Radical Islamic Responses to the Modern World
St Ursula's, Bern, 13 October 2019
The Impact of the Modern Era
The first millennium of Islam a history of religious, military and political triumph.
From c. 1750: Western Empires dominate Muslim world; Britain in India; France in N. Africa and Middle East; Russia in Central Asia; Netherlands in Indonesia.
Christian missionary movement in Muslim world.
Impact of Western science, law, education, culture (e.g. role and dress of women).
End of Caliphate (1924) and birth of secular modern Turkey ruled by Ataturk.
Israel and the Palestinians (1948). Jerusalem.
Crisis for Islam. What went wrong? What is the best way forward?
Types of Islamic Response to the Modern 'World
Traditionalism. Conservative reaction, Seeing in the modern world a threat to Islam. Hostility to innoyation and submissive attitude to tradition.
Modernism: Compatibility of western modernity and Islam; need fresh account of Islam for modern world: e.g. jihad explained as fighting only in self-defence, and a broad duty to 'struggle in the path of God'; Islam liberative towards women.
Islamism. Seeks to restore Islamic rule and character of the Muslim world weakened by western impact. Emphasis on sovereignty of God alone; restore law of Islam (Sharia). A totalising view: Islam as 'a complete way of life'; 'Islam is the solution'.
Major Islamist Movements
Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi (India-Pakistan, 1903-79).
Muslims ruled by Britain and surrounded by Hindus; challenge to Muslims of Western secular thought. Key ideas:
Apply scripture directly to contemporary world, bypassing Islamic tradition.
Sovereignty of God, not the people; secular democracy unacceptable.
Islam as complete way of life; Islamic movement must gain power to implement Islam. Founded Jama'at-i Islami to pursue Islamic.goals.
Pakistan should be an Islamic state, not just a homeland for Muslims
Criticized for lacking traditional training and making Islam an unspiritual 'ideology'
Islamism in Egypt
Hassan al-Banna (1906-49 ). British power in Egypt; end of Caliphate, 1924. Founds Muslim Brotherhood, rejecting secularism and nationalism. Slogan: 'God is our purpose, the Prophet our leader, the Qur'an our constitution, Jihad our way, and dying for God's cause our supreme objective.' Assassinated 1949.
Sayyid Qutb (1906-66 ). Scholar radicalized by visit to USA (1948-51), repelled by 'Western decadence'. Joins Brotherhood on return to Egypt; mainly in prison till executed in 1966. Key ideas of Milestones, influential Islamist text:
'The vast ocean of jahiliyya [the pagan ignorance of Arabia before Islam] which has encompassed the entire world', in forms of Western decadence, atheistic communism and the regimes of so-called "Muslim states'. NB, other "Muslims' as unbelievers.
e Islam alone diagnoses humans correctly, liberates from all forms of tyranny and offers true dignity in service of God.
Islam not just a theory - requires a vanguard of committed activists.
Preaching not enough; scornful of Muslims who redefine jihad as self-defence.
Suffering and martyrdom to be expected.
Brief period in power for Muslim Brotherhood 2012-13.
Developments in other important parts of the Muslim world
Iran: Ayatollah Khomeini (1902-1989), established Shi'ite Islamic state in 1979.
Novel doctrine of vilayat-i fagih (rule by clerics/legal scholars). Tensions between supporters of Islamic state ideology and reformists.
Afghanistan: Taliban (militant religious scholars and students) led by Mullah Omar (1959-2013) established strict Islamic regime in mid-1990s. Overthrown after 9/11. Continuing instability.
Turkey: Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) abolished Caliphate, 1924, established secular state. More recent moves, under Erdogan, towards greater Islamic identity.
Indonesia: largest Muslim population. Noted for capacity to hold different religions together peacefully, but recent conflicts involving radical Islamic groups. Noted also for some of the most reformist/modernist thinking in contemporary Islam.
Al-Qaeda and ISIS: Militant Wahhabi-Salafi Movements
Some shared ground with Islamists (hostility to western influence in Muslim world; desire to restore Islamic rule etc.), but these movements have different origins.
Wahhabi-Salafislam. Wahhabi and Salafi Islam are distinct but tend to be spoken of together as sources of the most prominent militant Islamic movements today.
Wahhabi Islam inspired by Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792), a founding figure of modern Saudi Arabia. Extreme literalist, iconoclastic version of Islam. Emphasized separation from non-Islamic influences. Saudi wealth helps spread Wahhabi ideology.
Salafi Islam equally hostile to non-Islamic influence. Avoid all innovation; restore authentic, early Islam. (Salaf= first three generations of Islam.) Literal approach to scripture. Spectrum from Salafi quietists (avoid politics) to violent extremists.
Al-Qaeda: Osama Bin Laden (1957-2011)
Wealthy Saudi family; Wahhabi influence; taught . brother of Sayyid Qutb_
1979-89: in Pakistan and Afghanistan, supporting mujahidin against Soviets
1990: opposed presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia; his offer to drive Iraqis from Kuwait rejected; alienated from Saudi authorities; 1993-96 exile in Sudan
1996-2001: in Afghanistan, supporting Taliban and anti-US activities. 9/11 attacks.
2001-11: in hiding till his death; triumph of his tdeology? 'Regardless if Osama is killed or survives, the awakening has started, praise be to God.' (December 2001)
Continuation of this broad movement both in Muslim world and in series of attacks on western targets (US, UK, Spain, France etc).
From 1990s a shift away from focus just on restoration of the Muslim world to attacking enemies of Islam around the world. Growing sense (helped by IT) of a globalized struggle: Islam everywhere under attack by the forces of unbelief.
ISIS (aka ISIL, IS, Daesh)
Offshoot from al-Qaeda, emerged 2006 in Iraq and especially in Syrian civil war from 2011; largely eclipsed al-Qaeda.
Summer 2014: dramatic capture of large amount of territory including Mosul. Leader, al-Baghdadi, claims to be Caliph. ISIS control of territory in Syria/Iraq makes claim of restored caliphate plausible, drawing thousands of recruits to ISIS. (Caliphate = Islamic rule under Caliph that should in principle extend to the whole world.)
Radical polity: Islamic punishments, slavery. Christians expelled (e.g. from Mosul).
Other militant groups recognize and affiliate with ISIS - e.g. Boko Haram in Nigeria.
Declares virtually all other Muslims unbelievers. Especially hostile to Shi'ites.
Apocalyptic vision. Battles in Syria expected to bring end times and triumph of Islam.
Effective use of internet: 'ISIS = Iraq + Syria + the Internet'
Responses to Militant Islamic Movements such as ISIS
Muslim responses
Omid Safi, 'progressive Muslim', on what most Muslims think of ISIS: "They hate ISIS. They loathe ISIS, and everything they stand for... it is Muslims who are the greatest victims of ISIS' atrocity. The overwhelming majority of people that ISIS has killed in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere have been Muslims .. . the atrocities of ISIS have brought so much animosity towards Muslims worldwide.'
ISIS extreme even by Salafi standards. The social upheaval caused by ISIS is unislamic. Salafi teacher comments that ISIS members 'sound like Che Guevara'.
On the other hand, many surveys indicate high levels of popular support for ISIS, including among young Muslims in Europe.
Official Muslim leadership response in 'Open Letter to al-Baghdadi'. Criticisms include: ISIS not a legitimate authority, no right to declare jihad; jihad anyway defined as fighting in self-defence, not aggressively; ISIS break traditional jihad rules by killing non-combatants and destroying non-Muslim places of worship; ISIS reject (recent) universal Islamic consensus against slavery.
Western responses
Debate around. what is and is not 'the true face of Islam'
C of E bishop on 9/11: 'This has nothing to do with Islam'. Cf. referring to 'so called Islamic State'. 'ISIS is neither Islamic nor a state.'
ISIS is the true expression of Islam and Islam's more liberal versions are inauthentic.
Graeme Wood: 'The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.'
('What ISIS Really Wants' this Atlantic Monthly article is critiqued in New Statesman by Mehdi Hassan, 'How Islamic is Islamic State?')
Debate around military and political responses
Full military intervention, or containment to gradually undermine ISIS?
Wood in favour of containment: 'Given everything we know about the Islamic State, continuing to slowly bleed it, through air strikes and proxy warfare, appears the best of bad military options. ... And with every month that it fails to expand, it resembles less the conquering state of the Prophet Muhammad than yet another Middle Eastern government failing to bring prosperity to its people.'
From conclusion to Jason Burke's book on al-Qaeda:
'Dialogue with hardcore radicals is virtually impossible. So the only way we will ensure a future without fear and uncertainty is by halting the spread of the militants' twisted worldview and stemming the production of new radical volunteers. We need to strip away the legitimacy that allows the militants to operate.' (289)
'The causes of terrorism must be addressed; moderate Muslim leaders must be engaged and supported; it must be recognised that genuinely authentic and appropriate governments in the Islamic world will include a strong representation of Islamists; the spread of hardline strands of Islam at the expense of tolerant, pluralistic strains must be rolled back; repressive governments must be made to reform; a huge campaign must be launched to convince the Muslim world that the West is not a belligerent foe but a partner in mutual prosperity.' (291)
Some questions for Christians
If we want the Klu Klux Klan or the Lord's Resistance Army (Uganda) to be seen as not representing true Christianity, should we also respect Muslims when they tell us that ISIS does not represent true Islam? How far does this comparison work?
Do we recognise the complexity within global Islam, and its wide spectrum, as we do in relation to Christianity?
If Muslims tell us that 'Islam means peace' or that Islam teaches them to love Christians, should we welcome this, or ask hard questions in response? 'Too often I've heard people say, "Islam reformed is no Islam!" Not only is that a patronizing claim about what Muslims can and cannot achieve within their own tradition, it is a dead-end position. As a colleague of mine once put it, "When the Muslim tells a Christian, 'The Qur'an teaches me te love you,' why should the Christian then tell the Muslim, 'No, the Qur'an actually teaches you to kill me'?" (John Azumah 'Challenging Radical Islam', First Things)
How should we assess the significance of militant passages in the Qur'an? And to what extent are Muslim and Christian believers (even conservative, scripturally-minded believers) shaped primarily by their scriptures, and to what extent are they shaped by their socio-political, cultural, economic, historical, and ethnic contexts?
If we are conscious of texts hostile to 'unbelievers' in Islamic texts such as the Qur'an,-how do we approach texts of this kind in the Bible?
Is Islam more wedded to the need for political power than Christianity?
Should western Christians see the current conflicts, and the militant Islamic groups involved in them, as arising essentially from within the world of Islam? Or as at least partly a result of the recent history of western interventions in the Muslim world? Or should we recognize a complex mixture of causes involving both of the above?
(Footnote: what do we know, or care, about the history of western interventions in the Muslim world?)
In the present context, what relevance to us is there i in Jesus' teaching on removing the plank from our own eye before seeking to help our neighbour to see better?
A recent publication calls on Christians in Britain to find responses to Islam between the two extremes of 'naivety and hostility'. What might that middle way look like?
What are our responsibilities to Christian communities in the Muslim world?
What else might we be called to do?
Resources
S. H. Nasr, The Heart of Islam
J. Brown (a Muslim scholar), Muhammad: a Very Short Introduction, and Misquoting Muhammad
A. Mawdudi, Towards Understanding Islam
M. Ruthven, Islam: a Very Short Introduction and Islam in the World
A. Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples
S. Qutb, Milestones
J. Burke, al-Qaeda
H. Goddard, A History of Christian-Muslim Relations
C. Chapman, Cross and Crescent and Islamic Terrorism: Is There a Christian Response? (Grove booklet)
S. Bell and C. Chapman, Between Naivety and Hostility: Uncovering the Best Christian Responses to Islam in Britain
K. Cragg, The Call of the Minaret
C. Troll SJ, Muslims Ask, Christians Answer and Dialogue and Difference: Clarity in Christian-Muslim Relations