FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 756 17 January 18 JIHAD & THE NEW ATHEISM

IS ISLAM A RELIGION OF VIOLENCE? THE NEW ATHEISTS SAY SO. A NEW BOOK REFUTES THEM BUT PROBLEMS REMAIN.
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‘Do you believe Islam is a religion of violence?’ a Somali engineer asked me. My reply was succinct but I might have added: ‘Read this book!’ Meaning Mohammad Hassan Khalil’s Jihad, Radicalism and the New Atheism. A thoughtful work, grappling not with atheism – the post-Christian West laps that up – but with that haunting, topical word: jihad.

Jihad, as embedded in Qur’an and hadiths, is the reason why atheists Sam Harris, Ayan Hirsi Ali and Richard Dawkins claim Islam is intrinsically bound up with terrorist deeds like 9/11, suicide bombing, ISIS and so on. Khalil’s strategy is to point out flaws in the atheists’ arguments, e.g. their limited knowledge of sacred texts. Also, he produces an impressive array of Muslim scholars and citations condemning Islamist terrorism. Still, it is a bit peculiar when anti-terrorist fatwas against Bin Laden and ISIS emanate from official Saudi ulama like Grand Mufti Abdulaziz al-Shaykh. Because the Saudi-Wahhabi version of Islam is behind much worldwide mischief. A tad insincere? Orders from the House of Saud? (They largely own the scholars.) Maybe both.

Likewise, previous Grand Mufti Bin Baz’s advocacy of peace between Palestinians and Israelis at Oslo followed a Saudi foreign policy shift. (Bin Laden was incensed and threatened jihad against the regime.) Khalil reports an adversarial exchange between Bin Baz and Pope-like Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The latter, Khalil contends, argued that ‘conquest-driven, aggressive jihad’ is out of date. Interesting but why then did al-Qaradawi once boast on TV that Muslims will one day conquer old Rome, the priest’s birthplace? Sounds jolly aggressive to me…

The distinction between defensive and aggressive jihad is real and the book discusses it well. However, when you read that Bin Laden considered his war on America as ‘defensive’, you suspect: is the dispute really about words? Calling the obliteration of the Twin Towers with their innocent civilians a ‘protective’ act seems illusory. Self-defence is good for PR, being the only justified cause for war in international law and so fostering a psychic sense of rage at Muslim victimhood. Hence the ISIS butchers pretended to fight ‘defensively’. Why not candidly recognise the Islamic case for aggressive jihad? Undeniably, not all the wars fought or commanded by Prophet Muhammad in Arabia were merely defensive. A view championed, amongst others, by Egyptian Islamist thinker and ‘martyr’ Sayyed Qutb. I agree with him.

The book also debates the status of civilians, or non-combatants, during jihad. Limitations on targeting them exist. They were asserted even by that fountainhead of radicalism, the medieval scholar ibn Taymiyya, ‘unless they actually fight with words’. I wonder though whether the modern, humanitarian concept of non-combatant immunity can be projected back into a past with different mores. When Alexander the Great after a long siege conquered Tyre all the men, fighters or not, were slaughtered. Women and children were spared but sold into slavery. Similarly, when a double-dealing Hebrew tribe which had broken a treaty surrendered to the Prophet after siege, men were executed and the women and children enslaved. Tough.

The now defunct Raqqa Caliphate is notorious for reviving slavery, particularly regarding captured Yazidi women. (A terrorist looked forward to purchasing Michelle Obama on the local slave market!) Khalil usefully observes how ISIS relied on an apocalyptic hadith about signs of Judgment Day. The influential Sufi Sheikh al-Yaqoubi, with whom I corresponded, blasted jihadis on that issue. Less weight with most Muslims will have the authority of feminist academic Kecia Ali... But the matter of slavery is tricky. Can sharia forbid a practice the Prophet permitted and which lasted in some Muslim countries until the last century? From a legal viewpoint, can what was once licit be made illicit? Even al-Yacoubi hedges about his condemnation with the telling phrase ‘without justification’. Does he perhaps imply that there could be a legal justification for slavery?

New atheism. Take Ayan Hirsi Ali, the ex-Muslim controversialist. She is not a scholar but has experiential, inside knowledge of Islam, having lived in Mecca. In a 2010 book she called for ‘a Christian solution’ vis-à-vis violence in the name of Islam. (Bit funny for an atheist.) Something, she says, intrinsic to that religion. Churches were to lead the battle, presumably to convert Muslims to the Cross. Alas, timid Christians shunned her appeal so now she demands a Muslim heretical reformation. One requirement is that Muslims give up not only armed jihad but also Muhammad’s ‘infallible status’. Of course, Islamic theologians differentiate between the prophetic and the human roles of Muhammad. Does she mean the former? Like asking Southern Baptists to give up St Paul! Bizarrely, the list includes abolishing belief in ‘life after death’. Fine for an atheist but for Muslims? Not on.

Khalil refutes Ali with his superior knowledge of holy texts, contexts, details and the like but a problem remains. Why did ISIS manage to attract so many recruits, the young especially? Is it because their knowledge of Islam is limited? Should real scholars teach them a proper understanding of Qur’an passages like the ‘sword verse’ (9:5), about which Khalil takes Ali to task? There are indeed serious Imams who reject radical, violent interpretations. Unfortunately many owe their jobs to their governments, like the chief Imam of al-Azhar University. That discredits them in the eyes of radicals. Muhammad Ahmad, the Mahdi of Sudan, branded them ‘Ulama As-Su’, scholars of evil. If only Islam had a Pope…

Actually, mystical Muslims which conceive jihad only in a spiritual sense already exist. Such as the 25 million followers of the Agha Khan, the Ismailis. Maybe the New Atheists can convert to that!

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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