Old Gadfly: Gentlemen, explain
to me why the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, is considered an
extremist or radical version of Islam.
IM: Do you doubt this assertion?
Old Gadfly: I consistently hear this
characterization in the news and in casual conversations. When I ask what makes this group extreme or
radical, I typically get an outraged response such as “Islam is a religion of
peace.” When I further pulse an
individual with a question such as, “can you give me authoritative examples to
support the claim?” I am usually met with silence and a disgruntled facial
expression.
IM: I did a key word search of a digital version
of the Qur’an (also called the Koran, as revealed by the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad,
the greatest of all prophets according to Muhammad and his followers) and found
the word “peace” used 49
times.
Old Gadfly: And what did you learn from the context
within which “peace” was used?
IM: Early, in the second chapter, “The
Cow” (2:11) believers of Islam are
instructed: “And when it is said to
them, Do not make mischief in the land, they say: We are but peace-makers.” The mischief-makers are non-believers. Frankly, the word “peace” was used throughout the Qur’an more as a “greeting”
like “good morning.” There is no
explanation as to what the word peace actually means or even how to strive for
it. For example, in “The Distinction” (25.63),
“believers” are told: "And the servants of the
Beneficent God are they who walk on the earth in humbleness, and when the
ignorant address them, they say: Peace.” In other words, this is a greeting from those
who are believers to those who are not.
Old Gadfly: Then, are we to infer that Islamic peace is possible
only among believers of the Islamic Allah?
Yet, look at the turmoil and bloodshed in a region of the world with the
greatest concentration of Islamic believers.
AM: Gadfly, getting back to your question about
ISIS, in relation to the Qur’an and other authoritative texts such as the Hadith,
I can find no contradictions or even contrary notions of what ISIS has
established as an Islamic state.
Old Gadfly: Explain.
AM: I can present many arguments, but let me
offer just a couple. Like IM, I did a
key word search for “punishment” and, unlike the greeting nature of peace used
only 49 times, punishment is used
171 times. For example, in the fifth
chapter, “The Dinner” (5:33), believers are instructed in this manner: “The punishment of those who wage war
against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only
this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet
should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be
as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a
grievous chastisement.” This
clearly explains the murders and crucifixions carried out by ISIS—acts that are
congruent with Islamic doctrine.
Old Gadfly: How about the women taken captive by ISIS?
AM: This is my second argument. I did another search, this time with the
Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement at the University of Southern California. I looked up “marriage,” then “to slave.” I learned that it is permissible to enslave
and marry captured women, even if the women were already married before capture.
Specifically, in the Qur'an's fourth chapter, “The
Women” (4:24), Islamic believers are instructed: “And all married women except
those whom your right hands possess (this is) Allah's ordinance to you, and
lawful for you are (all women) besides those, provided that you seek (them)
with your property, taking (them) in marriage not committing fornication. Then
as to those whom you profit by, give them their dowries as appointed; and there
is no blame on you about what you mutually agree after what is appointed;
surely Allah is Knowing, Wise.”
Old Gadfly: The Hadith may have clarified what this meant
in real life.
AM: It reinforced it. In “The Book of Marriage (Kitab Al-Nikab),” this particular behavior is further
justified:
Chapter 29: IT IS PERMISSIBLE TO HAVE SEXUAL
INTERCOURSE WITH A CAPTIVE WOMAN AFTER SHE IS PURIFIED (OF MENSES OR DELIVERY)
IN CASE SHE HAS A HUSBAND, HER MARRIAGE IS ABROGATED AFTER SHE BECOMES CAPTIVE
Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (Allah her pleased with
him) reported that at the Battle of Hanain Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon
him) sent an army to Autas and encountered the enemy and fought with them.
Having overcome them and taken them captives, the Companions of Allah's
Messenger (may peace be upon him) seemed to refrain from having intercourse
with captive women because of their husbands being polytheists. Then Allah,
Most High, sent down regarding that:" And women already married, except
those whom your right hands possess (iv. 24)" (i. e. they were lawful for
them when their 'Idda period came to an end).
Old Gadfly: What is meant by “right hands possess”?
AM: It refers to female slavery. In the Qur’an and the Hadith, women slaves
and free men are the natural order of things, ordained by Allah. For example, under Muhammad’s direction,
Muslims executed between 600 and 900 male members of a Jewish tribe known as Banu
Qurayza[1] and took all the women and
children as slaves.[2] In another historical account, Muhammad took
Rayhana as his slave.[3] Rayhana was from the Jewish Banu Nadir tribe,
who had married a man from the Jewish Banu Qurayza tribe before it was
vanquished by Muhammad. Several accounts
report that Muhammad had as many as 13 wives.
IM: Islamic apologists would argue that Leviticus
was similarly harsh with its prescriptions for ritual, legal and moral practices. Yet, Leviticus was written sometime in the
period 538–332 BCE, nearly
a millennium before Muhammad apparently served as the medium for his self-proclaimed
divinely inspired teachings that became the Qur’an. And, in between Leviticus and the verses
known as the Qur’an, the New Testament appeared with a far more coherent and
congruent set of teachings about love and forgiveness, such as the Sermon on the Mount
in the Gospel of Matthew.
Old Gadfly: What does the Qur’an say about terror?
AM: A word search produced five
passages about the relevance of terror.
For example, in the eighth chapter “The Accessions” (8:21), Muhammad
said, “When
your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who
believe. I will cast terror
into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and
strike off every fingertip of them.”
Old Gadfly: How about war?
AM: The term “war” is used 20
times, but it is obscured by 137 “warning” entries. For example, in the eighth chapter, “The
Accessions” (8:65), The Qur’an states, “O Prophet! urge the believers to war; if there are twenty patient ones
of you they shall overcome two hundred, and if there are a hundred of you they
shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they are a people
who do not understand.” This aggressive,
coercive perspective is consistent with the actual meaning of the word Islam,
which means submission.
Old Gadfly: How about jihad?
AM: The
Qur’an does not use the word jihad, per se.
Jihad
is a term that includes “fighting,” “striving,” “struggling,” and “endeavoring.” The index for the Qur’an at the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement provides 24 instances
of the use of these terms. So,
technically, those engaged in jihad, that is, terrorist acts against the
enemies of Islam—especially Israel and the Western world--are very consistent
with the teachings of Islam. This may
explain why for years now, especially since the loss of over 3,000 innocents on
September 11, 2001 on American soil and many other terrorist activities since
then, there has been no public outrage from Muslim communities, both in the
Middle East and within the various Muslim conclaves embedded within Western
cultures.
Old Gadfly: How about love?
AM: The word “love” is used 83 times. For example, in Chapter 61, “The Ranks” (61:4),
The Qur’an states, “Surely Allah loves
those who fight in His way in ranks as if they were a firm and compact wall.” The prevailing notion, however, does not
include believers loving others; it is used in reference to Allah—whether Allah
loves or not. This is very consistent with
the notion of submission: do as Allah
commands and be loved by Allah, or disobey Allah and, not only lose his love,
but expect to be punished. Compare this
with the liberating notions of the Christian New Testament, exemplified by the
Son of God suffering crucifixion and death to free us from the bondage of sin.
Old Gadfly: Now, let’s tie these concepts from the Qur’an
into the justification of ISIS as an Islamic State. Is there foundational support for such an
entity, or is it a perversion of the Islamic doctrine?
IM: As we know, Iran is an Islamic state—a theocracy
based on Islam and governed by Sharia law.
Iran’s arrangement and the justification for the Islamic State of Iraq
and Syria are based on doctrine published in the Hadith, complementary
authoritative texts (or reports). For
example, "The Book on Government (Kitab Al-Imara)," a translation of Sahih Muslim, Book
20, unambiguously states, “. . . the Islamic State is not an end in itself, but
a means to an end, the end being development of a community of people who stand
up for equity and justice, for rights against wrong or, to phrase it
differently, for the creation of such conditions as would enable the greatest
possible number of human beings to live spiritually, morally and physically in
accordance with the teachings of Islam.”
Islam is intended to be universal.
There is no tolerance for other religions. The late Samuel P. Huntington warned us about
these inevitable dynamics in The Clash of
Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order in the 1990s. His thesis and arguments were roundly
rejected by the progressive, intellectual left.
Old Gadfly: When ISIS first emerged the leaders of this
entity called themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. The Obama Administration insists on calling
the entity the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL. What can we infer from this?
AM: The Levant
primarily referred to Syria-Palestine but has more recently been used to
accommodate a broader area that includes Israel. The notion that the Obama Administration, not
the head of ISIS, modified the original ISIS terminology to ISIL, combined with
the recent deal with Iran, releasing somewhere between $100 and $150 billion
(that can be used to further fund Hamas and Hezbollah), implies to me a
concerted effort to squeeze Jews out of “the Levant.” When the President snubbed the head of state from
Israel on more than one occasion and bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, what
other message could possibly be intended?
IM: Compare the effects of these two religious perspectives: Judeo-Christian principles brought to the
modern world hospitals, universities, western-style law, and a sense of sacredness
for all human life.[4] Islam brought tribal submissiveness to a
people who are mere instruments, imitating what they have been taught through Muhammad
and his acolytes, in order to facilitate the establishment of a world caliphate.
Compare the relative prosperity and peace
of the Western world with the chaos in the Islamic Middle East. The current Muslim diaspora flows out of this
brutal abyss. Sadly, they escape what
Islam has wrought only to spread it elsewhere as loyal servants. Muslims do not assimilate.
AM: The teachings of Islam appear to start with a
worldview similar to that when Leviticus appeared and never modernized. Do you find it ironic that America’s
progressive, secular humanists are more wary of our Judeo-Christian teachings
than they are of modern manifestations of the actual teachings of the Islamic
religion?
IM: There is an old Arab proverb that originated about the same time as Leviticus, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Do American progressives and universal Muslims have this much in common? In other words, if progressives distance themselves from our Judeo-Christian teachings while tolerating and accepting Islam, they also tolerate and accept ISIS, even though ISIS and other believers are totally committed to eliminating nonbelievers.
Old Gadfly: Yet, there are many who do want peace. The dilemma is to what degree they are prepared to evangelize a set of teachings that may be contrary to peace. In his book, Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, Hayek observed “mind is not a guide but a product of cultural evolution, and is based more on imitation than on insight or reason.” Thus, the fundamental contest here is between imitation and reason. This is our only hope to minimize Huntington’s clash between civilizations.
[1] Alfred Guillaume, The Life of
Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, (Cambridge, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002),
pp. 461–464.
[2] William Muir, The Life of Mahomet, Volume 3, Chapter 17,
(London, UK: Smith, Elder, & Co.,
1861); p.276
[4] See for example, Thomas E. Woods, How the Catholic Church Built Western
Civilization, (Washington, D.C.:
Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005).
