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elcome to the Islamic Reformation,” is a podcast from Stanford University (look for it under “Heard on Campus”) by Reza Aslan (author of No god but God) which is what I’ve been listening to this morning. Very informative. As Islamic terror, and Islam in general, is a favorite kicking post around here, and the podcast is an hour and half long, I thought I’d post a comprehensive summary for your perusal. Unless otherwise indicated, what follows are his arguments, not mine.
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slamofascism: apparently this means that there’s some unifying feature, or ideology of all these Islamic terrorist organizations, at the head of which is Osama bin Laden, who plays some kind of Hitler role. There’s so much wrong with this idea that it’s hard to know where to start. First, let’s drop the Hitler analogy. Until you’ve murdered 11 million people, you’re not Hitler.
The problem with this idea is that it completely fails to recognize the nature of the war and the enemy. The idea is intended to harken back to the noble struggles of the last century against fascism. But fascism is radically nationalistic, whereas groups like al’ Qaeda are radically anti-nationalistic. Hamas and Hezbollah are nationalistic, and their aspirations do not extend beyond particular nations. To lump these groups together is to make a phenomenal mistake. Not only do these groups have little in common, they are enemies of each other. Most people forget that among the first Muslims to condemn bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks was Nasrahal, the head of Hezbollah. Bin Laden returned the favour by issuing a death warrant against Nasrahal.
Terror can’t be the unifying feature, because there are all kinds of terrorist orgs—the Basques, the IRA, ect, ect.—but what these groups do all share is they’re all Islamic. But defining the issue in this way is a colossal mistake, because it plays into the hands of those on the other side who argue that the war on terror is a war on Islam, on Muslim identity and Muslim values. Most importantly, it’s historically inaccurate.
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enerations from now, historians will not line men like bin Laden up against 20th century boogiemen, but against their 16th century counterparts, men like Jacob Hutter, Thomas Muentzer, or Martin Luther. (My own religious background is Lutheran, so I’m particularly familiar with his arguments, many of the later of which are especially distasteful and have been disavowed by Lutheran churches. –j.)
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he term “reformation” has some historical peculiarities that make a comparison between Christianity and Islam infelicitous, but strip it down and think of it as a struggle between institutionalized and individualized (or democratic) religious authority. In Islam, clerical authority is not divine, but scholarly or legalistic. Imams held authority because for 14 centuries they held a monopoly of interpretation, but that’s no longer the case.
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ost-colonialism and the carving up of the Muslim world into half-baked nations introduced a previously foreign nationalism and individualism into the uma (global Muslim community). An explosion of literacy, globalization, and the Internet, ect. have eroded the authority of traditional institutions of religious authority. As a result, there’s been a turn from centuries of religious interpretation back to the text of the Koran alone, which should remind you of Luther’s dictum Sola scriptura. This, together with a flood of translations, in turn, leads to an explosion of interpretations. (As one of my profs put it: “Luther tells us to go into our closets to pray and find God. I come out with Leviticus, you come out with a screaming leather fetish, and there’s no longer any authority to decide between us.” –j.)
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uslim immigration to Europe and America is also important. Young Muslim are now growing up in societies in which radical individualism and nationalism are in no way foreign, and they’re recasting their religion in that new context. What they’re learning, and the questions they are asking, is, in turn, reshaping Islam back in the traditional Islamic world.
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n America, there are some 10 million Muslims, making it the largest religious minority. And yet, they are integrated throughout American society. 60% of Muslims in the US own their own home, the median income for a Muslim household is greater than that of a non-Muslim household, and they have the highest rate of literacy in education… in other words, the American Muslim community, in all of it’s diversity, is a living example of why this ‘clash of civilizations’ mentality is so absurd and misguided. But of those 10 million Muslims in the US—including the ‘veiled again’ 2nd generation, only 1/3 attend Mosque; the rest find their spiritual solace in athletic clubs, Islamic associations, and ‘garage Mosques’ which have no imams but only readings from devotees sharing their own interpretations.
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ut the most important development is the Internet, which parallels the printing press in the Christian Reformation. That’s put the dagger to centralized religious authorities. 50 years ago, if you had a question about some Islamic practice, law or interpretation, you went to your imam or mufti for a fatwa (which is only a legalistic interpretation, and has no binding authority. But, 50 years ago, an individual seeking guidance likely had only one place to turn. Now, there are often competing interpretations. Now, if you don’t like the fatwa issued by the local imam, you can go to sistani.org/. If none of these do it for you, there’s always the Muslim televangelist, the Muslim equivalent of Billy Graham, Amr Khaled. (Hundreds of millions of people watch this guy’s show, he’s never studied Islamic law, and yet he’s usurped the authority of traditional clerics.)
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he rise of jihadism (the proper term for this movement) is a product of this reformation and the individualization of Islam. Bin Laden is, if nothing else, a puritan. Jihadism is a puritanical ideology whose primary purpose is to purge the religious and cultural innovations that have crept into Islam, and return it to some unpolluted, Arab-centric, and entirely mythical past. The primary target of jihadism is not the West, which is referred to as ‘the far enemy’; ‘the near enemy’ are the hundreds of millions of Muslims, traditional sources of religious authority, and political organizations who do not share jihadism’s puritanical ideology, and as a result make up the vast majority of their victims. Also, like his 16th century Christian counterparts, bin Laden is not opposed to using violence to bring about the purification of his religious community.
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e have idealized and obscured much of Christianity’s bloody past. Think specifically of the history of one of the greatest figures of the Reformation, Thomas Muentzer, who launched the Peasant’s Revolt.[quote=“The Peasant’s War”]The conflict, which took place mostly in southern, western and central areas of modern Germany but also affected areas in neighbouring modern Switzerland and Austria, involved at its height in the spring and summer of 1525 an estimated 300,000 peasant insurgents: contemporary estimates put the dead at 100,000.[/quote]
Muentzer wasn’t the only religious figure authorizing the use of violence. Luther, in response to Muentzer, wrote:[quote=“Luther: Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants”]It is right and lawful to slay at the first opportunity a rebellious person, who is known as such, for he is already under God’s and the emperor’s ban. Every man is at once judge and executioner of a public rebel; just as, when a fire starts, he who can extinguish it first is the best fellow. Rebellion is not simply vile murder, but is like a great fire that kindles and devastates a country; it fills the land with murder and bloodshed, makes widows and orphans, and destroys everything, like the greatest calamity. Therefore, whosoever can, should smite, strangle, and stab, secretly or publicly, and should remember that there is nothing more poisonous, pernicious, and devilish than a rebellious man. Just as one must slay a mad dog, so, if you do not fight the rebels, they will fight you, and the whole country with you.[/quote]When Luther said that religious authority rests with individuals, not institutions, he meant himself.
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ike Luther, bin Laden has challenged central authorities by issuing his own fatwas, for which he has no authority, which most Muslims understand.
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ihad, which was once intimately tied to communal struggle and authority, and was deeply defensive, has become deeply individualistic, and anything but defensive (though it is nonetheless justified in that way). Bin Laden’s message to young Muslims is that the traditional institutions hold nothing for them. In one message, he equated obedience of one’s local cleric with worshipping them, not God. It’s a powerfully appealing anti-institutional message, aimed at people who are already immersed in individualistic cultures and looking for alternatives. It works.
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hich side will win the struggle for the authority to define faith, the traditional centralists or puritanical individualists, is a silly question. Who won the Christian Reformation? There is an ongoing process of expansion and contraction of religious authority.
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he Islamic Reformation is already here, and we’re living through it.
btw, on bin Laden’s now mythic status among jihadists, Aslan highly recommends Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity.
Note: Aslan finds deeply offensive the suggestion that what the Islamic world needs is an Enlightenment. Characteristics of which, separation of Church and State, constitutionalism, societal organization, human rights, individual rights, gender equality, cultural pluralism, are very much a part of Islamic history. (If not always emphasized as we’d like.)
Also, on the point that the Koran talks a lot about war and violence, how it deals with war and violence is of importance. Anyone who has read Deuteronomy, or the Mahabharata, recognizes that scriptural discussions of war and violence are nothing new. What’s interesting is that the Koran seems to be one of first religious attempts to craft a ‘just war’ doctrine and to distinguish betweeen combatants and non-combatants.
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his is not a war between ‘us and them’, but between ‘them and them’.
Edit: damn. All that work, then I went looking for the Annan Declaration, which Aslan refers to, and along the way I find this, by Aslan. Which lays out much of what I took the trouble of typing out above. :s Oh well. Several people on this forum have wondered why Islamic leaders haven’t been denouncing acts of terror. Here, they do. They’re just not being heard.
[quote=“Aslan: Boston Globe”]ON JULY 6TH, 2005, in an unprecedented display of intersectarian collaboration, 170 of the world’s leading Muslim clerics and scholars gathered in Amman, Jordan, to issue a joint fatwa, or legal ruling, denouncing all acts of terrorism committed in the name of Islam.
This belated attempt by the traditional clerical institutions to assert some measure of influence and authority over the world’s Muslims was surely one of the most interesting developments in what has become an epic battle to define the faith and practice of over a billion people. Never before in the history of Islam had representatives of every major sect and school of law assembled as a single body, much less come to terms on issues of mutual concern.
Yet what made the Amman declaration so remarkable was not its condemnation of terrorism-since Sept. 11, 2001, similar statements have been issued by countless Muslim organizations throughout the world, despite perceptions to the contrary in the West. Rather, it was the inclusion of an all-encompassing fatwa reminding Muslims that only those who have dedicated a lifetime of study to the traditional Islamic sciences-in other words, the clerics themselves-could issue a fatwa in the first place.
This statement was a deliberate attempt to strip Islamic militants like Osama bin Laden of their self-proclaimed authority to speak for the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims.
But if these clerics thought they could exert their authority over the militants, they were mistaken. The following day, July 7, four young British Muslims obliterated themselves and 52 bus and tube passengers during the height of rush hour. The London bombers, like the perpetrators of similar attacks in Madrid, New York, Tunisia, Turkey, Casablanca, Riyadh, Bali, Egypt, and, most dramatically, Iraq, believed they were heeding bin Laden’s call for global jihad.
No wonder, then, that since 9/11 bin Laden has taken on an almost mythic stature in the world’s imagination as the undisputed leader of a unified global network of Islamic terrorism (more properly termed “jihadism”).[/quote]
:bicker: