Islam: Reclaiming our Faith

Not surprisingly, the man who attempted to blow up the American Airlines jet over the Atlantic last week has turned out to be a Muslim. According to Mr Abdul Haqq Baker, chairman of the Brixton mosque which was attended by Richard Reid, this young British subject had been converted to 'a less tolerant strand of Islam' by a jihadi group.

As I write this from London, newspapers are full of speculation about his motive, background and political connections. One thing is certain, and that is the fact that he attempted to bring down a plane together with its crew and passengers. Again one wonders what kind of rage drives relatively well-off young men to commit atrocities of this nature. For a Palestinian to commit suicide in an attempt to strike back against his country's occupiers and tormentors is more comprehensible as he has so few options. But for a Briton to be similarly driven raises questions about the nature of the Islam that is being taught to the younger generation.

Clearly, its political content far outweighs its spiritual element. The poetry and symbolism are marginalized as heavy emphasis is placed on jihad, martyrdom and florid descriptions of the joys that await a martyr in paradise. This indoctrination - it can hardly be called belief - has no place for love, tolerance and respect for other faiths. It is a bleak, monochromatic and joyless religion that is far removed from the Islam that was revealed by the Almighty.

But even the faith that is followed by the majority of Muslims around the world has given rise to certain problems that need to be examined and discussed. Specifically, we need to ask why Muslim societies have provided such barren soil for democracy. In a recent survey conducted by Freedom House, an independent monitor of political rights, it was found that over 75 per cent of 145 non-Muslim countries are democracies to varying degrees. However, only 11 out of the 47 nations that are predominantly Muslim can claim to be democracies. In actual fact, only one Muslim state is genuinely democratic, and that is Mali (Mali?!). After Mali come Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait (!), Turkey and Morocco.

Interestingly, out of the ten least free countries in the world according to this survey, seven are Muslim: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Turkmenistan. Depressingly, instead of agitating for greater freedom, young people in Muslim countries are going in the opposite direction by demanding stricter adherence to the letter of the Islamic law, thereby insisting on a narrow observance of ritual and a denial of rationalism and secularism, the two preconditions for democracy.

Mercifully, these voices are relatively few in number, but they drown out the voices of sanity and reason by their shrillness and their claim to the fundamentalist high ground. Indeed, for the rest of the world, these people have become the face of Islam with their contorted, bearded faces spouting hate-filled slogans.

For readers who might feel this is an unfair portrayal of the Muslim world, here is another statistic to conjure with: three out of every four refugees today are Muslims fleeing their countries for either political or economic reasons. Granted that Afghanistan has skewed the picture with its millions of refugees who have found shelter in neighbouring countries, but how are we to explain the flood of North African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Muslims who have flooded Europe and North America? Most of these millions have made homes elsewhere to escape the poverty, poor governance and lack of liberty that have come to characterize and define the Islamic world.

Recognizing that they are in a small minority and will therefore never be voted into power, extremists condemn democracy as being 'un-Islamic'. They seek, instead, to influence the agenda of repressive regimes, much as Pakistan's religious parties supported Zia and thereby rewrote our laws, pushing the legal system several centuries back. Saudi Arabia has been exporting an extreme Wahabi strand of the faith for decades. No Muslim country today serves as a beacon for democracy, tolerance and progress, but several compete for being leading exemplars of repression, intolerance and backwardness.

So in a sense, the two broad movements that today influence the Muslim psyche can be categorized as a suffocatingly anti-progressive tendency and a shrill, murderous radicalism. These competing dogmas have effectively squeezed the political space available for a debate on the need for liberalism and democracy.

The radicals want to usher in an Islamic revolution that would sweep away the decadent regimes that today rule much of the Muslim world, but instead of replacing them with modern democracies, these zealots would install even more ferocious and repressive governments. In countries like Pakistan which (still) have some democratic traditions and aspirations, this competition to be holier than the others has moved the political agenda and rhetoric further to the right than ever before.

The effect of this negative portrayal of Islam abroad has been devastating for those millions of Muslims who have been trying to make a new beginning for themselves and their families in the West. Understandably, people are nervous about wanting to fly with passengers who look even remotely 'Middle Eastern'. How many Western businesses would today take the risk of hiring Muslims? While we may complain of racism, the fact remains that in a competitive world, Muslims will be at a disadvantage as long as their coreligionists loudly proclaim their intention to destroy western institutions.

As I have been arguing in these columns, there is a pressing need for a debate over the direction Islam has taken, not for the sake of Muslims who have left their homes, but in order to make sure that the next generation will not feel they have to leave to make a better life for themselves.

Check out the Pakistani weekly The Friday Times. The Friday Times

Especially the weekly articles of Khaled Ahmed. His current one is "Can religious extremism be rolled back?" Unfortunately the web site does not have an archive/back issue function to access past articles, as it appears to me. Anyway Mr. Ahmed speaks of many things, deobondism, radicalism, Pakistanis failing to adjust in the west compared to other ethnicities, Pak's nuclear capabilities, etc. And he's rational, unfortunately something in deficit there, especially about religion.

I'd also say, immediately post-911 the Paki english papers, incl. Dawn, generally had a majority of nutty articles. But it has changed for the better to a degree, perhaps these authors feel more liberty to speak because of the progress of the war and an awareness that Musharraf wasn't going to sic the extremists on them. Indeed, the crisis might let Musharraf's true leanings come to fore. He's an admirer of Kamal Ataturk, for one.

i didn't see anything in there about oppression of other faiths in muslim countries. what about selling Christians into slavery? when will this "peaceful" religion grapple with these other very REAL issues?

at least this is a beginning.

Indeed, the crisis might let Musharraf's true leanings come to fore. He's an admirer of Kamal Ataturk, for one.

As I understand it, the Pakistani military's old guard were progressives or Kemalists. I think a lot of them were embittered by US post-Soviet policy which they saw as a betrayal (2.5 m refugees, drugs, and the Kalashnikov culture). Hence the intensification of relations with China. If Congress hadn't disrupted ties with the Paks in 1990-- then maybe the ISI wouldn't have gone renegade, the Taliban may never have emerged, and al-Qaeda would not have killed 3000 Americans.

Bottom line-- we got to stay engaged. But you're right about Mush. He's the best thing that's happened to that country in a long time.

How can he reclaim "our religion" when its probably at best 51 or 52% non whacko terrorist-sympatihizers?

I think the traditional Muslims have to kill large numbers of the Wahabbis. (sorry to be so blunt about it)You see, between 15-20% of the Muslim world (my opinion), sympathizes with the terrorists, and provides fertile ground for recruitment. They have to be crushed otherwise they'll continue to suffocate the rest of the population.

If we learned anything from the Communist experience, small numbers of committed, organized militants can bring down empires and force an entire nation into virtual slavery. That's what the Wahabbis are. There's not much chance they'll have a change of heart.

I've felt for some time that the traditional Muslims, who are fearful of these extremists, have let their societies slowly slip away. They make excuses, they hope, they pray, and it just gets worse. Something has to be done, otherwise they'll find themselves facing the abyss.

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