Robert Spencer responds to Ed Husain’s Guardian article, in which he claims that Spencer, Ibn Warraq and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are playing into the hands of jihadists:
The contention is that because I – and Hirsi Ali, and Ibn Warraq, and others – point out that there is a broad and deeply rooted tradition of violence and supremacism within Islam, therefore we are marginalising other Islamic traditions and legitimising bin Laden. In saying this, Husain implies that jihadism is a clear Islamic heresy, and that there is a broad tradition within Islam that rejects violence against non-Muslims and Islamic supremacism – and that Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq and I are ignoring or downplaying it out of some base motives. Bin Laden or someone like him invented jihadism and grafted it onto a religion that has otherwise peaceful teachings.
In reality, however, while there are a few courageous reformers out there, all – not just one, or a few, but all – the orthodox sects and schools of Islamic jurisprudence teach that it is part of the responsibility of the Islamic community to wage war against unbelievers and subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law (references can be found here). There is no sect or school recognised as orthodox that rejects this. It is not playing into bin Laden’s hands to point it out; in fact, it is playing into bin Laden’s hands to deny it and denigrate those who point out that it is so, for there can be no reform of what one will not admit needs reforming.
Indeed. What’s interesting to me is how Husain’s transformation from extremist to ‘moderate’ seems to involve a denial of jihad’s historical and theological lineage and ultimately hinges on a conception of Muhammad that is, to say the very least, open to question:
For me, it is [Muhammad’s] guidance, compassion, humanity, warmth, love, kindness that rescued me, and others, from Islamist extremism… His was a smiling face. His tomb in Medina today radiates the peace and serenity to which he was called.
And herein lies a problem. Any remotely critical, contextualised reading of Muhammad’s life, rule and purported ‘revelations’ will call into question Husain’s rather sugary imaginings. Assertions of Muhammad’s “compassion” or “kindness” are easily contested, often abrogated, and do little to inhibit jihadists who know their theology and history quite well, perhaps better than Mr Husain. Those who use Muhammad’s own words and example as a mandate for violence, coercion and atrocity are unlikely to be convinced by talk of “smiling faces” and radiant tombs. And the phenomenon of global jihad, arguably the issue of the age, will not be made to go away by ignoring its deep and problematic roots.
There are, of course, countless degrees of religious affiliation and many believers will be remarkably ignorant of their supposed prophet’s life and less edifying deeds. Many will know only the sketchiest and most sanitised accounts of who and what Muhammad was. More to the point, there will among many be a strong emotional disinclination to look critically at the founder of their religion – and at what that might imply about their own credulity. The potential for dissonance and resentment – to say nothing of embarrassment – is pretty obvious.
Judging by his Guardian article, Ed Husain seems to have lurched from Islamist to ingénue without pausing to reflect on the question of whether his belief in Muhammad as a numinous figure is fundamentally misplaced. Perhaps this isn’t too surprising. If a believer were to look critically at the most reliable accounts of Muhammad’s life, it would, I think, be difficult to reconcile the man’s supposedly numinous status with his actual behaviour. Could such a questionable figure really be a timeless example and inspired by the divine? And doesn’t that kind of question risk undermining the entire, dubious, edifice?
Update: Mary Jackson has more on Mr Husain’s contortions.
Bankroll my blasphemy.
I think we need to keep our eye on the ball. On the one hand I was disappointed by Ed’s shoot-the-messenger attack on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and you and Robert Spencer are right not to let him get away with it. On the other hand, if Ed has embraced a major Muslim tradition – Sufism – in which the Prophet is indeed perceived as a benign and peace-loving mystic, and emulated accordingly, why not leave well alone rather than try to beat him into submission to post-Enlightenment scepticism? What does anyone else gain by shattering his faith? There are spiritual truths accessed within that tradition which, I’d suggest, matter more than the details of Mohammed’s biography.
Mr Grumpy,
I think you’d have to elaborate on what those “spiritual truths” are before I can offer an adequate reply.
There is no good answer, it seems to me.
To say “Islam is peace, etc”, is to deny the obvious meaning of much of the Koran, and to ignore congruence between the jihadists and traditional Islamic interpretation. It leaves the jihadis standing as the true votaries of traditional scripturally-based Islam, and anti-jihadi Moslems with a very weak case.
But if one says that in all traditional interpretations, the Koran does justify jihadism, then what? It’s said that Islam needs a Reformation to overturn these interpretations explicitly. But how can outsiders demand that Moslems revise their faith and expressly deny part of their scriptures? If all the old orthodox schools must be overturned, what replaces them? And how will Moslems come to accept the new doctrines as authoritative? Who is to preach them?
It seems massively impossible to me.
ISTM one could just as well push for Moslems to convert to other faiths.
Rich,
“It leaves the jihadis standing as the true votaries of traditional scripturally-based Islam, and anti-jihadi Moslems with a very weak case.”
Well, there are endless shades of adherence and I wouldn’t presume to guess what Islam means to any particular believer; nor would I presume to know what a “true” Islam might be, or what “spiritual truths” may, allegedly, be derived from it. But, yes, it seems to me that it’s the Islamists who are currently gaining ground and making the stronger *theological* arguments, insofar as they appeal directly to Muhammad’s own example and to orthodox schools of thought. As a result, their position has proved difficult to oppose in theological terms.
Thus, a question arises. Can Muhammad’s central position within Islam be altered to de-legitimise jihadist ideas? Sanitising Muhammad’s life doesn’t work particularly well, despite enormous efforts to that end. Can Muhammad be reduced to a fairly marginal figure within Islam? And can a religion survive if its founder, on whom so much is pinned, is sidelined, or revealed as being… um, less worthy than one might hope?
As an infidel, and thus of little importance, it seems to me that the entire theological structure is unsound.
Whilst Spencer is pretty convincing when it comes to exploring the realities of Islam, he leaves me cold when he writes about the supposed superiorities of Christianity. For example:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596985151/002-4986521-7864813?ie=UTF8&tag=robertspencer-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1596985151
It’s not necessary for him to make this kind of comparison.