a situation is one that non-Muslims would welcome. The honor, dignity, equality and even the lives of non-Muslims are by no means guaranteed under Islamic law. The jizya tax in particular demonstrates the constitutional inferiority and humiliation such a legal arrangement confers. Again, for example, “Christian” Europe does not have a great track record in its treatment of Jews, but again, there is no long-standing, well-respected body of Christian theology or law that calls for treating Jews with disdain—nevermind a perpetual one.
55 Jihad and Dhimmitude in Practice. . .Today
The considerable number of chronicles written by Muslims and non-Muslims provide copious information on the methods and implementation of jihad over the centuries. These texts make it possible to establish the close correspondence between actual Islamic military practices and the legal and theological prescriptions of jihad. The wars currently waged by Muslim states or through their proxies, in Israel, Darfur and southern Sudan, Nigeria, Kashmir, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Chechnya and other parts of the world, reproduce the classic strategy of jihad. For instance, the military conscription of pubescent and pre-pubescent children was codified by the Ottomans.
Raids on villages, killing of adult males, and the abduction and enslavement of women and children, as well as terrorist campaigns against civilians infidels and apostates, and the refusal to return enemy corpses (for example, by the Lebanese Hezballah) conform with the opinions of al-Mawardi, mentioned earlier (not to mention Muhammad). The victims of such actions are deprived of all rights.
Today, many aspects of dhimmitude remain active or potential political forces.
Hence we see a return to the same situation in modern states where the shari’a is applied or constitutes the source of law, as in Egypt, Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, and even, unfortunately, in Iraq and Afghanistan. The condition of Christians in some modern
Muslim states is inspired by the traditional rules of dhimmitude relating to the laws of blasphemy5, mixed marriage, and apostasy (as the Abdul Rahman case in Afghanistan
5 Here is a good article about what is happening to Christians in Iraq: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3545834.ece 56 showed the world)6, or those concerning the building and repairing of churches, and of religious processions. Discrimination in employment and in education occurs, as well in equality between Muslims and non-Muslims in penal law.
A recently published book by Canon Patrick Sookhdeo (2002) examines the contemporary condition known in Pakistan as “bonded labor.” This is of particular interest to the historian of dhimmitude because it was also the condition of the Jewish and
Christian peasantries, so often referred to in their chronicles from the eighth to the nineteenth centuries. It illustrates the subservience maintained by fiscal exploitation and indebtedness which led to expropriation and a system of slavery. Likewise, Sookhdeo demonstrates how the inferior status of the non-Muslim can validate an abuse, in theory forbidden by law, and make it irreversible, as for example the accusation of blasphemy or the abduction of Christian women. This crime, also perpetrated in Egypt today, has been a permanent feature of dhimmitude. Robert Spencer also deals with this subject in his book, The Myth of Islamic Tolerance (2005), which exposes the harsh conditions inflicted upon contemporary dhimmis all over the Islamic world.
Astoundingly, there is little public debate on the ideology of jihad against the infidels, nor about dhimmitude, because these subjects are simply obfuscated or denied outright. Thus, in an article entitled “Dar al-Islam, Dar al-Harb, Dar al Kufr, and Dar al-
Sulh,” Imam Dr. Abduljalil Sajid, “Chairman Muslim Council for Religious and Racial
6 The ruling was in line with Sahih Bukhari: Volume 4, Book 52, Number 260: Narrated Ikrima: Ali burnt some people and this news reached Ibn ‘Abbas, who said, “Had I been in his place I would not have burnt them, as the Prophet said, ‘Don’t punish (anybody) with Allah’s Punishment.” No doubt, I would have killed them, for the Prophet said, ‘If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.’” More information on the case is available here: http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2006/03/the_apostasy_pr.ht ml 57 Harmony UK” presented the following at the International leadership conference in
Washington DC in December 2007: “Islam does not divide the world into believers and infidels” (pg. 10). “Furthermore, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) makes the word harb (war) so hateful that he says, ‘The most truthful names are Harith and
Hammam, and the most ugly names are Harb and Murrat’” (Sajid 2007:12). His statements imply that aggressive jihad and dhimmitude never existed in Islam, which of course, flies in the face of almost 1400 years of Islamic teaching and jurisprudence.
Unfortunately, many Western professors have adopted this version of Islamic revisionist history.
58
CHAPTER III
THE UNIVERSITIES: INTELLECTUAL JIHAD
The Legacy of Edward Said: Who Are We to Judge?
It is commonly supposed that pursuing knowledge in a systematic, scientific manner is good scholarship. There is an excellent reason for this—the frontiers of human understanding are advanced only by modifying or discarding theories that fail to explain something adequately in favor of those that may explain that something more adequately.
In other words, it takes a theory to beat a theory. “Theoretically,” in intellectual circles, the scientific method has become the obvious standard against which the quality of scholarship is held.
However, in some cases, it is not so obvious. In an important sense, such scholarship is regarded as more valuable in some cultures than in others. In a culture driven by a sense of justice that derives itself from positional authority, as opposed to a rational authority, extending scholarship to its logical conclusions can be fraught with problems. Good scholarship does not allow itself to be subordinated to issues of shame and honor—it carries on regardless. Yet in cultures where the claims of the community against its members take unconditional priority over individuals against the community, the costs of renegade scholarship are considerably greater than the short-term benefits. In other words, works that cross the boundaries of defection exact a high price.
In the U.S., as well as in the West in general, Middle Eastern Studies departments
(and social science departments in general) seem to be cultures unto themselves. Since 59 the publication of Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient by Edward Said, the study of the Middle East has been driven more by insidiously shaming scholars into harboring particular viewpoints, rather than analyzing the intellectual merits of the subjects under scrutiny. Never has an established academic field so widely degenerated into emulating what is meant to be the remote object of its study—many of the academics have become (in many cases financed by foreign governments) advocates, activists, and obfuscators for Islam, and oftentimes by extension, against Israel/Zionists.
Said’s book was purportedly aimed at deconstructing the writings of past and present Orientalists, who served, according to Said, only to justify and advance the New
Imperial Order, where Europe’s and America’s mighty armadas moved to subjugate the
“stupid” and “hapless” Oriental. “Orientalism” ignited a whole field of “post-colonial studies” which reiterated the standard quasi-Marxist accusations toward Western nations, especially America, for having hijacked the Orient for its own wicked ends, thus taking much of the blame for the present pathetic and humiliating state of the Arab world. Yet, in spite of claiming to “deconstruct” Orientalists whose fallacious writings, Said believed, were seen to be always infused with an air of contempt directed against the Oriental, nowhere did Said introduce a new way of thinking about the Arab world; nowhere did he provide an alternative, superior theory and framework that contained none of the alleged defects of Orientalist theories—he simply committed the very sin for which he was accusing Westerners—of concocting a “narrative” to serve his purposes (Warraq 2002).
In fact, Said admitted in the afterward of the 1994 edition of Orientalism that “I have no interest in, much less capacity for, showing what the true Orient and Islam really are” (Said 1994:329) Much of his work reads simply as anti-Western polemical screeds,
60 hurling vitriolic and malicious invective against past and present Orientalists, such as
Silvestre de Sacy and Bernard Lewis. Although Lewis, for his part, cleaned Said’s clock with a scholarly rebuttal of almost biblical proportions (Lewis 1982). Moreover, many of
Said’s Orientalist pioneers were quintessential insiders. Thus:
Silvestre de Sacy founded the great 19th-century school of Arabic studies
in Paris. . .Carl Heinrich Becker. . .brought sociology into Islamic
studies. . .Ignaz Goldziher, a Hungarian Jew, revolutionized Islamic
studies a century ago by applying the methods of higher criticism to the
Muslim oral tradition. . .
[. . .] Goldziher backed the Urabi revolt against foreign control of Egypt.
The Cambridge Iranologist Edward Granville Browne [lobbied] for
Persian liberty during Iran’s constitutional revolution in the early 20th
century. Prince Leone Caetani, an Italian Islamicist, opposed his country’s
occupation of Libya, for which he was denounced as a ‘Turk.’ And
Massignon may have been the first Frenchman to take up the Palestinian
Arab cause. . .
Orientalist scholars, far from mystifying Islam, freed Europe from
medieval myths about it through their translations and studies of original
Islamic texts. Second, most Orientalists, far from being agents of empire,
were bookish dons and quirky eccentrics. When they did venture opinions
on mundane matters, it was usually to criticize Western imperialism and
defend something Islamic or Arab… [Kramer 2007]
In lieu of these facts, one can argue that Said got it exactly wrong.
61 Moreover, despite his Arab heritage, there is also a peculiar condescension towards Arabs and Muslims that runs throughout many of Said’s works. Possibly the most famous example is Said’s “Israel-Palestine: A Third Way,” where he derides “The history of the modern Arab world,” (Said in Le Monde Diplomatique, September 1998).
This rhetoric is disturbing, given that many Arabs and Muslims share much of Said’s conclusions of who is to blame for their mess. Yet for Said to place much of the blame on
Western shoulders strongly implies that Arabs and Muslims are inherently incapable of beginning to sort out their societies; they are eternal, powerless pawns, utterly bereft of any capacity for being instrumentally rational in an evil Western end-game of dominance and oppression. Arabs and Muslims are never actors, only impotent reactors to Western hegemony. Surely this is condescension of the worst kind.
Despite what the Islamic world has been through, no reasonably sane person could believe this drivel. However, it is there hidden away, couched beneath Said’s heavy denunciations of the Western “rape” of the Orient. It is, in fact, not surprising that Said ended up here. In implying such a contemptible viewpoint—whether consciously made or otherwise—Said is forced to necessarily raise the intensity of abuse hurled against his
Western targets in order to increasingly obscure the obvious insinuation made within.
This rape metaphor also acts as a useful relief mechanism for assuaging such pent-up guilt from such condescension by releasing it elsewhere, much of it at the usual suspect— the West. Not so incidentally, this is common practice among quasi-Marxist interpretations of history; thus the “unholy” marriage between the academic “left” and the world-wide Islamist movement. Martin Kramer writes:
62 A contribution to an academic discipline usually takes the form of some
epistemological breakthrough. Said’s attack on Middle Eastern studies. . .
prompted an epistemological breakdown. Yet he never provided a serious
alternative, just a kind of floating over-identification with political causes
like Palestine, Arab nationalism, and Muslim anti-imperialism… The
decadence that pervades Middle Eastern studies today, the complete
subservience to trendy politics, and the unlikelihood that the field might
ever again produce a hero of high culture all this is owed to Edward Said.
[Kramer 2002]
Kramer’s “epistemological breakdown” accusation is evident within Said’s tendentious claims in “Orientalism”—which makes it all the more frustrating that Said and his acolytes have held a part of the academic world hostage; lest an academic be labeled an
“Orientalist”—or more likely, a “racist.”
For example, “For a work that purports to be a serious work of intellectual history,” notes Ibn Warraq, “Orientalism” is full of historical “howlers” (Warraq
2008:23). Warraq, Kramer, and others go on to point out an array or Said’s misunderstandings, contradictions, reinterpretations, and other—as Warraq puts it—
“howlers.”7 However, for me, Said’s most pernicious legacy is its almost complete destruction of many Middle Eastern Studies—and many social science—departments.
7 According to Said, at the end of the seventeenth century, Britain and France dominated the eastern Mediterranean, when in fact the Levant was still controlled for the next hundred years by the Ottomans. British and French merchants needed the permission of the Sultan to land. Egypt is repeatedly described as a British colony when, in fact, Egypt was never more than a protectorate… never annexed (For the full text, see:Warraq:2002). 63 For Said not only taught an entire generation of Muslims the fine art of self-pity (if only those clever Zionists, imperialists, and colonialists would leave us alone, we would be great, we would not have been humiliated, we would not be backward—of course Said never said these things overtly, however, they were cloaked in narrative), but intimidated feeble Western academics, and even weaker, invariably leftist, intellectuals into accepting that any criticism of Islam was to be dismissed as
Orientalism, and hence invalid. Fortunately, a few scholars are fighting back: Professor
Herbert Berg, from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington accuses Said of promoting “a fear of asking and answering potentially embarrassing questions—ones which might upset Muslim sensibilities…’ (in Warraq 1995:502);” Maxime Rodinson, who grew up in a Stalinist “anti-Zionist” family, calls Said’s polemic and style “Stalinist”
(Rodinson 1994:124); P.J. Vatikiotis writes, “Said introduced McCarthyism into Middle
Eastern Studies” (Vatikiotis 1991:105) by stigmatizing all those who dared to criticize the
Islamic “Other”; Clive Dewey says that Said’s book “[…] clearly touched a deep vein of vulgar prejudice running through American academe” (Dewey 1998:10); not to mention the criticisms by Martin Kramer, Bernard Lewis, David Cook, Patricia Cone and others
(although all, with the notable exception of Lewis, have been largely ignored or pushed aside). Said had much to answer for, in spite of the fact that Orientalism was worthlessness as an intellectual treatise, but of course, he never did—but that has not stopped his acolytes from accepting—and spreading—his anti-Western screeds.
Moreover, for many years, Said was one of Columbia’s most famous professors; his area of expertise: English and Comparative Literature (He was president of the
Modern Language Association from 1999-2001). Suzanne Trimel notes that from his
64 office in the Heyman Center for the Humanities, Said issued numerous publications that had an enormous influence on contemporary scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. Moreover, according to Trimel, Said, like Yassir Arafat, had spent his childhood in Egypt, but also like Arafat, identified himself as a Palestinian. In the early
1990s, he was a member of the Palestine National Council, but he resigned in protest against the Oslo accords, whose recognition of Israel as a Jewish state he vehemently opposed. Trimel also notes that he was (debatably) the foremost representative of the post-structuralist or post-modernist left, and the most articulate and visible advocate of the Palestinian cause in the United States. Said’s influence has helped make Columbia a place where blatant and irrational anti-Israel/anti-Western sentiment could flourish and be taken for granted (for example, renowned proponent of “Anti-Zionism,” Rashid Khalidi, now holds the Edward Said Chair in Arab Studies at Columbia) (Trimel 1998).
More importantly, however, through his industry, fame, and timely anger, he created a kind of Jobs Program, which had results: Muslims and Arabs were the victims of “Orientalism,” and were exempt from its charges. So if one were to study the Middle
East, the preferred teachers and scholars were always Muslim or Arab. Western scholarship’s inability to realize that objective scholarship has almost no place in the
Arab and Muslim world, has created a kind of academic mafia, which has driven many non-Muslims out of the profession.
Historian and columnist Hugh Fitzgerald laments that the Department of Middle
East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) at Columbia, with a handful of exceptions (holdovers from an earlier era, who teach nicely segregated subjects—i.e.
“Jewish matters”—such as Prof. Dan Miron)—demonstrates perfectly that those who are
65 non-Muslim or non-Arab fit into certain categories. Fitzgerald observes that there are those who express “Islamist” sympathies, for their years as students somehow caused them, in a sense, to “go native.” Moreover, according to Fitzgerald, the very act of spending years learning Arabic, and of immersing oneself in a culture, can lead to a certain kind of identification. The Arab and Muslim world has caused a good many
Westerners, from Freya Stark and St. John Philby, to the Arabian American Oil Company
(ARAMCO) publicists, to quite a few Middle East Studied Association (MESA) members, to make common cause (Fitzgerald 2005). To Fitzgerald:
Psychologically, it could hardly be otherwise. If you are constantly
surrounded by people whose mode of discussion is always that of
defensiveness, defensiveness about Islam, about Arabs, about the non-
West, about Western scholars in the past who did not exhibit sufficient
solicitousness for Arab or Muslim sensibilities, you are either likely to
reveal that you do not share such views, and if that is done early on you
will not be promoted. . .On the other hand, life is short, and one wishes to
attain that appetizing thing, tenure, and why not convince yourself not to
ask yourself certain questions. Intellectual curiosity is limited; the gates of
ijtihad [legal interpretations] are shut.
For a real student of Islam, such as Joseph Schacht or Arthur Jeffery or
Richard Gottheil, one would not hesitate to ask these questions: What is it
about the Muslim countries that explains their hatred of all infidels,
including Hindus and Buddhists, or what is it that explains the failure of
Muslim countries to develop, despite the vast OPEC oil wealth. . .or what
66 is it in the ideology of Islam that encourages despotism in Muslim
countries, or why did modern science develop in the West, and [why did]
such development come to a shuddering halt in the Muslim East? Instead,
we get the complete avoidance of such questions, even anger that such
questions should be raised. [Fitzgerald 2005; parenthetical in original]
As Fitzgerald makes clear, the legacy of Edward Said is alive and well at Columbia (and in almost all of Western Academia, for that matter).
This is truly sad because Columbia has a long and proud history of fomenting outstanding scholars of Islam. In fact, in the past century, Columbia boasted the leading
Islamic scholars in America, including some of the earliest scholars of dhimmitude,
Richard Gottheil; Arthur Jeffery, who followed Mingana’s early lead in investigating the non-Arabic elements in the Qur’an; and Joseph Schacht, whose book on Islamic law remains an authoritative text for all Western students:
Yet today one can go through the university’s Middle East Studies course
offerings, and learn virtually nothing about Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira,
nothing about the origins of the Qur’an or of recent developments in the
study of early Islam, both historical (John Wansbrough, Michael Cook,
Patricia Crone) and philological (Christoph Luxenberg). Only a bare
handful of survey courses in the Religion department pretend to cover the
vastness of Islamic history, theology, and civilization, reducing those
riches to “mere” religion, ahistorical, unassailable, eternal. Columbia’s
Middle Eastern Program had far to fall, but fall it did—and with a thud
that still reverberates. [Fitzgerald 2005]
67 Unbelievably, at Columbia, there is only one course available on the Qur’an, and of course, it is taught through narrative, as “three problematic representations in the
Qur’an… idols, prophets, and women” (Columbia Univrsity Course Listings 2007).
Moreover, Columbia University is a magnificent classical revival campus deeply in thrall to the obsolete ideas of dead white men. The names of Homer, Herodotus, and
Plato are carved above the colonnade of Butler Library, “and, on sunny afternoons under the benign gaze of the classically-draped goddess of wisdom, members the Young
Spartacus League gather to encourage the workers of the world to unite [—Spartacus was a Marxist—ed.?]” (Trueman 2007). Trueman goes on:
At Columbia, the dead white men who dominate the campus are not
Homer, Herodotus, and Plato, but Michel Foucault, Karl Marx and
Edward Said. It is the faculty, not the students, who police the campus
looking for heretics to burn, and while it is understood that some
colleagues will be a little soft on Marxist orthodoxies, no dissent from the
dogmas of post-colonialism is allowed.
Post-colonialism, the Gospel According to Saint Edward, is the late
Edward Said’s theory that all problems in the third world are the fault of
Western imperialism. The theory was first put forward in Said’s now
thoroughly discredited book, Orientalism. As with other Holy Books, the
Gospel According to Saint Edward cannot be supported by evidence. It is
the kind of revealed truth that requires justification by faith alone.
[Trueman 2007]
68 Admittedly, according to Trueman, “Columbia sometimes enacts a charade of pretending to consider appointing distinguished scholars who do not worship Saint
Edward” (Trueman 2007). For example, in 2003 James Robert Russell, the Mashtots of
Armenian Studies at Harvard University, applied for a vacant chair in Armenian studies at Columbia—with emblematic Columbian results—he did not get the job. Russell notes that, among other irregularities, “Two senior colleagues told me that I simply belonged to the wrong race” (Russell 2006). “As of… May 3, 2007”, the job was still open—for is it possible for one to reconcile the Armenian genocide and Saidism? Moreover, many of Dr.
Russell’s accusations are borne out in the 2004 documentary Columbia Unbecoming
(Columbia Unbecoming 2004).
At approximately the same time that Said was pressing for Orientalism, another great scholar was championing similar conclusions. In 1978, as the protests against the
Shah of Iran reached their zenith, philosopher Michel Foucault was working as a special correspondent for the leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera and later the French le Nouvel Observateur. During his little-known stint as a journalist, Foucault traveled to
Iran, met with leaders like Ayatollah Khomeini, and wrote a series of articles on the revolution. “His dispatches shed some light on the illusions of intellectuals (and subsequently, their students) in our own time” (in Yang 2005:1).
By late 1978, the Islamist faction led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had come to dominate the antiregime uprising, in which secular nationalists, democrats, and leftists also participated. Wesley Yang observes that the Islamists controlled the slogans and the organization of the protests, which meant that many secular women protesters were pressured into donning the veil (chador) as an expression of solidarity with the more
69 traditional Iranian Muslims. Wang also observes that by February 1979, the shah had left the country and Khomeini returned from exile (in France) to take power. Moreover,
Wang notes, the next month, he sponsored a national referendum that declared Iran an
Islamic republic by an overwhelming majority. Soon after, as Khomeini began to assume nearly absolute power, a reign of terror ensued (in Yang 2005:1).
However, for Foucault, reporting from the scene, the events were mesmerizing:
“It is perhaps the first great insurrection against global systems, the form of revolt that is the most modern and most insane” (in Yang 2005:1). Moreover, while many leftists supported the populist uprising that pitted unarmed masses against one of the world’s best-armed regimes, few welcomed the announcement of the growing power of radical
Islam with Foucault’s portentous lyricism. For example, Foucault enthusiastically wrote:
As an Islamic movement it can set the entire region afire, overturn the most
unstable regimes, and disturb the most solid. Islam—which is not simply a
religion, but an entire way of life, an adherence to a history and a
civilization—has a good chance to become a gigantic powder keg, at the
level of hundreds of millions of men. [in Yang 2005:1]
He was right, in a way, about Islam; it is, of course, a comprehensive lifeway.
Unfortunately, he let his Oriental fetishism blind him toward Islam’s fascistic adherence to “history and civilization.”
Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson show that the Iranian Revolution appealed to certain of Foucault’s characteristic preoccupations—with the spontaneous eruption of resistance to established power, the exploration of the limits of rationality, and the creativity unleashed by people willing to risk death (Afary and Anderson 2004:1).
70 According to Wesley Yang, “It also tied into his burgeoning interest in a ‘political spirituality’ (by which he meant the return of religion into politics, a suspicious phenomenon in rigorously secular France) whose rise was then still obscured by the Cold
War” (Yang 2005:2). Furthermore, “These preoccupations made Foucault both more sensitive to the power of political religion, but also more prone to soft-pedal its dangers”
(Yang 2005:2). In his pieces, “Foucault compared the Islamists to Savonarola, the
Anabaptists, and Cromwell’s militant Puritans. The comparisons were intended to flatter”
(Yang 2005:2).
Moreover, according to journalist Wesley Yang, “in an interview with an Iranian journalist conducted on his first visit, in September 1978, Foucault made plain his disillusionment with all the secular ideologies of the West and his yearning to see
‘another political imagination’” ascend from the Iranian Revolution (Yang 2005:2).
“Industrial capitalism,” Foucault said, had become “the harshest, most savage, most selfish, most dishonest, oppressive society one could possibly imagine.” Communism’s failure, for which Foucault had no great sympathy, left us, “from the point of view of political thought, at point zero’” (Yang 2005:2).
It is true that Foucault was hardly unique among Western leftist intellectuals in throwing support behind “Oriental” political movements in defiance of the West—and indeed the ousting of the shah was a cause celebre of the left. Where Foucault differed from many of his contemporaries, however, was in hitching his wagon to the Islamist wing of the revolt (describing it as “beautiful”) and in paying such scant attention to other elements of the anti-shah forces—including those in secular, liberal, feminist, and leftist camps. While French and American feminists like Simone de Beauvoir and Kate Millett
71 stood in solidarity with their Iranian counterparts, Foucault viewed the modernist discourse of women’s rights as foreign to the Iranian experience, as an Orientalist superimposition on the religious masses (Afary and Anderson 2004).
Indeed, it was not despite the revolution’s Islamist dimension that Foucault’s intellectual-political juices got flowing, but because of it. He saw in the Iranian experience the promise of a whole different kind of rebellion—not just another national liberation struggle against colonialism, but something that went deeper: a revolt against modernity itself. Whereas third-world revolutions of the Marxist-Leninist variety were trapped, as Foucault saw it, in the language of the Enlightenment, the Iranians had chosen a different path—one that departed on a fundamental level from the logic of all modern revolutions and that promised not merely a new political order but a whole different
“regime of truth”—not some simple-minded observable truth, you see, but an Islamic
“regime of truth” (Afary and Anderson 2004).
Moreover, it is important to ask why Foucault interpreted the events around him in the particular way he did, and why does it matter today? The answer seems quite apparent: at a time when religion is resurgent in politics and Western leftists are divided between interventionists and anti-imperialists, Foucault’s peculiar blend of blindness and insight about the Islamists remains instructive—for those leftists are the pillars of the social sciences (including, of course, anthropology). Back in September 1978, Foucault made it clear that “Any Western intellectual with some integrity cannot be indifferent to what she or he hears about Iran” (in Yang 2005:2)—that exact same sentiment is true today.
72 Afary and Anderson propose two keys to making sense of Foucault’s sentiments.
The first is political and intellectual; the second, personal and existential. Foucault’s intellectual project was, on one level, a critique of the Enlightenment and the modern
Weltanschauung it generated. Where its proponents championed the Enlightenment as a
“science of freedom,” Foucault saw something quite different: the machinations of power and domination. In a series of landmark studies, he scrutinized modern institutions such as the prison, the clinic, and the asylum in relation to the rise of the so-called human sciences of psychiatry, criminology, medicine, sexology, and other fields. In stark contrast to the secular priesthood of experts who saw modernity as an explosion of progress and knowledge, Foucault viewed modernity as the construction of an elaborate panopticon, a gigantic system of surveillance and social engineering. The validity of
Foucault’s thesis is not relevant here, however, this one-sided view of modernity colored
Foucault’s understanding of Islam and the Iranian Islamic Revolution. It is this fierce enmity towards modernity that led Foucault to embrace a revolt against it, while at the same time this hatred blinded him to the dark side of the revolt (Afary and Anderson
2005).
The existential factor in the equation has to do with the religious rituals Foucault witnessed in Iran, and their impact on his “sexual imaginary.” Foucault was deeply moved by the penitence and martyrdom rituals he saw performed in the streets of Tehran.
During this period, known as Muharram, Shia Muslims commemorate the murder of
Hussein, the son of Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law Ali; as a descendant of
Muhammad, Shiites believe Hussein was the rightful heir to the leadership of the Muslim caliphate, but was murdered by his opponents [the Umayyads] in a bloodthirsty power
73 grab. This dispute marks the fork in the road between the Sunni and Shia branches of
Islam, a feud that has important implications for Middle Eastern politics today (Rahman
2002:172; parenthetical in original).
Shiites mourn the massacre of Hussein and his followers through theatrical reenactment processions and self-flagellation rites; the mainly male participants in these passion plays chant eulogies, rhythmically beat their backs and chests with chains or sticks, use knives and swords to inflict wounds to their foreheads, and scorch their bodies.
All the while, onlookers alternate between laughter and sobbing. “[Seemingly] oblivious to any sense of pain,” some “cut their scalps in moments of frenzy, while others smear dirt on their foreheads, indicating their eagerness to be buried for Hussein” (Afary and
Anderson 2005:47-48). Noting “the whip and the little chains that the men twirl around to lash their shoulders,” one (unnamed) scholar of Shiism was struck by what he called “the sexual nature of this festival of death” (Afary and Anderson 2005:47-48; parenthetical in original).
Death figures centrally here. Indeed, Foucault himself described Muharram as “a time when the crowds are ready to advance toward death in the intoxication of sacrifice”
(Afary and Anderson 2005:49). As the revolt against the shah grew, Muharram became increasingly charged with political symbolism, with the evil Umayyads representing the shah maneuvering to destroy Khomeini, who, of course, represented Hussein. Foucault was particularly moved by the “intoxication of sacrifice” he witnessed among
Khomeini’s followers, who were not merely willing to face their deaths for the cause, but seemed almost hell-bent on it—“more focused, perhaps, on martyrdom than on victory,”
Foucault observed (Afary and Anderson 2005:49-50). Afary and Anderson link
74 Foucault’s intellectual intoxication with the Muharram rituals he witnessed to his fascination with what he called “limit experiences” that pushed the boundaries of life by flirting with death (Afary and Anderson 2005:50).
Adding a third ingredient to the mix, Afary and Anderson see all of this as intertwined with Foucault’s quest, in the second and third volumes of his History of
Sexuality, for an alternative sexual ethos to our modern, scientific, post-Freudian discourse of “liberation” (Afary and Anderson 2005:138). In search of this alternative ethos, he turned to ancient Greece and early Christendom, which contained, in his view, more open approaches to sexuality, and particularly to homosexuality (Afary and
Anderson 2005:139). Afary and Anderson read Foucault’s articles on Iran in tandem with his History of Sexuality—which, they point out, he was writing during the period of his travels to Iran. He imagined in Iranian sexuality—particularly in the Muharram passion plays—precisely the kind of homoerotic openness that he venerated in the classical
Mediterranean world (In due course of time, it must be noted, theocratic Iran turned out to be considerably less open to homoeroticism—to put it mildly—than Foucault imagined it might be) (Afary and Anderson 2005:140-141). Nevertheless, all of these elements were at work simultaneously: Foucault’s pursuit of an alternative sexual ethos in the past; his personal proclivity for sadomasochistic, homoeroticism and attraction to death; the excitement of the arresting spectacle of sexually charged religious rituals centered on pain and martyrdom; and his hunger for a new political spirituality that broke with both liberal-democratic capitalism and revolutionary Marxism (Afary and Anderson 2005:142-
144).
75 Afary and Anderson sum up what they take to be the three points of convergence between Foucault’s postmodernism and Khomeini’s anti- or premodernism as such: (1) an opposition to the imperialist and colonialist policies of the West; (2) a rejection of certain cultural and social aspects of modernity that had transformed gender roles and social hierarchies in both the East and the West; and (3) a fascination with the discourse of death as a path toward authenticity and salvation, a discourse that included rites of penitence and aimed at refashioning the self (Afary and Anderson 2005:39).
Afary and Anderson offer a feminist and leftist critique of Foucault vis-a-vis Iran, taking him to task for dismissing feminist warnings about the dangers the Islamists posed to women and for downplaying the authoritarianism of Khomeini’s movement (Afary and
Anderson 2005:18). They also accuse Foucault of the very sin he accused some of his critics: Orientalism (Afary and Anderson 2005:19). Foucault portrayed the Iranian people as totally unified in their support for Khomeini and his program of Islamic government.
The clerics, he wrote, embodied Iran’s “collective will,” a movement “without splits or internal conflicts” (Afary and Anderson 2005:20). This was empirically inaccurate—an obfuscation of the huge divisions, for example, between the many secular feminists in the anti-shah movement and the Islamists, whose repressive program was a threat to women’s rights. It was a projection of Foucault’s own sympathies and fantasies onto an
Iranian context he knew little about (Afary and Anderson 2005:21). The notion that
Iranians think with one mind was, in fact, quintessential Orientalism.
Deforming Logic to fit Political Prejudice
Inspired—or perhaps intellectually bullied—by Said, Foucault, and others,
Western universities have created a long list of polemical “Po-Mo,” “Multi-Culti,”
76 “Blame-the-West-First,” what-have-you departments—from Antioch University’s
“Cultural and Interdisciplinary Studies Program,” from a multicultural (anti-Western) perspective, to Yale’s almost all-encompassing moral/cultural relativism which compelled one of its own scholars, Professor of Classics and History Donald Kagan, to lament “Our schools have retreated from encouraging of right and wrong—with the exception of an education in moral relativism that borders on nihilism” (in Stillwell and
Harris 2005). Here Kagan is not arguing that teaching what is “right and wrong” is the role of scholarship, he is arguing that some things are inherently wrong (FGM, cannibalism, divinely sanctioned apartheid, etc), and Western scholarship seems to have forgotten this fact.
Philosopher Roger Scruton emphasizes this point in his “obituary” of the well- respected postmodernist philosopher Richard Rorty (d. 2007). Scruton notes that Rorty’s legacy typifies a form of exclusionary postmodern argument that depends on burying truth. Scruton writes:
[Rorty’s] venture into political theory took [him] in new and unforeseeable
directions, as he tried to reconcile his view that some versions of political
order are superior to others, with his belief that there is no trans-historical
perspective from which any such judgment can be made. It is a testimony
to his literary skills that he was able repeatedly to stare refutation in the
face, and to go on staring [as did Said—ed.]. . .
Undoubtedly he was the most lucid of the postmodernist philosophers—
though that is, given the competition, no great achievement. . .Rorty was
paramount among those thinkers who advance their own opinion as
77 immune to criticism, by pretending that it is not truth but consensus that
counts, while defining the consensus in terms of people like themselves.
[Scruton 2007]
Like nearly all postmodernist thinkers, Rorty relished subversive arguments (valid arguments be damned!), “in which the distinctions between valid and invalid, true and false, real and imaginary, would disappear or at any rate lose their former importance”
(Scruton 2007). Here lies the foundation (anthropological or otherwise) for Islamic studies—truth be damned!8
For today, postmodern notions of multiculturalism (all cultures are equally valid or “good”) and cultural relativism (all manifestations of culture are equally valid or
“good”), at their most fundamental, are appeals to and promotion of anti-Western tribalism. In effect, the imposition of multicultural policies in liberal Western countries are resulting in the importation of cultural ascriptions and practices that are, in many cases, inimical to liberal traditions. Behind this is the assumption on the part of Western cultural elites, since the Second World War, that nationalism is almost the equal of fascism. This, of course, ignores the context of nationalist expression. To wave the flag in
France or the United States is not the same as waving the flag in Nazi Germany. To
“stand up for America” is not necessarily a demonstration of xenophobia. For many academic elites, however, nationalism demonstrates one of the great sins of “leftism”— exclusion—for to apply “nation” to a group or set of values is to exclude others. In today’s globalized world, say Doctoral candidates, the nation-state has been superseded
8 For a detailed example of contemporary Islamic post-modernist thinking, see: Nadia Abu El-Haj: “Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self- Fashioning in Israeli Society”:2002.
78 by the realities of mass immigration, multi-ethnic populations, and telecommunications.
Needless to say, however, waving the green flag of Islam is, of course, inclusionary (for example, the Hezballah flag flies over several United Nations positions in Lebanon, see
Babbin 2002).
Our current forms of multiculturalistic and cultural relativistic thought have their roots in anthropology. Influential anthropologists like Franz Boaz, Margaret Mead, Ruth
Benedict, and Ashley Montagu promoted cultural relativism, chastising the West in the process. According to Franz Boaz:
[C]ultural relativism means that every culture has its own values and
premises by which things should be judged. In practice, people judge
things based on internalized assumptions and premises that may not be
applicable in the context of the culture that is being observed. While
ethnocentrism means that the individual or group does not believe that it is
possible to have different values in different cultures, cultural relativism
allows for differences and also acknowledges that individuals and groups
may still errantly apply cultural norms from a native context onto a foreign
context. [in Bohannan and van der Elst 1998]
This is a perfectly acceptable definition; however, this can be taken several ways. For example, Margaret Mead’s interpretation allowed her to brazenly twist facts to portray the alleged superiority of “primitive” South Seas cultures over “inferior” Western culture
(see “Margaret Mead and Samoa: the Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological
Myth,” by Derek Freeman). Problematically, from practically the beginning of
79 “anthropological relativism,” pre-supposed notions and political concerns have affected the way some anthropologists approach fieldwork.
Today, the main thrust of cultural relativism and multiculturalism is to insure that every human group has a singularity and legitimacy that form the basis of its right to exist, conditioning its interaction with others. The progressive criteria of just and unjust, criminal and barbarian, disappear before the absolute criterion of respect for difference.
There is no longer any verifiable truth (as postmodernism demands, as critiqued by
D’Andrade, Rosenau, Spiro, etc): the belief in this stems from naive ethnocentrism.
French philosopher Pascal Bruckner remarks that
Anyone with a mind to contend timidly that liberty is indivisible, that the
life of a human being has the same value everywhere, that amputating a
thief’s hand or stoning an adulteress is intolerable everywhere, is duly
arraigned in the name of the necessary equality of cultures. As a result, we
can turn a blind eye to how others live and suffer once they’ve been
parked in the ghetto of their particularity. Enthusing about their inviolable
differentness alleviates us from having to worry about their condition.
However it is one thing to recognize the convictions and rites of fellow
citizens of different origins, and another to give one’s blessing to hostile
insular communities that throw up ramparts between themselves and the
rest of society. How can we bless this difference if it excludes humanity
instead of welcoming it? This is the paradox of multiculturalism: it
accords the same treatment to all communities, but not to the people who
form them, denying them the freedom to liberate themselves from their
80 own traditions. Instead: recognition of the group, oppression of the
individual. The past is valued over the wills of those who wish to leave
custom and the family behind and, for example, love in the manner they
see fit. [Bruckner 2007]
Indeed.
Incredibly, since 9/11 (and the London and Madrid bombings, and the “cartoon” riots, and the nightly French “car-b-cues,” etc.), and despite the mountain of evidence provided by the historical record, the “po-mo/multiculturalist” myth of Islamic tolerance continues to be propagated on many Western campuses. Moreover, despite the now popular academic notion that “there is no verifiable truth,” there seems to be one anomaly—“jihad means peace.”
For example, on June 6, 2002, Harvard graduating senior Zayed Yasin—chosen by the faculty of Harvard College—delivered a commencement address entitled “My
American Jihad” (Kofol 2002). In his speech, Yasin (past president of the Harvard
Islamic Society and fund-raiser and unofficial spokesperson for the Holy Land
Foundation for Relief and Development—which the US government had, shortly after 9-
11, shut-down for funding HAMAS and other Islamic terror groups) explained that to connect jihad to warfare was to misunderstand it. Yasin elaborated, “In the Muslim tradition, jihad represents a struggle to do the right thing” (in Kofol 2002). In fact,
Yasin’s purpose was to “reclaim the word for its true meaning, which is inner struggle”
(in Kofol 2002). He continued, “On a global scale, [jihad] is a struggle involving people of all ages, colors, and creeds, for control of the Big Decisions: not only who controls
81 what piece of land, but more importantly who gets medicine, who can eat” (in Kofol
2002; parenthetical in original).
Seven months later, in a presentation at Northern Illinois University, fellow undergraduate Hadam Soliman assured his audience that jihad (echoing Yasin) only means “to strive to one’s utmost” or “to struggle.” It never means “holy war” or
“aggressive fighting.” For, Soliman said, jihad can be used to struggle against one’s self, against the devil, against unbelievers, or against one’s oppressors. However, according to
Soliman, “Jihad is not a means to force others into Islam” (in King 2003). Soliman is correct in one aspect, jihad is not a means of forced conversion; it is a means of forced subjugation.
Unfortunately, it appears that these students are simply regurgitating what they are taught in the mulitculturalistic confines of today’s Western universities. In 2002, for example, the University of North Carolina assigned Approaching the Qur’an: The Early
Revelations by Michael Sells to all incoming freshmen (Cooperman 2002:A01). The
“early revelations” of the subtitle are the Meccan suras discussed in Chapter 1, which mainly preach tolerance and coexistence without a hint of the doctrines of jihad and dhimmitude that unfold in later Qur’anic revelations. Any person of goodwill must ask the question: what was such a misleading mandatory reading assignment designed to accomplish, especially in light of continuing threats from Jihadists?
As for the work itself, Sells defends his decision to translate only early Meccan suras on the grounds that they are the most accessible introduction to the Qur’an and
Islamic study as a whole. That may or may not be true, but taken in isolation as the only book a young non-Muslim may read about Islam, Approaching the Qur’an is severely
82 misleading about the nature of the religion as a whole, and about the intentions and motives of Islamic terrorists, the very people who have made Islam such a push-button issue for students.
Understandably, many Americans are already uneasy about the idea that terrorism might be rooted in the Qur’an because religious toleration is such a fundamental
American belief. Sells has summed up the prevailing view:
If you look at history, you’ll find that every religion is both a religion of
peace and a religion of violence, depending on who is interpreting it,
which passages they foreground, and how they interpret those passages.
To say that any religion is either peaceful or violent is a useless
simplification, really. [Sells in PBS 2002]
Similarly, many are quick to say that the Qur’an is not alone; the Bible—or the Old
Testament in particular—contains exhortation to violence. However, even if this were true, it is beside the point, because it does nothing to explain why the world today is filled with Muslim terrorist groups, and not Christian (or Jewish, or Buddhist, or Jain, etc.) ones (The largest non-Muslim terrorist group, the Tamil Tigers, have an ideology based more on a cult of personality than on anything in the Vedas. Moreover, the Tigers have perpetuated no violence outside of Sri Lanka—they are a localized, relatively small terror network). This kind of thinking, so prevalent on Western campuses, is relativism of the worst kind. For the important distinction is this: certainly people of all religions (be they
Christian, Jewish, what have you) have committed horrific acts of violence in the name of their religion. However, Islam, as we have seen in Chapters 1 and 2, has a long- established tradition of textual interpretation that allows Muslims to justify such violence,
83 and indeed even to think that it might be required of them. Other religions simply have no such comparable tradition.9 For example, Christian martyrs meet their end by being persecuted unto death, while Islamic martyrs are suicide murderers. Shaolin Buddhist monks learn martial arts for self-defense and Zen meditation, while the mujahadin learn the art of murder and hate to propagate Islam. These are not relative differences; they are profound differences.
Still, for many Western Islamic scholars, only the notion of ‘spiritual jihad’ is given “legitimacy.” According to David Mitten, the James Loeb Professor of Classical
Art and Archaeology as well as faculty adviser to the Harvard Islamic Society, true jihad is “the constant struggle of Muslims to conquer their inner base instincts, to follow the path to God, and to do good in society” (in Gewertz 2001). Dr. Mitten’s colleague, Roy
Mottahedeh, the Gurney Professor of History and chairman of the Committee on Islamic
Studies at Harvard, claims “a majority of learned Muslim thinkers, drawing on impeccable scholarship, insist that jihad must be understood as a struggle without arms”
(Laiou and Mottahedeh 2001:24). In the same vein, Dell DeChant, a world religions professor at the University of South Florida, insists that jihad “is usually understood to
9 Famous Muslim scholar and “father of modern history” Ibn Khaldun articulates the dichotomy between “other religions” and Islamic warfare thus: “In the Muslim community, the holy war [i.e. jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. . .The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense. . .They are merely required to establish their religion among their own people. That is why the Israeilites after Moses and Joshua remained unconcerned with royal authority [e.g. a “caliphate”]. Their only concern was to establish their religion [not spread it to the nations]. . .But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations” [Ibn Khaldun 1958 vol. 1 pg. 473; parenthetical mine]. 84 mean a struggle to be true to the will of God and not holy war” (DeChant in Meehan
2001).
The renowned Islamic historian, Karen Armstrong, states unequivocally that the primary meaning of the word jihad is not “holy war” but “struggle” (Armstrong 2005).
Armstrong goes on to say that “Constantly Muslims are enjoined to respect Jews and
Christians, the ‘People of the Book,’ who worship the same God” (Armstrong 2001:Oct.
1). Moreover, to Armstrong, it’s all relative anyway, “It would be as grave a mistake to see Usama bin Ladin as an authentic representative of Islam as to consider James Kopp, the alleged killer of an abortion provider in Buffalo, N.Y., a typical Christian”
(Armstrong 2001:Oct. 1).
Daniel Pipes writes that many other Western professors espouse these views, including:
John Kelsay of John Carroll University, Zahid Bukhari of Georgetown,
and James Johnson of Rutgers. Roxanne Euben of Wellesley College…
asserts that “For many Muslims, jihad means to resist temptation and
become a better person.” John Parcels, a professor of philosophy and
religious studies at Georgia Southern University, defines jihad as a
struggle “over the appetites and your own will.” For Ned Rinalducci, a
professor of sociology at Armstrong Atlantic State University, the goals of
jihad are: “Internally, to be a good Muslim. Externally, to create a just
society.” And Farid Eseck, professor of Islamic studies at Auburn
Seminary in New York City, memorably describes jihad as “resisting
apartheid or working for women's rights.” [Pipes 2002]
85 Moreover, at least one academic takes this spiritual jihad notion, and calls for its universalization—for non-Muslims as well as Muslims. Bruce Lawrence, a prominent professor of Islamic studies at Duke University, calls for a “Western” jihad against—the
West. Professor Lawrence elaborates:
One way [to lesson the pain of 911] is to cultivate among non-Muslims as
well as Muslims a civil virtue known as jihad. . .Not the jihad that calls for
war against infidels. Not the jihad that was a response to the Crusades, nor
a jihad that was invoked against colonial invaders in the 19th century or
their successors in the 20th. No, we need a jihad that would be a genuine
struggle against our own myopia and neglect as much as it is against
outside others who condemn or hate us for what we do, not for who we are.
[Lawrence 2001]
Here we can see the fruits of post-colonialist studies: The Jihadists, throughout history, were simply responding to foreign aggressors (Crusaders) or occupiers (pick your
Western country), and this continues today (for “We” are hated only for “what we do”).
Not a word about how Islam originally spread, nor a peep about the fact that the first
Crusaders were responding—belatedly (by over 450 years) —to Islamic aggression, and nary a word about mainstream Islamic texts and teachings. All of this violent jihad stuff is simply our fault. At least Lawrence admits that there is something to this violence business in relation to jihad.
Likeminded professors acknowledge that jihad may include militarily defensive engagements, but this meaning is itself secondary to moral self-improvement. According to Professor Charles Kimball, chairman of the department of religion at Wake Forest
86 University, jihad means “striving or struggling in the way of God” (in Burek and Norton
2001). He elaborates, “Historically, the ‘greater’ jihad refers to the struggle each person has within him or herself to do what is right. . .The ‘lesser’ jihad involves the outward defense of Islam… including military defense, when the community of faith is under attack” (in Burek and Norton 2001). “Pronouncing similarly,” according to historian
Daniel Pipes, are a litany of well-respected thinkers such as “Mohammad Siddiqi of
Western Illinois, John Iskander of Georgia State, Mark Woodard of Arizona State, Taha
Jabir Al-Alwani of the graduate school of Islamic and social sciences in Leesburg,
Virginia, and Barbara Stowasser of Georgetown” (Pipes 2002).
In fact, “Jihad,” for Stowasser, “is a serious personal commitment to the faith,” a struggle against “evil intentions,” and a “working toward the moral betterment of society” (in Dyer 2001:7). Only at the very end of the Qur’an is it used to denote armed struggle, and even then, according to Stowasser, Muslims are enjoined only to engage in defensive war. In Stowasser’s view, al-Qa’ida “goes against the majority of Islam and against most of Islamic legal theory” (in Dyer 2001:7)
But does the argument for the “greater/lesser” jihad dichotomy hold water? The most commonly cited tradition that seems to indicate that jihad may indeed have a nonviolent meaning is this ascetic hadith:
A number of fighters came to the Messenger of Allah, and he said: “You
have done well in coming from the ‘lesser jihad’ to the ‘greater jihad.’”
They said: “What is the ‘greater jihad’?” He said: “For the servant [of God]
to fight his passions.” [in Cook 2005:35; parenthetical in original]
87 “Clearly,” says Islamic scholar David Cook, “this tradition is an attempt to radically reinterpret the originally aggressive intent of the Qur’an and the hadith literature in order to focus on the waging of spiritual warfare” (Cook 2005:35). Moreover, this spiritualized jihad tradition appears nowhere in the six official canonical hadith collections—with one possible exception—al-Tirmidhi cites (a single time, in a sea of “aggressive jihad” citations) “the fighter is one who fights his passions” (in Cook 2005:35). However, it is important to mention again, the greater/lesser jihad explanation does not appear in any of the canonical hadith collections. Because of this fact, it is reasonable to infer that the
“hadith collectors construed as illegitimate the entire line of thought leading to the conclusion that spiritual warfare is part of or equivalent to aggressive jihad” (Cook
2005:35). Thus, Cook points out, “they did not include these traditions in their collections or rate them as ‘sound’ [meaning that a Muslim can rely upon them as authority]” (Cook
2005:35; parenthetical in original).
In spite of all this information, since the 1990s (and even more so with the passing of Edward Said), the most “authentic” voice on Islam is Georgetown’s John Esposito.
According to Martin Kramer (Bernard Lewis’ most renowned protégé), Esposito’s peculiar genius is in convincing people that “Islamist movements were nothing more than movements of democratic reform” (Kramer 2001:56). In the 1990s, Esposito discouraged academic investigations of Muslim radicalism. Quoting from the 1991 edition of
Esposito’s since-revised book “The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?” Kramer observes,
As for Islamist violence, this was deemed beyond the bounds of approved
research. Dwelling upon it would only reinforce stereotypes. After all,
announced Esposito, “most” Islamic movements had reached the
88 conclusion that violence was “counterproductive.” “They speak of the
need to prepare people for an Islamic order rather that to impose it.”
Therefore, promised Esposito, the violence that had marred the 1980’s
would recede, and “the nineties will prove to be a decade of new alliances
and alignments in which the Islamic movements will challenge rather than
threaten their societies and the West.” [Kramer 2001:51]
Clearly, Esposito had to revise his polemic.
In a later revision of “The Islamic Threat,” Esposito states “The term jihad has a number of meanings, which include the effort to lead a good life, to make society more moral and just, and to spread Islam through preaching, teaching, or armed struggle”
(Espositio 1999:30). As we have seen in Chapter 2, this definition has virtually no validity in Islam and is derived from nineteenth- and twentieth-century apologetic works.
Even the usually even-mannered David Cook calls Esposito’s definition “bathetic and laughable.” “In all of the literature concerning jihad. . .the fundamental idea is to disconnect oneself from the world” by dying physically or spiritually. Esposito prioritizes jihad in exactly the reverse “from the historical and religious realities: the armed struggle—aggressive conquest—came first, and then additional meanings became attached” over time (Cook 2005:42).
However, Esposito trudges along:
In its most generic, “jihad” signifies the battle against evil and the devil,
the self-discipline [common to the three Abrahamic faiths] in which
believers seek to follow God’s will, to be better Muslims. . .This is the
primary way in which the observant Muslim gives witness to or actualizes
89 the truth of the first pillar of Islam in everyday life. [Espositio 1999:31;
parenthetical in original]
Once again, Esposito apparently purposely spiritualizes what is an “unambiguously concrete and militant doctrine, without a shred of evidence from the Qur’an or any of the classical sources.” Esposito then claims that Islam originally spread by “preaching, diplomacy, and warfare,” and once again, he reverses the actual order. As David Cook puts it, “He [Esposito] seems to have an extreme aversion to dealing with Islamic history as it really was.” Moreover, “Since he [Esposito] has already decided that radical
Muslims are terrorists, Esposito [and our other apologetic scholars] is[are] able to avoid dealing with the fact that they have extensive support in the central texts and doctrines of
Islam” [Cook 2005:42; parenthetical in original].
Such relativistic (all religions are equally valid, all three Abrahamic faiths share rich commonalities, jihad = crusade, etc.) representations of Islam do nothing to promote further understanding of Jihadists, peaceful Muslims, or Islam itself. It is obvious that many scholars are deliberately distorting the Islamic historical record in order to
“delegitimize” the violent actions of some Muslims as “inauthentic” or “un-Islamic”
(Kramer 2002). “When it comes to explaining foreign terms,” says Martin Kramer, “the usual business of scholarship is to show how their meanings range over time and space.
The problem with the Islam ‘experts’ is that they are so enamored of their subject that they feel compelled to shore up its defenses…” even “to the point of posing as Islam’s reformers. It’s a professional deformation with a long history in Islamic studies. One might question whether the reform of Islam is the proper job of American university professors, who are paid to explain” (Kramer 2002). However, “they prefer to plead and
90 apologize, and who can stop them? If only real Islam did conform to the Islam of the
American academy” (Kramer 2002).
Lastly, as the great apostate scholar of Islam, Ibn Warraq observes:
The theory and practice of jihad was not concocted in the Pentagon. . .It
was taken from the Koran, the Hadith, and Islamic tradition. Western
liberals, especially humanists, find it hard to believe this. . .It is
extraordinary the amount of people who have written about the eleventh of
September without once mentioning Islam. We must take seriously what
the Islamists say to understand their motivation. . .it is the divinely
ordained duty of all Muslims to fight—in the literal sense—until man-
made law has been replaced by God’s law, the Sharia, and Islamic law has
conquered the entire world. [Cappi 2007:58]
What of the academics innocuous jihad?
For every text the liberal Muslims produce, the mullahs will use dozens of
counter-examples [that are] exegetically, philosophically, historically for
more legitimate. [in Duin 2003; parenthetical in original]
91
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