As a young scholar, I am amazed at how easily such a question can be posed towards Islam and Muslims, without second thought – as if it is the most normal and banal question that one can ask – indeed, many of my close friends and associates have asked me this question, in the past. But there is one simple problem with that question: It is a deeply racist, divisive and intolerant question. By asking this very question, we are putting Islam in an ‘exceptional’ category, and by extension, also putting Muslims in a special ( not elevated) but rather a demoted place, where their actions, ideas and thoughts cannot be understood by ‘normal’ processes, and somehow we need special tools to ‘figure out’ what is going on in their minds. This question also builds on deeply held Orientalist assumptions of what the ‘Muslims’ think or feel[i].
In a deeply ironic way, this question is anti-enlightenment, in that it presupposes our knowledge of others, without even investigating the phenomenon. It is just poor journalism. Here, I am specifically referring to the recent ‘debate’ started by Foreign Policy on ‘Islam is a religion of violence or peace’ and the particular stance of Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Ali starts off her article by pointing out that since 9/11 and the “Global War on Terror,” the violent strain of Islam appears to have metastasized.” She further argues that between the three categories of Muslims – will determine the future of Islam. One wonders how she came up with this categorization – is she an expert on Islam, or Shari’ah or Muslim societies? The answer to each one is no. While she pretends to offer an analytical view, it is nothing but her own imaginary constructs that guide her, in her analysis. The fact that a publication such as Foreign Policy chooses to highlight her arguments over other critical and scholarly voices such as those of Talal Asad, Abdullahi An’naim and dozens of similar scholars and activists shows either a complete disregard for credible scholarship or a bias towards sensationalism. In any case, this debate is not framed respectfully or appropriately.
Speaking of violence and the impact of ideologies in perpetuating it, is it not true that the GWOT de-stabilized the region we know as Iraq and also upset the geopolitical configuration of the region? Why are we not asking whether American militarism is justified or not? Can we ask whether ‘democratization’ processes have been violent, because indeed the GWOT and other attempts at bringing democracy to the Middle East have been extremely violent processes that have resulted in deaths of over 1.3 million deaths. A report by Physicians for Social Responsibility points out that “This investigation comes to the conclusion that the war has, directly or indirectly, killed around 1 million people in Iraq, 220,000 in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan, i.e. a total of around 1.3 million. Not included in this figure are further war zones such as Yemen. The figure is approximately 10 times greater than that of which the public, experts and decision makers are aware of and propagated by the media and major NGOs[ii].” These are credible numbers that actually point to the violence that has been caused in the name of spreading ‘peace’. So, can we ask whether our ‘values’ of promoting peace are violent? Can we ask whether ‘democracy’ is violent? Of course, any contrary evidence is brushed off by Ali, who seeks to look only in one direction – that which only proves her point.
What such narratives and the entire discourse of ‘Islam is violent’ creates is a ghettoization of Muslims. While I think there is virtue in debating the merits and de-merits of Shari’ah law or other related aspects, that impact values such as human rights and equal treatment of women, there is very little benefit to arguing for whether we should even consider Islam a legitimate religion – and this is the logical conclusion that Ms.Ali and others such as her reach. When she concludes by saying that we must not only focus on the violent extremism, but also the “We need to confront the nonviolent preaching of sharia and martyrdom that precedes all acts of jihad,’ she is taking her claims too far. There is real danger in this discourse, in that it marginalizes, stigmatizes Muslims and their religion and we are already seeing the negative repercussions of this – Islamophobia, hatred and bigotry.
The shooting of three Muslims in Chapel Hill,N.C., the burning of the Sikh Gurdwara in Wisconsin and several others incidents point to the rising hatred and violence against Muslims and those who look like them. As Farhana Khera, Executive Director of Muslim Advocates points out in her OpEd in Washington Post, “American Muslims experience prejudice far more than they report to authorities. When asked anonymously in a 2011 Pew poll if they had been threatened or attacked in the past year, 6 percent Muslims said they had. Given that Muslims population is about 2.6 million of the population, Pew polls responses suggest that about 156,000 Muslims were victims of hate crimes[iii].” Ms.Khera further goes on to say that Justice Department believes that many of these crimes are not reported because victims believe the police will not or cannot do anything about it. The ‘real’ problems that Muslims face in the world are violence, bigotry and hatred, from those outside their faith community and also in many cases, from within. This is the truth that many reports and scholarly analyses showcase. That is not in dispute. To the extent that this is a matter of ‘interpretation’ of texts, Ms. Ali is right. But to somehow link this violence to the entire belief structure of Islam is a logical fallacy that even someone familiar with basic tenets of Islam would not make.
As Noam Chomsky suggests in his essay ‘The Responsibility of intellectuals’ political analysis should be about looking for motives behind actions – and this analysis should go both ways – looking at actions and words of ‘others’ as well as our own[iv]. And to somehow assume that ‘we’ are always pure, clean and on the high moral ground is to be delusional. Democracy promotion, for instance has been deeply violent process that has cost millions of innocent lives. And ‘we’ are responsible for it. He further points out that creating an ‘open society’ and a ‘free’ one seems to have become a mantra, a dogmatic assumption that is not often challenged. He suggests that “If it is necessary to approach genocide in Vietnam to achieve this objective, than this is the price we must pay in defense of freedom and the rights of man.” This is the logic that Ms.Ali seems to be following.
Ayaan Hirshi Ali’s claims are nothing but screed and propaganda – aimed at provocation and incitement- but doesn’t meet the basic criterion of responsible journalism. It is peddling opinion as facts and beliefs as ‘truth.’ To call it scholarship would be an insult to those who practice it. The mark of any genuine scholarship or journalism is to look for ‘complicating evidence’ –stuff that challenges our assumptions and beliefs, and in this area, her entire argument falls flat. She is as dogmatic as the Taliban, and that is the real danger. We are dealing with a demagogue here, not an analyst.
[i] A more detailed account of some of these ideas are in Carl Ernst’s Following Muhammad. http://i-epistemology.net/v1/attachments/847_Ajiss21-3%20-%20Book%20Reviews%20-%20Rethinking%20Islam%20in%20the%20Contemporary%20World.pdf
[ii] Body Count, Physicians for Social Responsibility. March 2015 accessible at http://www.ippnw.de/commonFiles/pdfs/Frieden/Body_Count_first_international_edition_2015_final.pdf
[iii] Khera, F. Its hard to prove any hate crime. But for Muslim victims, its especially hard. The Washington Post. Feb 17, 2015
[iv] Chomsky, N. The responsibility of intellectuals. Accessible at http://chomsky.info/19670223/
