1. Fear and the rhetoric of ‘unprecedented’ barbarity
Posted: 26 Sep 2014 03:43 PM PDT
By Mark Durie
Many leaders have been stating that the Islamic State ¢â‚¬â„¢s actions are ¢â‚¬Ëœunprecedented ¢â‚¬â„¢, ¢â‚¬Ëœextreme ¢â‚¬â„¢, ¢â‚¬Ëœunique ¢â‚¬â„¢, or even ¢â‚¬Ëœeccentric ¢â‚¬â„¢. Western leaders who are intervening in the Syria-Iraq conflict justify their actions by declaring the Islamic State to be uniquely evil. In announcing military action and increased security measures, Australian Prime Ministry Tony Abbott said of the Islamic State that ¢â‚¬Å“To do such evil ¢â‚¬” and to revel in doing such evil ¢â‚¬” is simply unprecedented ¢â‚¬ . David Cameron stated that ¢â‚¬Å“ISIL is a terrorist organisation unlike those we have dealt with before. ¢â‚¬ Osama Obamaclaimed ¢â‚¬Å“these terrorists are unique in their brutality. ¢â‚¬
The actions of Islamic State ¢â‚¬â„¢s adherents are morally repugnant in the extreme, but only by applying historical amnesia and selective vision could one claim that their evil is unique or unprecedented.
In recent decades, not dissimilar horrors have regularly been reported from around the world, for example the abuses of the ¢â‚¬ËœLord ¢â‚¬â„¢s Resistance Army ¢â‚¬â„¢, or the genocide currently being pursued by the government of Sudan against Nubian Christians.
The Islamic State’s actions are also not unique in history. Quite apart from the horrors of Nazism and Communism, Andrew Bostom has rightly pointed out that the atrocities of the Ottoman Caliphate in exterminating Christians under their rule were greater in magnitude than what is currently being experienced in Syria and Iraq. He writes:
¢â‚¬Å“Notwithstanding the recent horrific spate of atrocitiescommitted against the Christian communities of northernIraq by the Islamic State (IS/IL) jihadists, the Ottoman jihad ravages were equally barbaric, depraved, and far more extensive. Occurring, primarily between 1915-16 (although continuing through at least 1919), some one million Armenian, and 250,000 Assyro-Chaldean and Syrian Orthodox Christians were brutally slaughtered, or starved to death during forced deportations through desert wastelands. The identical gruesome means used by IS/IL to humiliate and massacre its hapless Christian victims, were employed on a scale that was an order of magnitude greater by the Ottoman Muslim Turks, often abetted by local Muslim collaborators (the latter being another phenomenon which also happened during the IS/IL jihad campaign against Iraq ¢â‚¬â„¢s Christians). ¢â‚¬
Bostom also points out that the Yazidi ¢â‚¬â„¢s recent sufferings at the hands of the IS are nothing new, but are consistent with a a pattern of genocidal assaults against them which stretches back to Ottoman times.
What is so disturbing to Western people about the Islamic State is not the extremity of the barbarity, which is far from unprecedented, but the fact that so many Western citizens have been signing up with IS, and the psychological warfare being directed by IS against the outside world, which is manifested, for example, in the videos of beheadings, and the way some enslaved, raped women have been forced to phone their families to tell of their abuse.
What is unique is the fear: the fear that what is happening there will come back home to haunt us. The challenge facing us is not simply how to stop the Islamic State ¢â‚¬“ as important as that is ¢â‚¬“ but what to do about the fear. Dropping bombs on the Islamic State will not do it.
Mark Durie is the pastor of an Anglican church, a Shillman-Ginsburg Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and Founder of the Institute for Spiritual Awareness. His book The Third Choiceexplains the implications for Christians of living under Islamic rule.
Mark Durie is an Anglican pastor and Associate Fellow at the Middle Eastern Forum.
Subscribe to markdurie.com blog by email.
This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.
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2. Muslims Need Truth and Love
Posted: 26 Sep 2014 01:11 PM PDT
By Mark Durie
This article first appeared in Eternity Magazine.
The past few weeks have been hard ones for Australians, not least for Australian Muslims. Various alleged plots by Islamic State supporters to slaughter Australians has Islam in the news. Even as I write, five out of ten of the ¢â‚¬Å“most popular ¢â‚¬ articles on The Australian ¢â‚¬â„¢s website are about Islamic jihad and national security.
What are ordinary Australians to make of conspiracy theories aired by Muslims on the ABC ¢â‚¬â„¢s Q&A program, implying that recent police raids were staged as a cynical act to manipulate public opinion? Are Muslims being unfairly victimized by all these security measures?
How are we to evaluate Senator Jacqui Lambie ¢â‚¬â„¢s claim that sharia law ¢â‚¬Å“obviously involves terrorism ¢â‚¬ ? Or the Prime Minister ¢â‚¬â„¢s decision to mobilise Australia troops against the Islamic State?
What about the Islamic State ¢â‚¬â„¢s grandiose claim that ¢â‚¬Å“We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women. ¢â‚¬ Or Mr Abott ¢â‚¬â„¢s declaration that the balance between freedom and security needs to be adjusted in favour of greater security and less freedom?
Earlier this month, an 18-year-old Melbourne man, Numan Haider, was shot dead by police after he stabbed two officers outside a suburban police station. At the time of writing, news was breaking that authorities believed he intended to behead a police officer and post the photos online.
Prison officers in Goulburn jail have struggled to contain the worst riot in ten years, during which rampaging prisoners were heard to be crying ¢â‚¬Å“Allahu Akbar. ¢â‚¬
A Christian woman, who works in a church close by an Islamic centre has asked her employer to install security measures to protect her and others at the church. Someone else, a convert from Islam to Christianity, reports that his personal sense of being under threat has risen, because he feels that people he knew from his earlier life as radical Muslim are more likely to be activated to violence after the successes of the Islamic State and their global call to arms. Are such responses reasonable? Or are they Islamophobic?
Many young Muslims have been using the hashtag #NotInMyName on social media. Many are insisting that IS does not speak for them: as Anne Aly put it ¢â‚¬Å“This isn ¢â‚¬â„¢t in my name, this isn ¢â‚¬â„¢t what Islam is about, I am against it and they don ¢â‚¬â„¢t have my allegiance, they don ¢â‚¬â„¢t have my support. ¢â‚¬ How then can we know the truth about Islam?
What is a Christian response to all this? How can we find our way through these crises: does protecting national security mean we risk losing some part of our soul?
A truly Christian response to the multi-faceted challenge of ¢â‚¬Å“Muslims behaving badly ¢â‚¬ must embrace both truth and love in equal measure.
Truth will acknowledge that the Islamic State ideologues do claim to speak for Islam, and that they justify their actions from the Koran and Muhammad ¢â‚¬â„¢s example. Truth will acknowledge that IS has recruited tens of thousands of Muslims to fight for their cause, but apparently not a single Christian, Jew or Buddhist. As Brother Rachid, a Moroccan convert to Christianity put it in a widely distributed letter to President Obama ¢â‚¬Å“ISIL ¢â‚¬â„¢s 10,000 members are all Muslims. None of them are from any other religion. They come from different countries and have one common denominator: Islam. ¢â‚¬
Truth will recognise that the self-declared ¢â‚¬Ëœcaliph ¢â‚¬â„¢ of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has a PhD in Islamic studies: he is not ignorant of Islam. It will also acknowledge that the very idea of a caliphate ¢â‚¬“ a supra-national Islamic state ¢â‚¬“ is a religious ideal widely shared by many Muslims. However this ideal bodes ill for any non-Muslims who fall under its power.
Truth will accept that there is a price to pay for increased security. Since 9/11 we wait in line for queues at airports because of the actions of jihadis. As the level of threat increases, it is inevitable that our need for increased security measures will only grow.
Truth will also acknowledge that many Muslims vehemently reject the methods and goals of the Islamic state, and that the #NotInMyName hashtag campaign is genuine and heartfelt. But this begs the question: ¢â‚¬Å“What is the real Islam? ¢â‚¬
Love on the other hand, will reject stereotyping Muslims or denigrating them with labels of hatred and suspicion. Love will reach out a hand of friendship. It will show grace instead of fear, kindness instead of rejection or indifference. Love demands that we emphatically reject speech which dehumanizes Muslims or pins labels on them. It will honour those Muslims who reject the Islamic State ¢â‚¬â„¢s ideology. Love will find new friends even on the blackest of days.
It can be tempting at times such as this to chose between love and truth. Love without truth can be gullible, opening the door to many threats. I am reminded of a Persian fable:
A Fox met a Heron and said ¢â‚¬Å“My, what lovely feathers you have, dear Heron. May I have one? ¢â‚¬ The Heron obliged. The next day they met again. Day after day the Fox ¢â‚¬â„¢s question was repeated, and day after the day the Heron ¢â‚¬â„¢s response was the same. One day they met for the last time. The Heron had been plucked bar, so the Fox said ¢â‚¬Å“Heron, you look delicious. Now I will eat you. ¢â‚¬ And he did.
Love without boundaries, at the cost of truth, can wreak incredible havoc on innocent lives. In the end such love is false, and will prove profoundly unloving. Genuine love does not fear the truth. True love will not deny or obscure the damaging effect of sharia law upon Christians living in Islamic societies, or the atrocities being perpetrated in the name of Islam against Christians and others by the ¢â‚¬Å“caliphate ¢â‚¬ . It will be mindful of the words in Proverbs 24:11-12: ¢â‚¬Å“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering towards slaughter. If you say ¢â‚¬ËœBut we knew nothing about this, ¢â‚¬â„¢ does not he who weight the heart perceive it. ¢â‚¬â„¢ ¢â‚¬
On the other hand, truth without love can become merciless, excluding and cruel. Love counts the cost of aggressive argument and rejecting rhetoric. It takes pains to understand the other; it seeks to see the world through another ¢â‚¬â„¢s eyes and to hear words through another ¢â‚¬â„¢s ears. Love nurtures life-giving relationships. It reaches out to enmity and answers it with grace. It does not jump to conclusions, but is patient and careful. It delights to partner with and nurture truth and does not fear it.
Professor Peter Leahy, former Army Chief and leading defence strategist has warned Australians that we face a war that is ¢â‚¬Ëœlikely to last for the rest of the century ¢â‚¬â„¢. If he is right, then the troubles we are facing now as a nation are only the beginning, and dealing with the potential horrors ahead will stretch us to our humanity to its limits.
As Christians we are called to be salt and light in the world. If this means anything, it means staying true to Jesus ¢â‚¬â„¢s two great statements ¢â‚¬Å“the truth shall set you free ¢â‚¬ and ¢â‚¬Å“love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you ¢â‚¬ . This is no time for circling the wagons and cowering behind them in fear.
This is a time for Australians to reach out to our Muslim neighbours, to show and receive grace. In the present difficulties many Muslims will agree with Melbourne lawyer Shabnum Cassim who stated that ¢â‚¬Å“the every-day Muslim just wants to get on with their day. ¢â‚¬ As a nation the fact that we need to respond realistically to genuine threats to our peace, and seek a true understanding of the religious beliefs that generate these threats, should not deflect us from the everyday task of getting on with our lives together, graciously, inclusively and generously.
Mark Durie is the pastor of an Anglican church, a Shillman-Ginsburg Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and Founder of the Institute for Spiritual Awareness. His book The Third Choiceexplains the implications for Christians of living under Islamic rule.
Mark Durie is an Anglican pastor and Associate Fellow at the Middle Eastern Forum.
Subscribe to markdurie.com blog by email.
This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.
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A response:
Building on Mark Durie ¢â‚¬â„¢s truth and love
Truth will also acknowledge that many Muslims vehemently reject the methods and goals of the Islamic state, and that the #NotInMyName hashtag campaign is genuine and heartfelt. But this begs the question: ¢â‚¬Å“What is the real Islam? ¢â‚¬
¢â‚¬ËœWhat is the real Islam? ¢â‚¬â„¢ is a tricky question because big movements, especially ¢â‚¬Ëœreligions ¢â‚¬â„¢, are often diverse. Yet I think the big question here is something else:Who gets to define Islam in the first place?
Is truth only something that we Christians give to Muslims? Are we the arbiters of what is and is not ¢â‚¬Ëœreal Islam ¢â‚¬â„¢? Are we so ready to question whether those opposed to Islamic State are ¢â‚¬Ëœreal Muslims ¢â‚¬â„¢?
It ¢â‚¬â„¢s a dangerous business for us Christians to be preoccupied with ¢â‚¬Ëœreal Islam ¢â‚¬â„¢, not because theological questions should be downplayed, but because we risk dehumanising others. Yes, we ¢â‚¬â„¢d all do well to acknowledge and understand the theological underpinnings of Islamic State (as well as the historical, socio-political and economic factors) but we first need to consider whether Islam is ours to define.
While perhaps there is a balance of sorts to be struck between truth-telling and love, these are not parallel activities. Love means, as Jesus puts it, ¢â‚¬ËœTreat others in the same way that you would want them to treat you, ¢â‚¬â„¢ and so love allows others the space to say what is and is not true of themselves, as Roy Ciampa has already pointed out. (How we hate it when atheists tell us what our faith is!)
Love, as Durie says, ¢â‚¬Ëœtakes pains to understand the other; it seeks to see the world through another ¢â‚¬â„¢s eyes and to hear words through another ¢â‚¬â„¢s ears. ¢â‚¬â„¢ That must involve us giving Muslims the dignity to define themselves. To love is to take others on their own terms, to ¢â‚¬Ëœreject stereotyping ¢â‚¬â„¢ just as Durie says. That must involve us laying down the prerogative to determine the nature of Islam.
Love also means resisting the temptation to talk about Islam without reference to real-life Muslim communities. There ¢â‚¬â„¢s little use in discussing Islam as a belief system without considering how Muslims live in practice, and how their communities handle their own scriptures and traditions. We might think we ¢â‚¬â„¢ve discovered a logic of Islamic violence, but what is it that actually shapes Muslim lives? The Muslim condemnations of Islamic State, like these two letters, are important not only because they condemn violence, but also because they give us genuine insight into the lives of Muslims around us ¢â‚¬” and Islam.
If ¢â‚¬Ëœspeaking the truth in love ¢â‚¬â„¢ means anything here, it is that truth can only be spoken within existing relationship. The great challenge for us is not so much whether we ¢â‚¬â„¢ve understood Islam as whether we know Muslims. As part of our love for our Muslim friends, let ¢â‚¬â„¢s ask them what Islam is to them.
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Jihadi Islam: a further response to John Azumah
Posted: 30 Sep 2014 07:26 PM PDT
John Azumah has taken yet another bite of the apple by releasing a third response to my Lapido Media article ¢â‚¬Å“ ¢â‚¬ËœThree Choices ¢â‚¬â„¢ and the bitter harvest of denial ¢â‚¬ . This is an earlier response, now re-issued, in edited form, with Fulcrum (for his previous comments, both reported on Lapido Media, see here and here).I can refer readers to my previous rejoinder to Azumah: ¢â‚¬Å“Complexity, Truth and the Islamic State: a response to John Azumah and Colin Chapman. ¢â‚¬ In respect of Azumah ¢â‚¬â„¢s new material for Fulcrum I make the following observations:I did not say that the conditions of the dhimma ¢â‚¬Å“always ¢â‚¬ applied to Christians living under Islamic rule. My point was subtly different, namely that coexistence after Islamic conquest was ¢â‚¬Å“always regulated by the conditions of the dhimma ¢â‚¬ . By this I did not mean to imply that dhimma laws were consistently or uniformly applied to Christians at all times and in all places: my point was that the dhimma conditions and worldview profoundly framed and shaped the patterns of coexistence of Muslims and their conquered subjects.John Azumah emphasises that groups like the Islamic State, Al-Qa ¢â‚¬â„¢ida and Boko Haram trace their theology to the Hanbali madhab (Sunni school of law), which, he points out, is followed by only a minority of Muslims today. He insinuates that other schools ¢â‚¬“ representing the majority of Muslims ¢â‚¬“ have different rules concerning jihad and the treatment of conquered non-Muslim subjects.This is misleading on several counts. Although it is true that Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyya has been influential among Salafi groups, his student Ibn Kathir, who has been almost as influential, was Shafa ¢â‚¬â„¢i. Terrorists today follow all four of the main madhabs: Al-Shabab are Shafa ¢â‚¬â„¢i, the Afghan Taliban were Hanafi, and Gadhafi, a long-term sponsor of terrorism, governed according to Maliki jurisprudence. In any case the rules for the treatment of non-Muslims during and after conquest are essentially the same in all four schools: for example it is permissible to kill male captives of war in all the schools of Sunni jurisprudence.
I am intrigued to discover whether Azumah can provide even a single illustration of how the actions of terrorist groups follow Hanbali jurisprudence in contrast to the teachings of the other three schools.
[It is worth noting of the four schools, Hanbalis are particularly emphatic in their rejection of rebellion. This is because the school ¢â‚¬â„¢s founder, Ahmad Ibn Hanbal was the last of the founders of Sunni schools of jurisprudence, and he had seen more of the damage to the Muslim community caused by rebellion. Hanbal himself preferred to suffer arrest and abuse by the ruler of this day to rebellion. Today Hanbali authorities such as Saudi Arabia are particularly harsh in their treatment of jihadi rebels.]
Azumah ¢â‚¬â„¢s main criticism of what I have written is that I claim that groups like the Islamic State have the ¢â‚¬Ëœcorrect ¢â‚¬â„¢ understanding of Islam as delivered by Muhammad. This is not my belief. My point rather is that such groups claim ¢â‚¬“ vigorously and ably ¢â‚¬“ to defend their views on the basis of the essentials of Islam as delivered by Muhammad. I am not saying their defence is correct: I merely point out that for many it is a compelling defence.
In regard to Azumah ¢â‚¬â„¢s theological silver bullet ¢â‚¬“ that the Islamic State ¢â‚¬â„¢s jihad is invalid because only a legitimate leader can declare a jihad ¢â‚¬“ I would draw attention to the position of the jihadis. It has long been accepted by jihadi ideologues that when Muslim lands are occupied, jihad becomes fard ¢â‚¬Ëœayn, an ¢â‚¬Ëœindividual obligation ¢â‚¬â„¢, without the need for a leader to declare it. This is also a mainstream view of Islamic jurists. It is also widely accepted by jihadis that Muslims lands are occupied by unbelievers today, despite Azumah ¢â‚¬â„¢s claims that this does not apply to Iraq or Syria, and that it did not apply ¢â‚¬Å“prior to 9/11 ¢â‚¬ .
The point is not whether John Azumah believes Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan are occupied. The point is that Muslim radicals believe this. And not only they, but many leading others have made similar statements in the past. Bin Ladin considered that Saudi Arabia was occupied by Americans during the Gulf War, and it was this that led him to found Al-Qa ¢â‚¬â„¢ida a few years later. The jihad in Afghanistan under Soviet occupation was justified on the basis that Afghanistan was occupied: the argument is laid out very clearly in Abdullah Azam ¢â‚¬â„¢s Join the Caravan. The Sunni rebels fighting in Syria believe Assad is an unbeliever and an occupier of Muslim lands. Four years ago, Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, now ¢â‚¬Ëœcaliph ¢â‚¬â„¢ of the Islamic State rejected the validity of parliamentary elections in Iraq and committed himself to jihad against the American ¢â‚¬Ëœoccupier and his agents’: the ¢â‚¬Ëœagents ¢â‚¬â„¢ being of course the elected government of Iraq. The Islamic state continues to reject the validity of Iraq ¢â‚¬â„¢s government for this same reason: that they consider them stooges of the occupying Americans. There would be the same attitude to the Saudi Arabian ruling family.
Let me be perfectly clear: I am not saying that the Islamic State ¢â‚¬â„¢s ideology is the only interpretation of Islam, nor that it is the ¢â‚¬Ëœcorrect ¢â‚¬â„¢ one. What I am saying is that it is a reasoned interpretation. And that is a problem which needs to be understood.
John Azumah ¢â‚¬â„¢s argument is presented at a very abstract level. Just to take one example, he does not offer any evidence that the sale of captive women in jihad ¢â‚¬“ as the Islamic State is doing ¢â‚¬“ is against the precedents set by Muhammad, or against the rules of jihad in any of the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. I submit that he does not because he cannot. Such practices are not ¢â‚¬Å“eccentric ¢â‚¬ as he puts it, but they have been widely applied in historical jihad campaigns. Of course Muslims are not the only ones who have done such things, but the point is that such formerly mainstream Islamic warfare practices as selling slaves or beheading captives have been re-emerging for religious reasons: this is something the Islamic State ¢â‚¬â„¢s ideologues have been quite clear about.
John Azumah ¢â‚¬â„¢s solution is to argue that such groups do not have a true understanding of Islam as it has existed historically, and the correct response to jihadi terrorism is to inform Muslims of the correct understanding of their religion. This is patronising.
Finally, John Azumah seems to consider that as a ¢â‚¬Ëœgood protestant ¢â‚¬â„¢ I must be some kind of fundamentalist, and consequently I interpret Islam through that prism. I have already rejected and refuted this simplistic view (see here).
And yes, I do insist that Islam is a problem ¢â‚¬“ not the only problem in the world, but a problem all the same ¢â‚¬“ and that is something worth talking about.
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