NEW YORK - As the forces of fundamentalism and terrorism continue to ravage
Islam from within, Muslims have understandably sought to convey to non-Muslims
that Islam is a tolerant
religion. Since September 11, there has been no shortage of reminders that the
root word of Islam means "peace" or that those advocating jihad against the
West are deviant "hijackers".
Historians wax lyrical about Islam's "golden age" when non-Muslims and Muslims
lived side-by-side in harmony and reassure us that Islam's current crisis is a
growing pain, akin to phases other religions have undergone in their early
histories. And while a worrying level of ignorance remains - a recent Pew
Research Center poll found that only half of
Americans were able to identify the Koran as Islam's equivalent of the Bible -
education efforts have worked so effectively that many educated non-Muslims
have come to believe that unflattering manifestations of Islam are aberrant. Of
course these perceptions are rarely based on direct contact with the religion,
for, as any outsider who has taken a closer look at Islam can attest, further
inquiry produces as many unsettling questions as it does tidy answers.
Why, for instance, are many of the world's most pious and knowledgeable Muslims
also the most hostile toward non-believers? Why do non-Muslims face significant
discrimination, even in the Islamic world's most moderate nations? (In Malaysia
last month for instance, 35 masked assailants dressed in robes attacked and
partially scorched a commune led by a Muslim apostate.) This is to say nothing
of the rights of women in most Muslim countries. Is it all simply a matter of
interpretation (ie abuse for personal or political gain), or does the sustained
prevalence of such patterns reveal something inherent about the faith?
Few people want to address this last question openly, lest they be labeled
anti-Muslim. But as clear answers to the question of what is ailing Islam in
the 21st century remain elusive, the writers of The Myth of Islamic Tolerance,
including Bat Ye'or, Mark Durie, Muhammad Younus Shaikh, Daniel Pipes and David
Littman, among others, are within bounds to tackle the issue head on.
Their premise is that contemporary Muslim rage and intolerance is not
historically isolated; and moreover, that it is rooted in the religion itself.
This is not an easy idea to swallow, if for no reason other than it contradicts
what one wants to believe about the world's fastest growing religion - that at
its core it is sane and rational. And there is ample reason to be leery;
several of the book's authors are affiliated with Christian and Zionist
movements, while some passages come across as hostile and misleading.
Consider the first sentence of the forward written by Ibn Warraq, "Islam is a
totalitarian ideology that aims to control the religious, social and political
life of mankind in all its aspects; the life of its followers without
qualification; and the life of those who follow the so-called tolerated
religions [Christians and Jews, which the Koran refers to as People of the
Book], to a degree that prevents their activities from getting in the way of
Islam in any way."
And yet The Myth of Islamic Tolerance warrants our attention. Any study
of contemporary Islam would be incomplete without it. Collectively, the essays
expose an unsettling fact: that Islam's famed tolerance of non-Muslims has over
the centuries fallen well short of an embrace. It is true that Islam calls for
no coercion in matters of faith and that it encourages Muslims to respect the
People of the Book (Christians and Jews). But it is also true that the Koran
incessantly distinguishes between believer and non-believer and calls for
unequal treatment of the two. The most obvious example of this is found in the jizya,
or poll tax, which requires dhimmis (protected subjects) to pay for
military protection.
But the authors reveal many other instances of inequality, as stipulated by the
Koran and administered at various times throughout history. Non-Muslims living
in Muslim societies have not been able to build new churches or temples. They
have been required to dress distinctively from Muslims. They have been
prohibited from printing their religious texts and selling them in public
places or giving them to Muslims and from testifying against a Muslim in Sharia
court.
That some form of these laws still exist, even in ostensibly moderate Muslim
countries such as Malaysia, is not the main point, argues editor Robert
Spencer. Rather it's that "centuries of enforcement of these laws have produced
lingering cultural attitudes," attitudes that can be found not just in
extremists and fundamentalists but in some of Islam's most esteemed moderates.
The deeper question is what inspired the centuries of enforcement in the first
place? Spencer argues that it was the Koran itself. "A fundamental component of
the Koran's view of non-Muslims is the often-repeated and implacable belief in
its own superiority." Anyone who's read extensively from the Koran can attest
to its mercurial obsession with the non-believer. And indeed a sense of elitism
and acuity to otherness are prevalent in many parts of the Muslim world today.
The book argues there is a strong connection.
However, the book is full of flagrant distortions and glaring omissions. In its
determination to show that Islam is not as peaceful as "apologists" would have
one believe, it refuses to disclose that Islam also has a tolerant side, which
also can be traced to the Koran and which has inspired fiqh (Islamic
jurisprudence). It also fails to draw parallels between Islam's history and
that of other religions - which would reveal that part of Islam's crisis is
linkable to the nature of religion itself.
The book's selective quoting of the Koran would be dangerous reading for anyone
who is not familiar with it. That being said, it would be unfair to allege that
most of the writers here are quoting out of context - a charge commonly leveled
by Muslims at those who cite some of the Koran's more unflattering verses. It
would be unfair because such allegations are usually predicated on the notion
that the Koran must be understood in its historical context: that it was
revealed during a time of great unrest. This line of reasoning contradicts the
elemental Muslim belief that the Koran is the unerring and timeless word of
God.
Because of this the significance of these verses cannot be discounted; they
have helped shape Muslim attitudes over the centuries. The question is, are
they gaining in appeal at a time when many Muslims perceive US President George
W Bush's "war on terror" to be a conspiratorial degradation of Islam? The
authors' implicit answer is, yes. They lament Edward Said, author of Orientalism,
which famously critiqued Western study of the Islamic world, for teaching "an
entire generation of Arabs the art of self pity ... and bludgeoning into
silence any criticism of Islam".
They point out how jihad, which in its most basic form means struggle, has
historically meant mainly one thing: "the legal, compulsory, communal effort to
expand territories ruled by Muslims ... at the expense of territories ruled by
non-Muslims". And they take aim at American Muslim groups for ambitiously
manufacturing a "positive image of Islam ... instead of dealing forthrightly
and constructively with the concerns and questions that non-Muslims have had
since the [September 11] attacks".
Indeed The Myth of Islamic Tolerance sometimes comes across as an
indictment that overlooks Islam's complexities; implicit in its message is that
if Islam is to make peace with the rest of the world it will have to shy away
from itself.
At turns, however, the book proves to be a timely antidote to a prevailing
trend in many media and academic circles, which is to reduce Islam's crisis to
social rather than religious factors and to heap the blame on the West. It
simply struggles to find an enlightened balance.
Myth of Islamic Tolerance, edited by Robert Spencer, Prometheus Books
2005. ISBN 1-59102-249-5. Price US$26 hardcover.
Ioannis Gatsiounis, a New York native, has worked as a freelance foreign
correspondent and previously co-hosted a weekly political/cultural radio
call-in show in the US.
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tolerant
religion. Since September 11, there has been no shortage of reminders that the
root word of Islam means "peace" or that those advocating jihad against the
West are deviant "hijackers".
