Anti-Islamists vs Islam

Daniel Pipes writes about the Anti-Islamists Muslims �who wish to live modern lives, unencumbered by burqas, fatwas and violent visions of jihad�:

Although a TV journalist and personality, Manji - a practicing Muslim - brings real insight to her subject. "I appreciate that every faith has its share of literalists. Christians have their Evangelicals. Jews have the ultra-Orthodox. For God's sake, even Buddhists have fundamentalists. But what this book hammers home is that only in Islam is literalism mainstream.

I have a hard time imagining an �Anti-Islamist� version of Islam. Unlike other religions, virtually every nation with a sizable Muslim population has problems with violent fundamentalists who try to impose their dogma on the rest of the population. Fundamentalism is deeply embedded in Islam, historically, politically, and literally. The Q�uran is full of lines like:

Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah (a tax paid by the heathens)with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

Of course, the Christian Bible is also full of lines like:

Anyone who blasphemes the name of God must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.

So is violent fundamentalism and Islam inescapably intertwined? Yes � but so every other religion. Because it rests on faith, religion can spread by just one voluntary means: the willing self-abdication of its victim�s mind. Because religion is necessarily detached from reality, it is impossible to compromise or evaluate between two dogmas: one can only choose one or the other �on faith.� When an organized religion comes into conflict with a people who refuse to surrender their mind to it (usually because they have already done so to another faith), forceful conversion by military conquest is the only alternative. Historically, this is how every major organized religion came into power. (There are many peaceful minority religions and sects of course, but their non-violence is the reason why they remain minorities.)

Despite the bloodstained histories of all religions, Islam is the only religion (with the exception of the Marxist and green varieties) that remains violent on a large scale today. Understanding why requires a grasp of the philosophical development of the Western and Eastern worlds. In brief, the discovery of Aristotle by Thomas Aquinas provided the crucial influx of reason into the Western World following the reject of reason by the followers of Ahmed ibn Hanbal in eighth century Persia. From that point on, the Western world thrived and prospered while the Arab world descanted into the depths of fundamentalism, where it largely remains today. As it sank into obscurity, it posed little threat to the West. However, the rejection of reason by Kant and his followers led to the rise of Marxism, and its growing influence in both the West and then the East. Marxist ideology provided the foundation and the ammunition (both material and intellectual) for modern Islamic fundamentalism, and the oil revenues sustain it. Fundamentalist regimes like Iran were not only created with Soviet aid, but the 1979 revolution itself was largerly won with the help of Marxist groups. It was only the more persistent application of mass murder by Ayatollah �Islam is not the opiate of the masses� Khomeini that allowed him to implement his version of socialist slavery rather than the Soviet variety.

Written by David at October 6, 2003 09:00 PM | TrackBack