 |
| 
kingsaint
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 80
| Posted 8/11/2004 4:42 PM (GMT -6) |   | On page 375 of The 9/11 Commission Report, under the heading "Engage the Struggle [interesting word choice] of Ideas" we read:
quote:
It is among the large majority of Arabs and Muslims that we must encourage reform, freedom, democracy, and opportunity, even though our own promotion of these messages is limited in its effectiveness simply because we are its carriers. Muslims themselves will have to reflect upon such basic issues as the concept of jihad, the position of women, and the place of non-Muslim minorities.
My question is this: is there an overall strategy non-Muslims should adopt in engaging the struggle of ideas vis-a-vis the concept of jihad? This assumes that there is a problem with jihad. I take it as given that much modern terrorism is the direct result of Islamic ideas (jihad, afterlife rewards etc.). To be sure, there are other sources for terrorism such as "social and economic malaise", and the West should be criticized on that score, however, there are many people in malaise who do not fly planes into buildings.
The 9/11 Commission Report's suggestion of encouraging internal Muslim critique may be a first step but it probably would not be the last. First, there is no guarantee that the Muslim world will be sufficiently motivated to critique 'jihad'. Second, even if the critique occured, there is no guarantee that it will come out the way we want.
The question to be asked is how ensconced is an odious concept of 'jihad' in Islamic sources for truth (Qur'an, Sunnah etc.)? Are Islamic terrorists being "good" Muslims when they kill infidels. If they are, then it does not do much good to label their faith "militant Islam", "radical Islam", "fundamentalist Islam", or "extremist Islam", when simply "Islam" would do. The 9/11 Commission Report engages in this type of doublespeak when it makes a distinction between "Islamist" (the bad guys) and "Islamic" (the majority of peace-loving Muslims). The fact that most Muslims are "peaceful" does not mean that they are being good Muslims. Most Christians do not follow the example of Jesus and what better criterion could there be than being "Christ-like" (I am guilty too by just making this last "judgment"--Jesus said "judge not"). It may have been prudent for Bush to say that Islam is a religion of peace after 9/11 in order to protect Muslims from violence, but does not mean that Bush was telling the truth. I found it interesting that whenever the formula "Islam is Peace" was bandied about after 9/11, it was never prooftexted by a verse from the Qur'an.
From my cursory knowledge of Islam, the concept of 'jihad' is in bad shape. First of all, Surahs in the Qur'an are divided between those Muhammad received in Mecca and those he later received in Medina. It is highly significant that most of the "odious" jihad passages were from the later Medinan Surahs and many of the more peaceful sounding Surahs were from the earlier Meccan period. Now, many Muslims believe in a concept of "abrogation" in which later verses in the Qur'an "replace" earlier ones. In all the sources for Surah order I checked (Noldeke, Muir, Weil, Jalalu'd-Din as-Syuti, and an Egytian tradition), Surah 9, which contains the infamous sword passage (9:5), is placed second to last in four of the sources and dead last in the other. This means that Surah 9 (see 9:73) could abrogate the more peaceful verses, including 2:256, the verse about no compulsion in religion. Not all Muslims believe in abrogation, but then they have to explain why it came about in the first place.
One angle the Muslim apologist could take is to claim that all Surahs or verses are for different contexts and therefore there are no contradictions or abrogations. The problem with this is that recovering these contexts do not seem to help much making jihad less odious.
The example of Muhammad does not help the Muslim apologist either. This cripples any sort of strategy whereby Muslims could critique the Qur'an's teaching of jihad using other Islamic sources.
The future is not bright (even scholars of the Qur'an have to use pseudonyms to protect themselves--see the case of Christoph Luxenberg) and I am open for suggestions. Perhaps it just boils down to love, love, love and come what may.
"Nobody who omits doing good works nowadays does so in order not to be tempted to become self-righteous; he omits it because it is easier."
--Philip Merlan, "Toward the Understanding of Kierkegaard" | | Back to Top | | |
 | Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 11:05 AM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|