Islamic extremism & moderate Muslims: Is there really any difference?

As a committed Muslim myself, my answer to this question is sadly, and to put it bluntly, NO. Community leaders and commentators, the mainstream media, as well as Western governments, however, are all at pains to make the distinction that suicide bombers do not represent the majority of peaceful and law-abiding Muslims. Mainstream media and governments recognise that it would be counterproductive and irresponsible to speak of a problem with Islam or all Muslims – rather terrorists are a minority who hold extreme views, they say. But what about the voice, or the sentiments, of moderate Muslims themselves? Well, this is quite revealing when we give it some attention.

In the aftermath of 9/11, I recall in Britain’s Muslim community a mix of stunned silence and moreover a denial that Muslims even carried out this attack. Conspiracy theories aside (about the American military industrial complex or the CIA orchestrating a war), it was primarily just a reflex defensiveness. Conspiracy theories grew of course, and persist today, even while further suicide bombings and near misses/failed attempts are occurring virtually every week. More to the point, however, there was hardly a noticeable wave of condemnation of the 9/11 attack from Muslim community leaders here in Britain. It wasn’t until the bombings arrived right at home, with the 7/7 attacks in 2005, that Muslims seemed to wake up somewhat and voices against terrorism started to be heard. Beneath this half-hearted disapproval though, a wall of silence come denial pervades. Indeed, I believe that the majority of orthodox Muslims are unable to challenge the extremist worldview and rather share much of that worldview themselves. If some people are prepared to kill in the name of their belief, and many are drawn into such action, then it is because there is a fertile breeding ground in wider Muslim society.

The first thing is that no serious discussion has taken place among Muslim groups and communities about the issue. No attempt to identify the ideological source of the problem, or the many factors that feed into it, or that it’s even a problem. One can present alternative verses of the Qur’an to make the opposite case from violence, as has been done. But since it is possible to invoke the Qur’an on polar opposite views on virtually any subject, this becomes a sterile exercise in the end. Likewise, I find it pointless when, for example, it is said that terrorists misinterpret a particular verse of the Qur’an (about killing the Jews and the enemy) and take it out of context, and that this is apparently why they are persuaded by violence. This text-obsessed discourse (being part of the problem really) overlooks human nature and the real world, in so far as those intent on seizing the military vanguard of Islam would have found one verse or another, one hadith or another, anyway. (Hadith are recollections of sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad).

Instead, a unison voice now repeats endlessly that the media is portraying Muslims in an unbalanced way, that ‘we’re not all terrorists’, that ‘we’re being unfairly vilified’, and that some (nonsense) thing called Islamophobia is on the rise. Now, defensiveness, complaining, and playing the victim, is all fine and well, if at least some genuine discussion of the internal problems was taking place in the background, but this is not so. Rather, the victim mentality is part of that denial.

As an aside, this victimhood is misplaced even on technical grounds. Muslims seem to think that coverage of terrorist bombings (and let’s be clear they do happen – a lot) and airtime on news channels for extremist nutters are unfairly depicting and stigmatising the rest of them. Defence of the reputation of Islam is basically all that Muslim voices have offered to the public discourse since this whole tragic episode began. But then again, since when did the media try to depict anything, on any subject, in a balanced way? Since when did the media talk about the average Joe who goes about his daily uneventful life? Also, why should Muslims be exempt from scrutiny? Do we think we are the only ones to be criticised? (Not that any real criticism has been levelled anyway). Why is it so hard for Muslims to understand, that scrutiny and debate is what the media is all about on a daily basis? Politicians are ridiculed all the time, environmentalists, pressure groups of all kinds, and business leaders are regularly grilled, and sleazy celebrities and sports stars are often vilified. Perhaps it is because a culture of public debate has always been absent from Muslim society (note the 1000+ years of authoritarian governments, authoritarian religious leaders, obedience within the family, etc) that when faced with a bit of critical analysis in the West it comes as a shock to the system. Perhaps this aversion to public debate is the very mechanism that prevents recognition of any problem within the Muslims or with their Islamic worldview.

As for this Islamic narrative or worldview, it basically says that the Western powers are trampling all over the Muslims world, something that began with that great injustice of colonisation and which continues with neo-imperialism, oil-grabbing, and all manner of foreign policy interference. Another part of the narrative is that Islam is unique, different to the West, and the divine imperative means that its laws must be established if not globally then in Muslim lands at least. These two are the basic, most critical, ingredients for a suicide bomb. Upon only a little reflection it should also be clear that both are cornerstone features of the Muslim worldview as far as the moderate majority is concerned – where a ‘them and us’ attitude is commonplace. This narrative is part of the Muslim DNA, and the strength of the grievance in particular can’t be emphasised enough, as it tends to overwhelm the conscience and the rational faculties, the more Islamic one becomes.

This is also well established in the Shari’ah, whose spirit we cannot do without we are told (and which emerging governments in Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere say the law should be derived from). Notice the classic apartheid of dar-al-Islam and dar-al-harb (the abode of Islam vs the abode of war), the millennia of discouraging Muslims from venturing into foreign lands or just mixing with non-Muslims anywhere, the lower legal status and discrimination of non-Muslims in business contracts, the ‘protectionism’ of prohibiting mixed-religion marriage, etc. The Shari’ah, as we know it, is rife with parochialism, insularity, assumed truth and superiority, and very much about conflict with other worlds. Things are always to do with religion, and all demarcations of right and wrong, good and bad, are synonymous with Muslim and non-Muslim, while actual values and their meanings seem to have fallen off the radar completely. To a degree this shouldn’t be surprising, since the Shari’ah came about at a time of imperial military expansion – i.e. a common Medieval war-mentality that became permanently institutionalised.

The full consequence of all this though – not only opposition to the West and persecution of Christian minorities in Muslim countries, but also an obsession with being the right kind of Muslim, leading to inter-Muslim sectarian violence virtually everywhere around the world (bombings of mosques, Shia’ pilgrims, Sufi shrines, assassinations of reformists, secularists, difficult politicians, etc). Differences and arguments are settled with a denunciation as kufr (un-belief) and a mere sigh of disapproval towards religious/cultural norms often attracts a death warrant. It seems the more Islamic you become, the more you take your faith seriously, the more you have to hate others, including other Muslims, and so the Muslim capacity for lawlessness has become legendary. There were of course free-thinking and liberal movements in the Muslim world, but the above is basically the orthodoxy that the masses of poor illiterate Muslims embraced from the 8^th century onwards.

Back to the present, there is much that I could say here, on whether Muslim problems are really because of foreign meddling or because of their own failures, but there isn’t the space in this posting. I would simply repeat that the majority are unable to counter the extremists effectively, are often reluctant to anyway, indeed sympathise with it, because they hold much the same views. For example, it is common to find the view, even if it isn’t always said aloud, that America basically got what it deserved. One cannot raise the al-Qaeda or Bin Laden question among many Muslims without immediately being met with, ‘well the British did this and that to us, the Americans are always after their own interests, how is it any different from American warplanes killing thousands of innocent Muslims, or America’s continuing support for Israel’, and so on. There is also a great sympathy and admiration that Bin Laden at least tried to stand up for Muslims. His heart was in the right place, they say.

Strong popular sentiment doesn’t stay hidden, and this was well and truly confirmed by two prominent Islamist figures recently. In a BBC Panorama programme in May 2011, Professor Khurshid Ahmad, deputy leader of the Jamat-i-Islami in Pakistan, and a disciple of Mawdudi, said that he felt “shock” and “grief” at the killing of Osama Bin Laden and that Bin Laden was a “martyr”. The Jamat, along with the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East, are the foremost and supposedly moderate of Islamic movements globally. Khurshid Ahmad’s sympathies shouldn’t be surprising perhaps coming from a religious leader in that ancient hotbed of religious fervour, and a consequent failing state, that is Pakistan. [See the Talibanisation of Pakistan]

More interesting, however, is that he had spent some four decades or so, in and out of the UK, having established and led the Islamic Foundation in Leicester since 1973 – the Islamic Foundation is the intellectual home of the largest Islamist movement here. Along with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Pakistani Jamat trains thousands of community activists in the UK who in turn take up positions in many mosques and organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). And it is these mainstream organisations that the British government and media looked to when it sought a voice of the moderates that would, in partnership, condemn and marginalise the extremists. The MCB and others duly obliged, but with customary ambiguity in their pronouncements and a distinct lack of action at the grass roots.

Khurshid Ahmad himself, by the way, is a leading contributor to the field knows as Islamic Economics, both by his own writings and in mobilising the resources of the Islamic Foundation as the premier global publishing house on the subject. Islamic Economics is basically about why the ‘Islamic economic system’, where God-given rules are established (mainly the prohibition of interest), is different and indeed superior, to the Western capitalist system. This is about resistance to the imperialist world order of the West, and it is basically the ‘intellectual’ wing of Islamism.

The other prominent Islamist figure I alluded to is Dr Kamal Helbawy, European spokesman no less, for the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed a founder of the MCB. At about the same time, Dr Helbawy expressed much the same view as Khurshid Ahmad, when he referred to Bin Laden as ‘a great Mujahid’ (often translated as ‘holy warrior’). His admiration for Bin Laden is evident when he also said “We appreciate him as a rich man living in KSA who left this luxurious life and moved to a hard life in mountains and caves. He helped his Afghan brethrens and participated in Afghan jihad effectively” and further “I ask Allah to have mercy upon Osama Bin Laden, to treat him generously, to enlighten his grave, and to make him join the prophets, the martyrs, and the good people.” Dr Helbawy’s views on terrorism are further illuminated when he said “I think that what the Americans claim about September 11th was a trick and a bait they accused Al-Qaeda of. All evidences and indications refer that the Americans are the ones who planned this matter.” [Sources: here and here]

I should re-iterate, however, that you don’t need to be an Islamist to sympathise with Bin Laden. The narrative as I mentioned has deep roots in Muslim society the world over. Thus, what is considered extremism in the headlines is really an expression of the mainstream Muslim mindset – one that continues to blame the West long after colonial days, and is still unwilling to question any of its own sacrosanct premises or its basic interpretations of Islam. 1000+ years of inability to self-review on the one hand, and now cultural resistance to the West on the other, are two sides of the same coin. Both give rise to suicide bombings as an absolute response, because both instincts are held absolutely. It is the ‘immovable object’ meeting the ‘irresistible force’ of modernity. The former has a long track record of survival, however, establishing in the process a powerful self-defence mechanism permeating its masses. It will thus fight back for sure.

So there we are. Someone had to say it.