The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam From the Extremists (31 page)

One of the most famous stories taught even to Muslim chil- dren is the anecdote about a Companion of the Prophet who was captured by the unbelievers of Mecca. The Companion was informed that he would be executed the next day. In the course of the night, this Companion had an opportunity to save himself when he found an unattended child of one of the leaders holding a big knife. The Companion could have taken the child hostage and saved himself. The next day, before he was executed, he was asked why he had not exploited the op- portunity by taking the child hostage. His response was un- equivocal: “What sin did she commit? The Qur’an does not permit us to punish a person for the sins of others.” Sadly, the unbelievers of Mecca killed the man anyway.

Despite these uncompromising traditions, we notice that in the recent conflict in Iraq, for instance, several groups kid- napped Muslim and non-Muslim hostages while parading all types of Islamic-looking banners. Even worse, these groups mutilated and tortured their victims while claiming that this behavior is somehow Islamic. What is most unsettling and in- explicable for moderates is that all matters of
hiraba,
includ- ing kidnapping, hostage-taking, mutilation, and torture, are all cited in the Qur’an and in the Prophetic traditions as clear

examples of the type of conduct that corrupts the earth and defiles God’s creation.

The issue of terrorism and corrupting the earth highlights one of the basic differences between the moderates and puri- tans: the moderates would rather preserve the earth as God’s creation uncorrupted, even if non-Muslims dominate it. Puri- tans would rather corrupt the earth than see it dominated by non-Muslims. Basically, the difference in attitude between moderates and puritans has to do with the relationship of Islam to power. Puritans believe that for Islam to be victori- ous, Muslims need to conquer and subjugate others. Only then will God’s sovereignty be established, and only then can the Word of God stand supreme. The gap between Muslims and non-Muslims is so vast because in puritan thinking one side possesses the incontrovertible and incorruptible truth and the other side is lost in absolute darkness. In puritan thought, non-Muslims, regardless of what they do, cannot step even partially into the light; while Muslims, if
real
Muslims accord- ing to the puritan definition, possess the unadulterated light and truth. For puritans, truth and virtue cannot be shared or even investigated; they are simply possessed by those who ac- cept them. Therefore, there is nothing that Muslims and non- Muslims can cooperate on or collaborate on achieving. The relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims may be non- belligerent at times, but the hostility should always be there, and it can be expected to flare up into war whenever there is a chance to dominate, defeat, or inflict damage upon the other. Moderates invite non-Muslims to love God, and through submissions permit God to cleanse them of all that is ugly and vile. But if the invitation is refused, that is not the end of the engagement. According to moderates, God’s light is not owned by anyone, and so Muslims and non-Muslims can step

into the light together. They can share a partnership in which they come to know one another. In the process, they can coop- erate to establish virtue and mercy on this earth—they can co- operate to prevent the corruption of the earth through the ugliness of ignorance, hate, war, and destruction. Moderates believe that supremacy belongs only to God. Therefore, when they come to invite the other to step into the light, they do so with utter humility—the humility of knowing that it is impos- sible to avoid corrupting the earth, and also impossible to achieve any degree of Godliness on this earth, unless they can come to know the other. It is this, the knowledge of the other, that is the requisite for the Divine gift of peace.

Having said all of this, the puritans still find much consola- tion in their belief that they are not aggressors but are simply exercising their basic right to self-defense. Typically, the dis- cussion on this point will go something like this: “Everything you’ve said about the moderate position is idealistic and naive. The reality is that the West, and the United States and Israel in particular, use sophisticated weapons to kill civilian Muslims, and we have no way to defend ourselves or to strike back at them. Therefore, what we have is a situation in which dire ne- cessity justifies violating the sacred law. We commit acts of what you would call terrorism, not because we like it, but be- cause this is the only way we can prevent the West, the United States and Israel, from massacring Muslims at will.”

There is a pragmatic issue that I will not get into here, and that is whether terrorism actually defends Muslims or whether it simply provides an excuse for people to kill more Muslims. More important is the fact that the logic of necessity is limitless and often immoral. Under the guise of necessity, the whole fab- ric of Islamic morality could become undone. Importantly, in all cases, relying on the logic of necessity means compromising the ethics and moral virtues of the Islamic faith. Assuming that

terrorism does somehow allow Muslims to fight back, and even become victorious, the question is: At what price this victory? If the price of a political victory is moral defeat and also the vio- lation of the ethics of Islam and the teachings of the Qur’an, how is it a victory at all? Often the response to this question is what will distinguish a moderate from a puritan.

As persuasive as the logic of military necessity might be for some Muslims, it is woefully inadequate in explaining some of the dynamics between the use of terrorism and the reliance on the Islamic tradition in justifying terrorism. It is possible for terrorists to openly cite the logic of necessity while publicly disavowing any reliance on the Islamic tradition. A terrorist group could say, for example, “We do what we have to do without regard to what Islam has to say about anything.” Ne- cessity does not sufficiently address some of the behavioral patterns of terrorists, especially in terms of how they treat or exploit Islam in the process.

For instance, there is one particularly troubling practice that raises baffling and even peculiar questions about the in- teraction of violent puritans with the Islamic ethical tradition. I am referring to the practice of beheading hostages in Iraq, a practice that is enforced with much pride, as if the perpetra- tors are executing Islamic justice. Similarly, beheading is the chosen method for enforcing the death penalty in Saudi Ara- bia, which the Saudis claim is an Islamic mandate. For many people in the modern age, beheadings are nothing short of shockingly repulsive, and we have a right to ask, What about beheadings is Islamic? In premodern times, beheading was the swiftest way to kill a person, and in many ways, it was the most merciful. Today, we have other ways of killing human beings that are less cruel.

As noted above, Islamic law forbade mutilation. It also for- bade methods of execution that are unduly painful and cruel,

such as death by stabbing, fire, poisoning, drowning, quarter- ing, or any of the other gruesome methods that were used in medieval times. Hence, it is hardly surprising that beheadings were the most tolerated form of execution. The irony is that the only reliable and authentic report from the Prophet related to the subject is one in which he advised that even if slaughter- ing an animal, it is imperative to file and hone the knife or sword to a razor-sharp edge so as to minimize the suffering of the slain. Of course, at that time knights trained at swords- manship for most of their lives, so it was not rare to find men who were capable of chopping off a head with one swift strike. Today, however, those who have had the misfortune of witnessing executions in Saudi Arabia will attest to the fact that it is an ugly and shocking mess, with the inept swords- man striking the poor victim several times before succeeding in his goal.

The most important point, however, is that there is nothing Islamic about executing a person with a sword. Considering the points discussed above, how can all of this become trans- formed into a conviction that the Islamic thing to do is to chop off heads, even if it is in the most grotesque and tortur- ous fashion? The only thing that can be truly described as an Islamic mandate is that, if a killing is necessary at all, it is im- perative to choose the method of execution that is the most merciful and compassionate; and modern science has invented more humane ways of terminating life than beheading. Even the purported penalty of death by stoning, which is prescribed by puritans for adultery, is not mentioned in the Qur’an. It was adapted from the Old Testament, and its acceptability in Islam is highly debated by moderates.
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Nevertheless, it is undeniable that in puritan lore, behead- ings have become unabashedly claimed as an integral part of Islamic justice. This serves as a reminder of the complexity of

the puritans’ system of producing meaning and symbols. As is often the case, puritans do not interact with Islamic ethics or reflect on the substance of Islam. More often than not, they are interested in the form, in the external appearance, and in symbolic associations. So, why the sword and beheadings? It is an unabashed exploitation of the fears and prejudices that people have about Islam. Puritans are well aware that in the minds of many, there is a stereotypical prejudice that associ- ates between Islam and the sword, and also the chopping off of body parts. Instead of working to fight the stereotype and deconstruct it, they build upon it and exploit it. In doing so, they gain power—the power that comes from constructing a bogeymen and then reminding people of that bogeyman whenever the puritan sense of insecurity makes them feel that they are losing power. This, for instance, was keenly felt when in 1977 the puritan organization al-Takfir wa’l Hijrah kid- napped and decapitated Shaykh Muhammad al-Dhahabi, the minister of religious endowments and the rector of the Azhar Seminary in Egypt.

In its essence, terrorism is the act of gaining power through the spread of fear. Whether that power is being asserted by a puritan government over its citizenry or whether it is being as- serted by puritan groups over governments, the method and effect are the same. But as is often the case with puritans and their power dynamics, the victims are not only the innocent human beings killed, but also Islam and the integrity of its eth- ical tradition.

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THE NATURE AND ROLE OF WOMEN

I

t might be surprising to realize that today the question of the role of women in Islam and the issue of jihad are intricately connected. Jihad and the treatment of women in Islam are probably the two most controversial and misunderstood top- ics about the Islamic faith in the world today. Indeed, the issue of women in Islam, like the issue of jihad, invokes images of oppression, cruelty, and brutality in the eyes of the world. In both cases, puritans have hijacked the truth about the Islamic faith and played the dominant role in deforming the image of Islam around the globe. Puritans believe that aggression against others is justified, and they exploit the doctrine of jihad to achieve their aims. They also justify aggression against women and their patriarchic belligerence by exploiting a number of theological concepts. The common thread that connects the issues of jihad and women is the coveting of power and supremacy. It is the desire to dominate others that causes puritans to so profoundly deform and mutilate the truth about the roles of jihad and women in the Islamic faith. Around the middle of March 2002, Saudi newspapers re- ported an incident that took place in Mecca, the Prophet Muhammad’s birthplace. According to the official count, at least fourteen young girls burned to death or were asphyxiated by smoke when an accidental fire engulfed their public school.

Parents who arrived at the scene described a horrific situation in which the doors of the school were locked from the outside, and the Saudi religious police, known as the
mutawwa’un,
forcibly prevented girls from escaping the burning school and also barred firemen from entering the school to save the girls by beating some of the girls and several of the civil defense personnel. According to the statements of parents, firemen, and the regular police forces present at the scene, the
mu- tawwa’un
would not allow the girls to escape or to be saved because they were “not properly covered,” and the
mu- tawwa’un
did not want physical contact to take place between the girls and the civil defense forces for fear of sexual entice- ment, presumably in the midst of crisis. “Not properly cov- ered” meant that the girls were either missing the
niqab,
a veil concealing their faces, or the ‘
abaya,
a cloaklike wrap cover- ing their bodies.

The governmental institution that is responsible for admin- istering the
mutawwa’un
(known as the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice) denied that officers had beaten any of the girls or civil defense workers, and also denied that the men had locked the gates of the school and trapped the girls inside.
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But witnesses told Saudi newspapers that the
mutawwa’un
yelled at the police and fire- men to stay back and beat several firemen as they commanded the girls to go back into the burning building and retrieve their veils before they would be allowed to leave the school. Several parents told journalists that they had seen at least three girls being kicked and beaten with sticks when they attempted to argue with the
mutawwa’un
. Several girls did obey the
mu- tawwa’un
and returned to the school to retrieve their veils, only to be found dead later.

This incident was reported in Saudi newspapers such as the

Saudi Gazette
and
Al-Iqtisadiyya
. In rarely voiced criticism

against the religious police, both papers demanded investiga- tions and prosecutions of those responsible. The day after the event, Crown Prince ‘Abdullah announced that the govern- ment would investigate and punish those responsible. Three days after the event, the Saudi government ordered all news- papers to desist from publishing anything about the tragedy, and to date no one has been prosecuted or fired for the death of the girls. The tragedy was reported in the media extensively in the West, but received very limited coverage in the Muslim world.
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