Islamism, not Islam is the Problem

Most of the attention, scholarship, and punditry in the United States given towards Islam and Muslims since 9-11 have focused upon problems with comparatively little attention toward solutions. Understandably motivated by a need to improve security and understand the enemy, American curiosity about Islam, Islamism, and militant Islamism continues to grow. Yet, comparatively American Muslims have offered few solutions except for the few rare voices of Muslim moderation (anti-Islamism) across America, Canada, and Europe.

At times there is only a binary choice in the public ether between the voices who say that “Islam is the problem” and the tired voices of the Islamists who provide endless apologetics, denial, victimization, and every deflection possible short of responsibility or actual ideological solutions for a counter-jihad and reformation. Certainly, the Islamists, no matter how peaceful, who look at the world through the lens of political Islam are at the core of the ideological problem. They knowingly and unknowingly feed the enemy’s central political construct of society—political Islam. Yet, we so need to separate political Islam (Islamism) from the spiritual faith of Islam as a faith. Is it easier said than done?

An anti-Islamist devout Muslim like myself - and so many others who believe we are in the majority - can only shout in the wilderness for so long, before there becomes a need to begin to address some of the most difficult but central questions, which many Muslims ignore either out of pride, self-righteousness, or impatience. Whether many pious Muslims acknowledge it or not, non-Muslims who believe that ‘the religion of Islam is the problem’ are growing in numbers. I can either dismiss their arguments as “Islamophobic” as so many do, including the Islamists, or I can begin to address some of the central issues raised positively in the spirit of understanding, logic, and most importantly in the spirit of American security.

Most should understand that strategically, identifying ‘Islam as the problem,’ immediately alienates upwards of one quarter of the world’s population and dismisses our most powerful weapon against the militant Islamists—the mantle of religion and the pulpit of moderate Muslims who can retake our faith from the Islamists. The majority voices in the middle, the non-Islamist and anti-Islamist Muslims who understand the problem, have to be on the frontlines. They cannot be on the frontlines in an ideological battle being waged, which demonizes the morality of the faith of Islam and its founder, the Prophet Mohammed. We cannot win this war only on the battlefield. Political Islam has a viral recurrence in the form of an infection which needs a Muslim counter-jihad in order to purge it. Thus, we cannot win this ideological war without the leadership of Muslim anti-Islamists. The radical and political ideologies of Islamism, Wahhabism, Salafism, Al Qaedism, Jihadism, and Caliphism, to name a few, cannot be defeated without anti-Islamist, anti-Wahhabi, anti-Salafist, anti-Al Qaedist, anti-Jihadist, and anti-Caliphist devout Muslims.

So often, attempts by anti-Islamist Muslims to claim that our faith has been hijacked or our faith has been twisted are dismissed by non-Muslims. They simply take common interpretations of Wahhabis and say rather that, ‘it is the anti-Islamist Muslim who is deluded and who is misrepresenting the faith of Islam”. They use the citations of the militants from our Holy Qur’an’s scripture and from many authentic and questionable Hadith (discussions of the Prophet Mohammed) to marginalize moderate Muslims and claim that they have no theological framework from which to claim legitimacy.

The question remains-- who or what defines Islam, and under what authority? Islam has no clergy and is represented only by a book, the Holy Qur’an (what Muslims believe in Arabic, is the communication from God to Muslims). Islam’s naysayers by accepting radical interpretations of scripture are thus handing the militants the mantle of religion with hardly the benefit of the doubt or patience toward long term opportunities for reform by anti-Islamist Muslims within the general Muslim population.

The process of theological renewal and interpretation in the light of modern day thought—ijtihad—as it is known in Islam is in many ways hundreds of years behind Western enlightenment today arrested around the 15th century. This process can either be facilitated by non-Muslims or hindered by the belief that it is impossible. There is quite a bit to be said for the value of a necessary critical facilitation (nudging) of Muslim reform (as opposed to blind uncritical apologetics). But there is also a fine line between useful criticism of Muslims and especially of political Islam and the less than helpful alienation of all Muslims through criticism of the faith of Islam in general. Most of the same arguments targeting Islam can similarly be made against Muslims and their interpretations while just not blaming Islam as a faith, which needs to be part of the solution.

Too nuanced for practicality? Not necessarily when our most critical allies within the Muslim faith are those that are strong enough to love their faith enough to wake-up and want to take it back from the Islamists and their barbarians like Al Qaeda.

Political Islam (Islamism), not Islam, is incompatible with Americanism and pluralism

Like most believers of any of the major world religions whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, I, as a Muslim believe that Islam carries the same messages of humanitarianism and compassion shared by the religions of the God of Abraham and deserves an equal place at the table of world religions and is not in conflict with our American Constitutional government. Some Muslims may behave, interpret, and express ideologies which are not from God but contrarily evil and from Satan, but they are still Muslim. I cannot deny that. We have no church to excommunicate them.

However, we also should remember that every God-fearing Muslim believes that the religion of Islam as a faith comes from God in the same way as Judaism and Christianity. The identification of ‘Islam as the problem’ is arguable from a pedantic standpoint since it is hard to disagree with the fact that “Islam is as Muslims do and say.” But academically, when dealing with the faith of one-quarter of the world, and with its history, a central morality of individual Islam (the personal character of most Muslims) has generally demonstrated synergy with Judaism and Christianity. It is just that in the past few centuries, political religious movements, which exploit the personal faith for political oppression and often fascism, have controlled the leadership.

It is important to be academic about this assessment and not assume that what appears to be the silence of the majority of Muslims equates to agreement with the Islamist leadership who exerts a stranglehold over the community. We are doing our national counterterrorism efforts and Muslims a disservice if we assume that the ‘lowest hanging fruit,’ which comprise all currently Islamist organizations (CAIR, MPAC, or ISNA - to name a few) and their proportionally limited membership speak for all American Muslims. Their silence on the need for reformation and the need for Muslims to lead an anti-Islamist effort from within our faith community represents their own Islamist agenda of the members and donors but does not represent the general Muslim population.

In debate, it can become easy to lose the focus of the argument when resorting to criticism based on identity rather than on ideology. For example, so many Islamists locally and nationally resort to attempting to demonize me as an individual rather than deal with my anti-Islamist ideas as a Muslim and as an American. Our Islamist enemy dreams about uniting all Muslims under one nation—the transnational Muslim ummah. To declare our ideological battle against Islam is to hand them the easiest tool toward that unification (ummah-tization) strategy for which they dream and to dismiss our most potent weapon against the jihadists—anti-Islamist Muslims who can lead a counter-jihad from within the Islamic community. Only anti-Islamists Muslims can de-ummahtize the Muslim community and articulate an Islam, which inspires morality but leaves national politics to the governments of our nations.

For many non-Muslims engaged in the debate to accept the fact that Islam is not the problem, it stands to reason that they must first feel that Islam as practiced and held by Muslims fits into the predominant moral framework of American spirituality and values of the God of Abraham (a Judeo-Christian-Islamic morality, if you will). This is evidenced by the moral behaviors of the vast majority of Muslims in America and around the world. This morality certainly comes from God and for Muslims the faith of Islam is the source of it no different than Judaism or Christianity is for Jews and Christians.

Now, bring political Islam into this mix, and one is left with many questions. Is Islam compatible with democracy? Can Muslims separate mosque and state? Can Muslims be anti-theocratic? Can Muslim behavior and thought today be consistent with modernity while so many current Muslim legal constructs enacted in the name of sharia law seem not to be? How do Muslims reconcile their history of an empire ruled by a Muslim Caliphate, an empire which had varying rules for its citizens based upon faith with today’s more pluralistic universal laws of American society blind to one faith? How do Muslims reconcile the plight of women’s rights in ‘Muslim’ societies with their faith and the West? Those are just a few of the questions so many thoughtful writers have tried to answer since 9-11.

Before embarking upon a discussion of any of those questions, which can fill texts, a more fundamental question remains concerning the central principles of any Muslim’s faith. Is the foundation of Islam as felt and practiced within each Muslim a moral one?

From a counterterrorism assessment, formulating a threat assessment of the ideologies at play are very necessary. Before blanketing the faith of Islam as a threat to Americanism (religious pluralism), Americans first need to be able to separate Islam from Islamism and Islam from what some Muslims do.

Americans will find that for most Muslims generally - as it is for Jews or Christians or any God fearing individual - the central defining principles of faith are not dictated by the specific interpretations of God’s laws (sharia for Muslims) or to any single one of the interpretations of various passages of the Qur’an peaceful or otherwise. As a Muslim, my faith as I see it and as it has been taught to me in its most devotional expression is simply-- my personal relationship with a moral God—the God of Abraham. The stronger and more personal is that relationship, the more pious an individual may be. Thus piety is not measured by others or by outward actions or expressed beliefs, but rather piety is dependent upon the intensity and purity of that internal relationship with God.

The essence of the nucleus of the primary cell of Islam as an organism of faith is a human being’s manifestations and choices for goodness over evil which includes love, honesty, compassion, empathy, courage, integrity, humility, character, behavior, self-control, creativity, discipline, and gratitude to name a few of the faith defining human principles most faiths share. When our families taught us about faith and God, most of the time was spent on these principles. To most Muslims, the countervailing ‘evil’ choices to these positive human characteristics come from Satan and not from God. The existence of evil and its acts only demonstrates that God has given humanity free will. Without the existence of evil, humans would not have choice or free will. Often evil will exploit religion to defeat that which is good.

It is this inherent human tendency toward good and away from evil, which is the central notion of Islam as it is for Judaism and Christianity. From this then arises a spiritual life with a deep personal relationship and communication with God as seen in all of the faiths recognizing the God of Abraham.

From this spirituality, this goodness, then arises the character, which an individual carries to life and to our theological texts and their derived interpretations. While the body of laws available today may not all contain a modernized interpretation, it can certainly be modernized if the Muslims doing the modernizing are of sound moral conviction and integrity and education. It is the corruption, tribalism, and ignorance of so many in the Muslim world, which has poisoned any moves towards enlightenment. But this conflict between good and evil is one, which will be won by the righteous when pious Muslims who fear God, and respect universal humanitarian principles are empowered to stand up to evil under the moral courage of the inspired principles of the God of Abraham.

My family always taught me that a Muslim will not miraculously find his or her character within the pages of the Qur’an or Hadith. But rather, a Muslim’s interpretation of our holy text is through the lens of one’s established moral character, which is developed on a personal human level from within the soul and conscience not a textual one.

Our own moral compass and its inherent principles are a lens for life which is produced in an early stage of youth and adolescence that sets the tone for how we interpret life and religion. While the details of religion can inspire and direct this compass, life’s core direction toward good is formed and maintained internally between an individual’s soul and God early on. Suicide bombers, jihadists, and other militant Islamists are evil at their core and just turn to the language of Islam found in the Qur’an or the Hadith to justify their barbarism, coercion, and doctrine of the ends justifying the means and of political Islam. Granted, this is much easier to do with the ready availability around the world of radical and medieval interpretations so desperately in need of 21st Century enlightened pluralistic re-interpretations.

Accepting this common Muslim formulation of faith is vital to marginalizing the militancy of current radicalized interpretations most of which are of Salafist derivation and rather expressing a core positively guiding morality for the vast majority of Muslims. It will take Muslims who love their faith to articulate a modern Islam to create an etho, which accepts the radical interpretation as immoral.

Certainly, the ubiquitous jihadist and Caliphist interpretations of Islamic literature and jurisprudence are in need of an overwhelming alternative narrative to the fundamentalist interpretation, which so often dominates the airwaves. We must believe that the predominant Muslim morality as derived from God and exemplified in the life of the Prophet Mohammed and in the vast majority of Muslims is one of good, one of the Golden Rule, of compassion, and of humility.

Once we can accept that most Muslims are moral and believe in a faith with an inviolable moral nucleus, than we can find hope that the seeds of reformation of formal textual interpretations will be planted for freedom and liberty, for free will over coercion, over theocracy and over political Islam.

If most Muslims were immoral, the world would have perished a long time ago. It is Islamism, which deserves our combined energies in critique and ideological deconstruction. Muslims, however, who are anti-Islamist and practicing a modern moral Islam are the key to its defeat.

I beg to differ. Islam is the ideology. If one believes in the ideology then one can claim to be devout. Otherwise he is a cafeteria Muslim, which I accept there are many, just as there are many cafeteria catholics who pick and chose the parts they like about their religion and reject what they do not. The problem is that you can strip all these cafeteria Muslims and catholics but the institutions i.e. the ideologies remain.

Dr. Jasser wants to have his cake and eat it too.

Also, islam unlike judaism and christianity have no hierarchical structures where there is one individual who could proclaim ex cathedra changes in doctrine. The reformation and Renaissance were able to work because the changes in doctrine were forced from below but proclaimed from the top. This allowed the eventual divorce of secular society from the authority of the church and a rather different apporach to religion. Just as you cannot divorce communists from communist doctrine or nazis from nazi doctrine, you cannot divorce Ilsamists from Islam. We still live with communism and communists to this day because the ideology was not defeated and completely destroyed, leaving open the excuse that the problem was with the leaders rather than the doctrine. Naziism on the other hand, was for all practical purposes destroyed when Germany was left a pile of rubble to rub in the idea that they followed a failed and utterly destructive ideology. I realize thayt Dr. Jasser has hopes for reformation and change from "moderates" like him. Unfortunately the truly devout cannot but consider him an apostate. And that even "moderate" Muslims try to avoid being accused of being.

This article is classic al-tarqayya/kitman. Mr. Muslim makes statements like the following:
“But academically, when dealing with the faith of one-quarter of the world, and with its history, a central morality of individual Islam (the personal character of most Muslims) has generally demonstrated synergy with Judaism and Christianity. It is just that in the past few centuries, political religious movements, which exploit the personal faith for political oppression and often fascism, have controlled the leadership.”

I must call B*llSh*t! Perhaps, Bull Shiite would be more apropos.

Just what in Islam has “generally exhibited synergy with Judaism and Christianity”? Inquiring minds want to know.
Neck cutting won’t cut it, so to speak.

Now, for that Muslims:
“It is just that in the past few centuries, political religious movements, which exploit the personal faith for political oppression and often fascism, have controlled the leadership”.

Note that the above is where MuslimMan admits that for centuries the leadership of Islam has used their co-religionists for “ - political oppression and often fascism”.

He thus admits that Islam IS antithetical to, and irreconcilable with, America.

Given the Islamic world’s history of butcheries, and mindless and savage killing of the weak/defenseless, MuslimMan must think American are as simple minded a collection of whackos as his own people are.

More than anything else, to become accepted, Muslims must be the first, loudest, and strongest in condemning other Muslims whose behavior is unacceptable to non-Muslims.

This is a rule that applies to any group that wants to be accepted in a greater, or diverse society. Because they are judged not by their wisest, most honorable, and respectable members; but by their basest, most criminal, and violent members.

The most respected people in society are those who are first in turning over to the law, and condemning offenders not just among their peers, but even from their own family. They weep when their children violate the law and the customs of others, but they encourage punishment, and at least do not stand in its way.

And likewise they raise their children to know this. Though they love them deeply, they let them know that if they transgress, their own parents will be the first to tell the authorities, even if those authorities are not of their own religion, or ethnic group.

They let them know that the religion and people with whom they identify will give them nothing beyond what they earn. That membership may have its benefits, but it also has its responsibilities.

If Muslims were to fully commit to this, their path in our society would be eased, they would have full participation in our public life, and they would be looked at with respect and esteem.

But as they have failed to do this as a people, and seek to excuse, rationalize, and conceal their villains, while cursing those oppressed as either deserving of villainy or sinful, they should expect the disdain and distrust of society as a whole.

And they deserve nothing better. And they may get far worse in the future. For that is the path of destruction.

If Muslims bought into the Salafist/Wahhabist schoolls of thought. And given the fact that there are 1.3-1.5 BILLION Muslims in the world wouldn’t you expect to find significantly more incidences of Islamic terror?

The radical loser (Long Read)
Der Spiegel ^ | 1/12/05 | Hans Magnus Enzensberger
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1694568/posts

(snip)

There is also no mistaking other similarities, such as the fixation with written authorities. The place of Marx and Lenin is taken by the Koran, references are made not to Gramsci but to Sayyid Qutb. Instead of the international proletariat, it takes as its revolutionary subject the Umma, and as its avant-garde and self-appointed representative of the masses it takes not The Party but the widely branching conspiratorial network of Islamist fighters. Although the movement can draw on older rhetorical forms which to outsiders may sound high-flown or big-mouthed, it owes many of its idées fixes to its Communist enemy: history obeys rigid laws, victory is inevitable, deviationists and traitors are to be exposed and then, in fine Leninist tradition, bombarded with ritual insults.

The movement’s list of favourite foes is also short on surprises: America, the decadent West, international capital, Zionism. The list is completed by the unbelievers, that is to say the remaining 5.2 billion people on the planet. Not forgetting apostate Muslims who may be found among the Shiites, Ibadhis, Alawites, Zaidites, Ahmadiyyas, Wahhabis, Druze, Sufis, Kharijites, Ishmaelites or other religious communities.

(snip)

Contrary to what the West appears to believe, the destructive energy of Islamist actions is directed mainly against Muslims. This is not a tactical error, not a case of “collateral damage”. In Algeria alone, Islamist terror has cost the lives of at least 50,000 fellow Algerians. Other sources speak of as many as 150,000 murders, although the military and the secret services were also involved. In Iraq and Afghanistan, too, the number of Muslim victims far outstrips the death toll among foreigners. Furthermore, terrorism has been highly detrimental not only to the image of Islam but also to the living conditions of Muslims around the world.

The Islamists are as unconcerned about this as the Nazis were about the downfall of Germany. As the avant-garde of death, they have no regard for the lives of their fellow believers. In the eyes of the Islamists, the fact that most Muslims have no desire to blow themselves and others sky high only goes to show that they deserve no better than to be liquidated themselves. After all, the aim of the radical loser is to make as many other people into losers as possible. As the Islamists see it, the fact that they are in the minority can only be because they are the chosen few.

Experts around the world are not the only ones wondering how the Islamist movement has been able to recruit so many activists with its promises, far outdoing its secular rivals. No clear answer is in sight. All that is clear is that there must be explanations in the history of the Arab civilization that brought forth the world religion of Islam. This civilization reached its apogee at the time of the Caliphate. At this time, it was far superior to Europe in military, economic and cultural terms. The Arab world views this period with misty-eyed nostalgia; even today, 800 years later, it plays a central role in the consciousness of the region. In the intervening period, the power, the prestige, the cultural and economic weight of the Arab world has been in continual decline. Such an unparalleled demise is a puzzle and a sore point, generating an acute sense of loss. The Indian-born Muslim poet Hussain Hali (1837-1914) expressed this in his epic poem The Ebb and Flow of Islam:

(snip)

Suicide bombers, jihadists, and other militant Islamists are evil at their core and just turn to the language of Islam found in the Qur’an or the Hadith to justify their barbarism, coercion, and doctrine of the ends justifying the means and of political Islam.
If the 'language of Islam' found in the texts that are the foundation of their religion is not Islam, what is? The instructions to dominate the world by death and terror are THERE, and are therefore holy and unassailable.
So the Koran isn't Islam?
Obedience to the 'language of Islam' isn't Islam?
Look- the classic Arab tactic of deceit and double-talk isn't working any more. The WORLD has seen Islam's true face, and all the obfuscating talk about 'interpretation' being the real problem is laughable. Interpreting what? The language of the Islamic religon- but the religion isn't the problem? If the 'language' of murder and terror wasn't a part of Islam, how could the 'Islamists' use it to justify anything? It's THERE, in words Muslims will not alter or deny. In words Muslims hold HOLY! Islam IS the enemy. It has always been- and still is- an evil death cult and it must be erased from mankind.
Thanks for the entertainment, really!

In 70 A.D., Caesar Titus had a problem: The Jews who lived in his subject state of Israel were becoming rebellious. Again. You see, ancient Judiasm, much like modern Islam, was a religion of earthly dominance...one which believed in a military messiah establishing rule in the middle east just as fervently as modern Islam believes that it should spread the tentacles of its perverse faith to all lands by the sword. So Titus, correctly having identified the problem as a religious one (and not an economic or political one) ordered the Second Temple burned, destroyed all surroundings, and packed the soil with salt to prevent anything from growing and the return of the Jews. The state was renamed 'Palestine' (after the Philistines) to obliterate the Jew in Judea or the Israelite in Israel. Hadrian renamed Jerusalem 'Aelia Capitolina' after the defeat of Bar Kochba in 135 CE. Only the gods of Rome were to rule the ravaged land and Jerusalem's holy status was to be no more for the Jews (the Hebrews). ...and you know what? It worked. It's been 2000 years since anyone associated with Judiasm has launched an unprovoked military offensive. This single act - burning the temple to the ground and destroying the records contained within - forever annhilated the concept that a military messiah would come to Jerusalem and establish a free Jewish state from Jewish theology. Such a simple problem. Such a simple solution. One that we should apply, but despite our strength one which we are too cowardly to apply.

...for if ten years from now all of Islam saw that their faith in "Allah" was about as credible as having faith in the easter bunny, the world would no longer have a terrorist problem.

Islam is in fact the problem, and its transformation will not occur until it's theology is discredited.

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