Islamic Exceptionalism

I am a critic of Islam and frequently hear this complaint: Why do some non-Muslims find it acceptable to criticize Christianity, Judaism, etc. but not Islam?

The answer is: They resent anyone who points out the ideological incompatibility between Islam and the West that could cause a religious war. They are more afraid of the prospect of open warfare than they are of the slight chance of being killed by a Muslim terrorist. So they try to convince themselves that the terrorists are ordinary criminals.

Militant Muslims smell this fear and run with it. “America is at war with Islam” is their first response to any criticism of Islam and to any attempt by non-Muslims to defend themselves militarily against Muslim aggression. They label non-Muslim critics as Muslim bashers and Islamophobes, and Muslims who want ideological reform are threatened with charges of apostasy.

Honest critical analysis of the ideological chasm between Islam and the West is probably the surest way to avoid the religious war that one wing of militant Islam is trying to provoke. Meekly avoiding verbal confrontation is the surest way to encourage Islamic militants in their supremacist aggression.

There are Muslims who want to reinterpret aggressive passages in the Koran that encourage violence against unbelievers. We can’t support these Muslims without acknowledging that such verses exist and are widely interpreted as prescriptions for action today, not mere accounts of history in the Arabian Peninsula.

There are Muslims and non-Muslims who want this conversation stopped. Their goal is to sell an image of Islam as a religion of peace without changing the parts of Islam that require a permanent state of war between Muslims and unbelievers. They want any criticism of Islam to be denounced as negative stereotyping and prosecuted as defamation of religion and hate speech. At the urging of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the United Nations General Assembly has joined this effort to curtail free speech. The trial of Geert Wilders in Holland is the prototype for silencing critics of Islam.

If this critical conversation is made illegal, the opportunity for Islamic reform disappears and the likelihood of religious war increases.

Three Narratives

There are three different views of what is happening between Islam and the West.

The official view of most Western and Islamic governments (Iran, Turkey, Hamas, Hizballah and Sudan excepted) is that Islam and the West are integrating, but some Muslim criminals are causing problems.

The majority of Muslims who live in the West believe that they have integrated but are being persecuted by non-Muslim bigots for no good reason.

The third view is held by Muslims and Westerners who believe that what is happening is a clash of incompatible civilizations which will result in one of two possible futures. Either (a) One of those civilizations will change fundamentally or (b) They will both agree to drop the effort to integrate.

Since 9/11, I have slowly abandoned the first view and adopted the third. This change in my attitude was brought about by learning the basics of Islamic theology and law and correlating that information with the daily news.

Daniel Pipes articulates one version of the third view:

To borrow a computer term, if Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden, and Nidal Hasan represent Islamism 1.0, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (the prime minister of Turkey), Tariq Ramadan (a Swiss intellectual), and Keith Ellison (a U.S. congressman) represent Islamism 2.0. The former kill more people but the latter pose a greater threat to Western civilization.

http://www.danielpipes.org/7967/keith-ellison-where-are-you


Ellison replies with the second view:

I think that it is a paranoid and conspiratorial point of view and that it is absolutely devoid of any factual support. And that it should not be considered a serious observation.

Here is the thing: I believe in democracy. I believe conflict in society should be resolved through election. I believe in the rights of women and minorities. I believe in equality in front of the law for all people. These are not the views of an extremist. I believe in religious tolerance. I support interfaith dialogue everywhere. I support Israel. I support the Palestinian people and I support their aspiration for a state. I support Israel's aspiration to live in peace and security but side-by-side with that state. So Daniel Pipes's point of view is simply not accurate.

http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/jan10_ellison

Here is the rub. If Ellison believes in equality in front of the law for all people, he opposes Islamic law which has many restrictions on the rights of non-Muslims. Many who call themselves Muslim say they do not want to live under Islamic law. In what sense are such people Muslims? Are their personal opinions relevant when discussing Islam?

As for the other beliefs Rep. Ellison espouses, he does not explain which version of these beliefs he supports—the Islamic one or the Western one. They are quite different. For example, women have one list of rights in Islam, a different list in liberal democracies. Which list is he supporting?

Another quote from Ellison:

“There is nothing un-American about Islam. The best ideals of America are the best ideals of Islam," said Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, who in 2006 became the first Muslim to be elected to Congress.

The Guardian, 8/26/08, reporting on the Muslim Caucus at the Democratic National Convention.

This is the official view of the American government, as articulated by President Obama in Cairo, and I have come to believe it is factually wrong mainly for denying Islamic attitudes and laws regarding non-Muslims throughout history and presently. However, if I were a Muslim living in a non-Muslim country, this is exactly what I would want non-Muslims to believe—Islam is not a competitor civilization, just another component of liberal democracy. Muslims are immigrants, not colonizers. I would also label anyone who disagreed as paranoid--Islamophobic and racist too.

The view that there is nothing un-American about Islam, a fundamental tenet of cultural relativism, is obviously untrue. It is illegal, according to Islamic law, for Americans to immigrate to Saudi Arabia and exercise the civil rights they enjoy in America. It is equally illegal for Muslims to immigrate to America and exercise the legal rights they have under Islamic law. The establishment of Islamic law has been the goal of every Islamic immigrant community in history, and the American Muslim community is no exception.

Allen West, a candidate for U.S. Congress from Florida’s 22nd District, frames the issue this way when answering those who say that violent jihadists are twisting or distorting Islam:

You want to dig up Charles Martel and ask him why him why he was fighting the Muslim army at the Battle of Tours in 732? You want to ask the Venetian fleet at Lepanto why they were fighting a Muslim fleet in 1571? You want to ask ... the Germanic and Austrian knights why they were fighting at the gates of Vienna in 1683? You want to ask people what happened at Constantinople and why today it is called Istanbul because they lost that fight in 1453? ...

Until you get principled leadership in the United States of America that is willing to say that, we will continue to chase our tail, because we will never clearly define who this enemy is, and then understand their goals and objectives--which (are) on any jihadist website--and then come up with the right (and) proper objectives to not only secure our Republic but secure Western civilization.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkGQmCZjJ0k&feature=player_embedded

There are very good strategic reasons why a political leader in the West might not want to endorse the third view, even if he believes it. But the time is coming when the denial of this view will no longer be politically viable. Florida’s 22nd District voters may choose to point out the Emperor’s lack of clothing--there is abviously something very un-American about Islam.

Islamic law in America

The American people and the government officials charged with national security are deeply divided on the question of how to deal with the American Muslim community, especially since Ft. Hood. It's clear that we need some way to distinguish between Muslims who are not a threat and those who are. What follows is one possible step in that direction.

If we put more effort into prosecuting criminal activities such as sedition and incitement to violence (as in the Rushdie fatwa) that are based in Islamic law, we may be able to identify some of our enemies in the Islamic community. Before they shoot someone or blow something up.

All serious, committed and informed Islamists work to establish some form of Islamic law as the dominant law of the land wherever they live. This is not a matter of legal theory or an Islamist wish for some distant future. This describes a growing reality in the world now.

We can safely ignore, in the context of this issue, the Westernized or Muslim-in-name-only Muslims who are unaware of the thrust and content of Islamic law. If and when these Westernized or unobservant Muslims object to the illegal aspects of Islamic law, they will be told by the Islamic legal experts what the law says and then will either obey or be declared apostate. If they do not object to the illegal aspects of their religion, they are irrelevant.

Under any form of Islamic law, non-Muslims do not have political rights that are equal to those of Muslims. Islamic law governs non-Muslims as well as Muslims in any society dominated by Muslims. It demands the political subjugation of non-Muslims by Muslims and sets as Islam’s goal the overthrow of all infidel governments, by force if necessary (see the European Court of Human Rights case, Refah v. Turkey).

Therefore, every advance of Islamic law is a defeat for non-Muslims.

Our nation can continue to provide equality before the law to all citizens or it can allow Islamic law. It cannot do both. Islamic law cannot be a component of our democracy—it is a competitor, an alternative to our way of structuring society.

Given this deep incompatibility, Islamic immigration to America should be seen as what it is—colonization by a competitor civilization—and stopped. Osama bin Laden is correct and President Obama is wrong on this point—one must either choose to be loyal to traditional Islam or to America as it now exists. They are mutually exclusive choices.

Non-Muslim Americans must choose whether or not to allow an Islamic colony to grow in America—a colony whose leaders are not interested in assimilation, but in a separate and parallel society ruled by Islamic law.

Muslims could at any time purge their theology of its incompatible elements, but until then we should regard Islam as a competitor, not as a component of our society.

The Source of Authority in Government

Over time, we have tried many sources of authority for governing ourselves. The desire for legitimate authority has been intensified by the expanding need for government. One driver behind this need is the constantly rising population density we create. So far in our history, we have found that the denser the population, the greater the need is for more intrusive government. Proponents of limited government and individual liberties have struggled in vain against this equation.

Tribal consensus, divine right of kings, rule by priests and rule by the strongest and most murderous were all tried and still are used. Secular government through widely dispersed power sharing is the latest and most successful style to appear. But belief in the older sources of authority has not gone quietly.

Much of the present struggle is caused by Muslims who do not want secular authority to dominate religious authority. They correctly see the success of secular authority as the defeat of the political aspect of Islam. The struggle within Islam and between Islam and the West revolves around this issue, made more virulent by Muslim dreams of once more dominating a lost empire through cultural and religious supremacy.

The attempt to make Islamic law the highest law everywhere is being promoted by two strategies. The more noticeable strategy is physical attack. The more subtle one is carried out through demographics and ideological intimidation of infidels and uncommitted Muslims. The proponents of each strategy want to lead the effort and eliminate their Islamic competitors, but will always close ranks against the infidel and the apostate.

This effort to re-place religious authority at the top is causing an echo effect in the West by drawing attention to the recent reduction of religious authority in the West. Westerners who prefer more religious authority in government see the conflict as an extension of the historical struggle between two irreconcilable religious authorities—a clash of civilizations—in addition to the larger struggle between religious and secular authority.

Some possible outcomes of this high-stakes struggle:

--Islamic law becomes much more dominant in the Muslim-dominated parts of the world.
--Jewish and Christian laws become much more dominant in the West.
--Religious law of all kinds continues to decline in importance in relation to secular law.
--One version of religious law becomes dominant in the world.

Two Models of the Future

The manner we choose to describe the war we are fighting in Afghanistan depends on which view of the future we have. If we agree with Samuel Huntington that the world is becoming more and more defined by cultural, religious and ethnic differences, we define the war as part of a conflict between the Islamic and Western civilizations.
If we agree with Francis Fukuyama that liberal democracy is turning the world into one civilization, the war is just a bump in that road. The United Nations is the totem of Fukuyama’s future, the Organization of the Islamic Conference is a symbol of Huntington’s.

People tend to choose one of those frames of reference and place inside it facts that make sense within that frame. So have I. My personal preference is to keep the present regime of nation states and cultural identities and to minimize supranational governmental authority.

In American political terms, the Right agrees with Huntington more than the Left, religious people agree with Huntington more than secular people. This separation also exists among Muslims. The leaders of the global jihad see a threat to traditional Islam from the Western led global economy because it is infused with un-Islamic values. They claim that Islamic culture is the superior model for the world. Muslims who have no desire to live under present Islamic law disagree.

Those who agree with Fukuyama see the mass emigration from the second and third world nations to the first world nations as a good thing, those who agree with Huntington’s clash of civilizations model see problems ahead for Muslims in Western countries. Attempts to create a synthesis of Islamic values and the values of liberal democracy have not shown much success. The conflicts surrounding the interpretation of free speech rights in Europe are an example of this failure.

Huntington’s model has been quite accurate since its appearance in 1993 at predicting events, Fukuyama’s is less so. While the success of Barack Obama fits Fukuyama’s predictions, larger events are overwhelming that trend. The culture-flattening effects of the global economy push us toward one civilization, but in ways that Huntington described as relevant but shallow. He agreed that the Davos Culture is important, but asked how many people share it. It is an elite culture with shallow roots--one tenth of one percent to maybe one percent of the world population outside the West.

The fact that Americans now eat falafel and Arabs drink Cokes is sometimes offered as an example of the emergence of one civilization. Huntington described this as an irrelevant and insignificant fact because it does not change any conflicting cultural values. Where conflicting religious values collide, interfaith efforts show little success.

If Huntington’s predictions continue to come true, the more extreme versions of multicultural coexistence, and especially the idea of cultural relativism, will not succeed. Nations will preserve a distinct cultural identity provided by the dominant or majority culture of each nation and some inter-civilizational conflicts will be accepted as irreconcilable. I believe the conflict between our Western civilization and the Islamic civilization is one of these and separation is the answer. Those who prefer to live under Islamic law should live in Islamic countries because Western liberal democracies cannot accommodate them. Muslims who choose to live in the West and American citizens who choose Islam will have to accept the implications of this fact. Being Muslim in America does not include the option to bring Islamic law to America because the Constitution and Islamic law are irreconcilable.

President Obama was wrong when he said America is now an Islamic nation. It never can be.

Public Opinions

Most adult Americans have an opinion about the connection between Islam and the attacks by Muslims that have been carried out against Americans in America over the last several years.

The majority opinion, among Muslim and non-Muslim Americans, is that these attacks have been carried out by criminals who all just happen to be Muslim. These Americans, including President Obama, believe that the attacks have no source in Islam and should be treated as criminal actions.

Politically active members of this group believe that the motivation for the attacks comes primarily from American foreign policy, not religious dogma. The attackers are viewed as nationalists defending their countries against invasion by America. They conclude that if America were to remove all military presence from the Middle East and stop supporting Israel, the attacks would end.

The members of this majority are often self-described as ignorant of Islamic dogma and history while fearful of Islam’s militancy and sheer size.

The minority opinion is that there is a religious element in the attacks in addition to the criminal and political elements. (The attackers generally claim religious motivation but these claims are ignored, with increasing difficulty, by the majority opinion holders.) This group sees the conflict in the context of 1400 years of conflict between Islam and Judaism and Christianity.

This group is divided into at least two sub-groups. One of these sub-groups sees Islam as implacably hostile and indivisible, monolithic and not capable of reform. These people say we are in a religious war against all of Islam.

A second sub-group sees the enemy differently and thinks there may be some way to avoid an all out religious war. These people (including me) say that the attackers are attempting to start a religious war in the name of Islam—a war most Muslims do not presently support.

We say the attackers and their supporters are composed of specific, ideologically identifiable parts of the umma (the world-wide membership of Islam) that can be separated from the majority of the umma and fought on ideological grounds. We say that not all Muslims are willing to die for the Salafist interpretation of Islamic law that the attackers cite and that we non-Muslims can create conditions that could identify the members of these two parts of the umma. (Physical attack is not the only threat from Islam. The Islamist political threat from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Organization of the Islamic Conference is different in strategy, though not in goals, and calls for a political solution.)

The first step in creating this identification of our enemies within Islam is to recognize that they all subscribe to the Salafist interpretation of Islamic law and that actions taken in America to promote the Salafist interpretation are seditious and incitements to violence. The second step is to start prosecuting violators of these American laws, removing the sheep skins from the Muslim wolves.

We must learn how to identify our Islamic enemies before they blow things up and shoot people, not afterward. We have been playing defense against an enemy we cannot see. We must go on offense. The alternative is to live for the foreseeable future as we do now--in a defensive posture, waiting for the next attack.

We can do better.