Friday, January 23, 2015

Northern Advocate- Why Charlie Hebdo got it wrong by staff journalist and local Muslim leader Imran Ali

In the wake of news regarding the Charlie Hebdo slaughters by extremists proclaiming loyalty to Islam in Paris the other day, news services are inundated with opinions and views that are at least diverse if not almost on a par with the the wildly oscillating views of anyone from atheism to Christian to Muslim.

Here is our local newspaper's take on it from local Muslim leader and staff journo on the Northern
Advocate- Imran Ali: To read article click on photo.



I agree with Imran Ali that free speech has its responsibilities and that people of other worldviews should be accorded respect. The real problem with “Charlie” is the desacralizing of almost everything. Their one inconsistency was they still held human life sacred- to a degree. It was very easy in the smug complacency of the West, to mock a religion knowing full well the people who are paying the ultimate price are other religious people, like the Hazidi, Christians and Kurds. In fact it plays neatly into the secular project of ridding the world of all religions, almost... They believed in the power of the pen, not the bullet. But the pen also can prompt the bullet by proxy. Tragically they became all too aware of that reality. On the other hand, evidently in the politics of Islam it seems force is made sacred in the name of Jihad, and hence the desacralizing of human life.

With regard to Ali’s reference to “uncouth behaviour” it calls to mind graffiti artists and the desacralizing of property rights...but we don’t shoot people for it. Ali’s rhetorical question regarding why people would mock a long dead preacher who taught the opposite of “Charlie H” and Isis I find puzzling. Just a cursory glance at the life history of the one spoken of seems to speak of bloodshed, military conquest, slaughter, enslavement and genocide. Even the Qur'an and the Hadiths bear witness to this.

If “Islam means...love respect and tolerance for all” why do we constantly see bloodshed on so many fronts around the world and Islam is always implicated? We can look not only at a geographic sweep of trouble spots around the world, but we can simply take a closer look at the span of history and 1400 years of aggression associated with the waxing and waning of Islamic expansionism. Smoke without fire? I would suggest that while the etymology of Islam is related to peace, in reality it means submission.

Of course I am not suggesting that aggression was monopolized by the forces of Islam, every culture has had its dark past. But one has to make a marked distinction between people who (for example) call themselves Christians and take up arms to oppress their neighbours using Christianity as a political expedient, and those who uphold the teachings of Muhammad and make war in the name of Allah. How do we make such a distinction? What is the difference between a Christian crusader and Islamic Jihad?

When Jesus was taken by force one of his followers drew his sword and smote one of the aggressors and Jesus responded by saying effectually: "Put away your sword, for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword" and thus he was laying down the foundation for a new kind of warfare, one which did not rely on weapons that draw blood but that are nevertheless powerful for demolishing the strongholds of enemies. He was speaking of both an ideological and spiritual warfare that declared war on ideas that oppose truth. A warfare that is dependent on compassion and persuasion and the dignity of reason. Violence and cruelty are not intrinsic to authentic Christianity and those who would put Christianity into harness for violence are not practising Christianity but doing violence to it.

The life of Christ was like an arrow shot from the bow of an expert marksman. Its trajectory was straight and true and reached its intended mark. There was no deviation or turning aside, from the moment of his entrance into public ministry to his ignominious end- his message and his life was the same. Whether in glorious recognition with palms laid at his feet in the triumphant entry to Jerusalem, or at his apparent shameful expulsion from the city to the excruciating demise on a cross- his character outshone the circumstances- he was true to his nature at every point, in every instance.

And the life of the prophet Muhammed? Not so much. I don't think there would be many, if any sympathetic Islamic scholars who would disagree that the life of Muhammed can be divided into two  distinct eras showing very different aspects of character. In fact this is classical Islam. These periods are broadly circumscribed by his time at Mecca and his life at Medina. In his earlier struggles to establish Islam when he and his followers were in the minority, his life is characterized by words of peace, actions of compassion and tolerance towards those of a different persuasion, necessitated by virtue of being in a position of relative weakness. In stark contrast with his earlier life, when in a position of dominance, known as the Medinan period the change of demeanour is characterized by bloodshed, aggression and military force. This pattern is evidently established in the subsequent history of Islam and goes a long way to  explaining why millions of Muslims, (thankfully the majority), are indeed peaceful minorities living in harmony with other worldviews who adamantly exclaim, in all sincerity that Islam is a religion of peace. It also explains how these are able to be radicalized and take on all the hallmarks of ISIS. They are both "legitimate" expressions of Islam depending on whether the Meccan phase is dominant or the Medinan era.

While I acknowledge I am depicting a simplified understanding of the inherent contradictions in Muhammed's life and how they subsequently are played out in the history of the religion he established, I also acknowledge that at least to some extent, Muhammed's life is also our own. That is, that humanity by nature, is a series of contradictions, (to greater or lesser degrees). We uphold compassion while being the cruellest of species, we honour morality while living as beings that would (if possible) make animals blush. We universally extoll the virtues of love while we practice the doctrines of hate.  Indeed it is this inherent contradiction within human nature that validates like a tree in silhouette, the divine nature, the life and purpose of Christ.

Dr. David Curry, president of Open Doors, a group that monitors religious freedom worldwide claims elements of one religion above all pose the greatest threat to Christians.
"The persecution of Christians is real, it is horrifically violent often, and it is spreading at unprecedented rate in modern times...Islamic extremism is driving force, is really the driving force in 40 of the top 50 countries on the World Watch List,"
The number one question is: Do all these terrorists represent the true nature of Islam? Do the admittedly millions of moderate, peace-loving, family oriented Muslims fall “legitimate” prey to being either persuaded or pistol whipped into being more authentic and therefore more radical Muslims?

The President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a Muslim himself, recently addressed the nation’s top Islamic authorities and clerics during a celebration of the birth of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. With a boldness that few would care to risk, he located radical terrorism within the sphere of authentic Islam:
"That thinking [that is responsible for producing “anxiety, danger, killing and destruction” around the world]—I am not saying “religion” but “thinking”—that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world!"
Clearly he is calling into question what the classical interpretation of Islam has taken for granted for so long- the dividing up of the world into two warring hemispheres. Raymond Ibrahim:
‘the Muslim world (Dar al-Islam) which must forever be in a struggle with the rest of the world (or Dar al-Harb, the “abode of war”) till, in the Koran’s words, “all religion belongs to Allah” (Koran 8:39)’
Raymond Ibrahim commenting on Sisi’s speech:
‘As a Muslim, Sisi will not say that Islam, the “religion,” is responsible for “antagonizing the entire world,” but he certainly goes much further than his Western counterparts when he says that this “thinking” is rooted in an Islamic “corpus of texts and ideas” which have become so “sacralized.” 
Is that the peace of Allah? When the whole world has submitted either by choice or by force?

His speech has left the clerics of Islam on the horns of a dilemma.

If the Muslim world condemns Sisi’s stance (which commenter's within Islam would seem to indicate) on the grounds that he is a liberal, compromising Muslim, this leaves the Islamic clerics open to the criticism that Islam is indeed complicit in acts of terror. If he is accused of kowtowing to other interests like the Coptic Christian voting block as a political expedient, or pressure from the international community; then it will be perceived as efforts to protect the ways of Islam, the condoning of terrorism within Islam, and then it is evidently a systemic issue.

On the other hand, for official interpreters of Islam to acknowledge and give credibility to his position as relevant and applicable- is to acknowledge that they have been at least somewhat guilty of heretical interpretations of traditional, authentic Islam and therefore culpable. Through denying his critical posture and claiming Sisi is being disloyal to the Prophet amounts to saying that loyalty to Islam means loyalty to the methods of terror as legitimate means of advancing the cause of Islam.

The succinct way Sisi has put it makes it imperative that change takes place within Islam. Either the official interpreters of Islam come clean and admit that their interpretation and traditions of Islam has perverted the way of the Prophet and promoted or at least failed to speak against terrorism, or the actual problem of terrorism is intrinsic to Islam and is therefore a systemic problem. Either way, the answer is vital.

Are Isis and all who are wreaking terror, the work of radical Islamists in ignorance of authentic Islam as is so often postulated? This was recently exemplified by moderate Muslim lay person Zunera Mazhar as she sincerely pours out her feelings of shame and outrage at what is clearly to her the misrepresentation of Islam. In a breaking voice she begins:
“As a Muslim, I am outraged by yesterday’s event. My heart goes out to the victims and family members of Charlie Hebdo, freedom of speech is everyones God givens [sic] right...no one- no one is given the right to kill in the name of protecting a god or its prophet. I am so outraged by some ignorant people taking it upon themselves to protect a faith, when all they do is hurt that faith, hurt the families and hurt the people. Not just other people of other faiths but their own people too. Their loyalty is not to a god, their loyalty is just to things that are happening in their head or their perception of their faith or Islam in that case…I am really sorry to the whole world, I as a Muslim, that we have some ignorant people who have taken some very ignorant actions in the name of faith... This is not Islam- this is not the faith that we follow... ”
Ignorant people? Contrast this with Clare Lopez, Center for Security Policy vice president for research, who said an attack on Christianity is the ultimate expression of Islam.
“ISIS is the purest expression of Islamic doctrine, law and scripture,” she said.
Lopez noted the leader of ISIS, self proclaimed Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has a doctorate in Islamic studies.

It just so happens that out of the blue I had occasion to speak with a man whom I had just met this weekend. Being raised a moderate Muslim in the centre of the world’s largest concentration of Muslims, I asked him what he thought of the events in Paris. He smiled and said that in accordance with Islam, whoever kills an infidel is pleasing God. In Islam whoever is not Muslim is an infidel.

Imran speaks of “The war on Islam....” Excuse me! What war is that? If he identifies the resistance to Isis or Boko Haram or any other of a significant number of radical Islamists as a war on Islam itself- then is he acknowledging that this is an authentic move of Islam? Western leaders and media bend over backwards to disassociate the terrorism from its affinity with Islam. But are they correct in doing so? Evidently not according to the President of Egypt.

Would we get straight answers from authoritative Islam? Could that ever happen? According to the doctrine of Islamic taqiyya the expediency of hiding the true nature of one's convictions is a legitimate expression of Islam when in a minority or weaker position, such as Islam is in the West. According to Adam Francisco who holds a PhD in Islamic-Christian relations, the Islamic worldview is logocentric, that is- it is not a worldview determined by facts- but a worldview informed by a group of texts. While Christianity is also logocentric, on issues that are not directly addressed by the Bible, the facts may speak for themselves- even while there may be tension between the texts and the facts. The historicity of Christianity is also the guarantor of the importance of its relation to factuality.

However “in the Muslim mind the factual world doesn’t so much matter when they’re trying to understand and articulate the world- What matters is what the texts say.” Adam Francisco.

This is further attested to by Raymond Ibrahim. Raymond received his B.A. and M.A. (both in History, focusing on the ancient and medieval Near East, with dual-minors in Philosophy and Literature) from California State University. There he studied closely with noted military-historian Victor Davis Hanson. He also took graduate courses at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies—including classes on the history, politics, and economics of the Arab world—and studied Medieval Islam and Semitic languages at Catholic University of America. His M.A. thesis examined an early military encounter between Islam and Byzantium based on arcane Arabic and Greek texts.
“The entire sequence of Quranic revelations are a testimony to taqiyya and, since Allah is believed to be the revealer of these verses, he ultimately is seen as the perpetrator of deceit. This is not surprising since Allah himself is often described in the Quran as the "best deceiver" or "schemer." (see 3:54, 8:30, 10:21). This phenomenon revolves around the fact that the Quran contains both peaceful and tolerant verses, as well as violent and intolerant ones.

The ulema [official exegetes of Islam] were uncertain which verses to codify into sharia's worldview. For instance, should they use the one that states there is no coercion in religion (2:256), or the ones that command believers to fight all non-Muslims until they either convert or at least submit to Islam (9:5, 9:29)? To solve this quandary, they developed the doctrine of abrogation – naskh, supported by Quran 2:105. This essentially states that verses "revealed" later in Muhammad's career take precedence over those revealed earlier whenever there is a discrepancy.

Why the contradiction in the first place? The standard answer has been that, because Muhammad and his community were far outnumbered by the infidels in the early years of Islam, a message of peace and co-existence was in order. However, after Muhammad migrated to Medina and grew in military strength and numbers, the militant or intolerant verses were revealed, urging Muslims to go on the offensive.

According to this standard view, circumstance dictates which verses are to be implemented. When Muslims are weak, they should preach and behave according to the Meccan verses; when strong, they should go on the offensive, according to the Medinan verses. Many Islamic books extensively deal with the doctrine of abrogation, or Al-Nasikh Wa Al-Mansukh.”
Raymond Ibrahim- Islam’s Doctrines of Deception.
I could not help but be reminded of Adolph Hitler’s rise to power, while in a position of weakness he exploited the religious vote by feigning solidarity with Christianity, but once in a position of domination, his true colours became evident. Such is the nature of despotism. In adopting liberal immigration laws in concord with many other Western nations have we created our own Trojan Horse?

Am I an Islamophobe? I certainly am afraid of Islam. But is it an irrational fear? I think not.



UPDATE- 28/03/2016:


Well here we are over a year later and lots of things have changed. But have those changes in reference to radical Islam been good? Not so much...

Over my morning coffee and scanning the news headlines I awake to yet another attack by radical Islamists, this time in Pakistan where a group of mainly Christian women and children were the focus of a suicide attack at a childrens playground while they were celebrating Easter. At early counts it seems over 65 people are dead with many more injured. This comes close on the heels of the carnage at Brussells airport and at another commuter station.

I also listened to an interview on Fox news with Nabeel Qureshi, a convert from Islam to Christianity give a brief but concise and accurate appraisal of the tactics used to radicalize moderate Muslims. What may be of interest to the reader is that David Wood who is the figure in the video above is the "Christian friend" who was instrumental in Nabeel re-evaluating his Islamic faith and looking again at Christianity.





In this Fox News interview, Nabeel brings his own personal experience of being challenged about his beliefs and the subsequent re-evaluation of Islam. After three years intense scrutiny he realized there were only three paths open to him. Either become apathetic about Islam, (be Muslim in name only, without any real devotion, which was personally abhorrent because his devotion to God was real, though mistaken, in the worship of Islam "or I could become an apostate and leave Islam for another religion, which is ultimately what I did, I became Christian. Or I could say, this is what Islam teaches, I have to do it then and become radicalized" .  Speaking of becoming an apostate he clearly meant that his apostasy was referring to how the Islamic world would view him, not how he saw himself. This has been no trivial matter for Nabeel, knowing full well that to renounce Islam is- in certain quarters, in strict accordance with Islam-  a sentence of death.

What then? Should Islam be banned? And how would that be implemented? Does meeting violence with more violence answer the problem or aggravate it? To be sure the extreme elements of a movement do not know anything but violence and they will be met with violence and so they should. That is the role of civil societies everywhere, and Christianity upholds the rule of law. Governments are generally the servants of God who "do not bear the sword in vain". God has given the responsibility of compulsion or force to governments to implement measures against violent, evil oppressors, whether they exist at a local, national or international level. But that is a ban against violence, it is not a ban against a religion. Neither should there be one. A ban against a system of belief- whether it is against Islam, Christianity or a philosophical system as in philosophical naturalism, is useless, because so long as people believe it to be true, there will be followers and followers who will give their lives to it, both in death and in life.

Jesus shows us the way of truth, the truth will expose what is true and what is not, what is worthy of veneration, and what is a lie masquerading as truth. The only right and effective way to snuff out a lie is by exposing it to the truth. Nabeel gives us hope that the universal and timeless struggle for truth is not a vain struggle but one that must be vigilantly attended to.  

I wholeheartedly endorse Nabeel Qureshi's book "Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus- A devout Muslim encounters Christianity" and look forward to reading his latest offering "Answering Jihad- A better way forward"