The latest string of terrorist bombings in London are provoking some serious soul searching, not least of all among Muslim communities in the US and UK. Last week the Fiqh Council of North America (an association of Muslim scholars who interpret Islamic law) issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, condemning terrorism against civilians, calling it thoroughly unacceptable and un-Islamic. It was the strongest and most explicit condemnation of terrorism to yet be issued from a coalition of American Muslims.
As Pakistan raids its own religious schools to root out extremism, we want to talk about how Muslim communities are policing themselves to stop strains of violent extremism in their midst.
If you’re Muslim, tell us about what’s happening in your mosque and in your community. How are the issues of the day being addressed? Are you witnessing conflict in your own community? What are the debates, theological, cultural, or political, that you’re engaged in? And what are the potential solutions being discussed that make you hopeful for the future?
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Hi JS- thanks for the note. I would very much like to hear what you have to say, since you’ve been so vocal on our other posts.
The Economist has this interesting articleabout the eight major sects of Islam coming together in Jordan to present a unified theological front agains violent extremism.
I would start with monitor what? Certainly, muslims, like anyone else, would likely report criminal activity if they saw it. But if monitoring refers to watching your neighbor, I would argue that the expectation that Muslim communities police themselves is like asking Christian communities to monitor the activities of Christian fundamentalists seeking to blow up abortion clinics. How do you know what is the intent of a person, unless you are privy to their thoughts or statements? Since the people who commit such crimes don’t advertise their intention, monitoring them is unrealistic. Especially since the average Muslim is like the average Christian, Jew or Hindu, etc., they live and work and have families to tend to, instead of surveilling their neighbor, like in the Soviet Union.
In mosques that preach militancy-say in Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.- standing up and objecting to a sermon will likely get you beaten if not killed. As for monitoring the local mosque in America, it would still be difficult to stand up and voice your objection against a fiery speech. Culturally, you would not stand up in the middle of a sermon and object but rather take up the issue offline with the imam.
My own feeling is that fiery speech bordering on hate speech, should be nipped in the bud.
But this raises a more difficult question for me, and that is what is fiery speech vs. hate speech. Non-muslims like to point to “preachers of hate” but Christian, Jewish, and Hindu fundamentalists spew the same hate speech with little censure. Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham and others regularly demonize Muslims, Islam, the Prophet Muhammed. Conservative pundits and terrorism “experts” like Anne Coulter, Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson impute the evil deeds of terrorists to Islam through generalization and lazy logic, and they are lauded as experts.
What constitutes fiery speech? Severely criticizing the policies of governments that for all intent and purpose wage a war of destruction on local populations because such governments qualify as democracies or respectable governments? Is dissent against the government not the hallmark of our democracy? In this case, we are not even talking about our own (America) but other countries actions. Under Tony Blair’s edict, will such speech qualify you as an Al-Quaeda sympathizer, and get you deported?
Curiously, there are Americans who emigrate to Israel to fight in the Israeli army against Palestinians, out of religious kinship. What if some muslims feel the same religious kinship with muslims in Chechenya, Kashmir, Palestine, etc. and they go to fight- why are they terrorists? Is it because they fight against a state actor who identifies themselves as a democracy? I know some muslims who feel exactly this way, but they would never pick up arms and kill someone, but they feel just as passionate about this as the Israeli-American. There are other muslims who don’t identify at all with muslims living in other countries because they view themselves as Americans and not as Chechens or Kashmiris.
Theologically, the vast, vast majority of muslims don’t believe that Islam condones violence or agression-but self defense is permitted and justified. One wonders, if the Iraq war was predicated on false causes (no WMD), and it was manufactured to overthrow Saddam, then is the war one of aggression? Is self-defense justified?
On the other hand, Islam mandates that if one sees oppression, then one has a duty to rid oppression from the land. It can be argued that is what America did in Iraq in overthrowing Saddam. Shouldn’t muslims be content?
I tend to agree with INasrullah in that the Muslim communities could not police themselves against terrorists any more than Christian communities could police themselves against Christian extremists. It appears counterintuitive that anyone would share his/her sinister plans with someone else based on a common religion. Of course terrorists aren’t the smartest people in the world, so it’s possible that this self-policing may become useful in isolated situations.
But I’m sure the government has already planted enough moles in such places of worship to make sure that the impressionable youth would not step out of bound.
So, self policing, in the vigilant meaning of the word, is not the answer here. But self policing could be enormously useful in a symbolical way. If the Muslim community and its leaders were to make a firm and honest stance against terrorism, that action would effectively isolate the terrorists and their agenda. So, it seems more productive to me if the Muslim community were to speak with a united voice against acts of terrorism and to reinforce peaceful values of their religion. Many Muslim leaders argue philosophically about the meaning of terrorism. Even the United Nations considers the philosophical argument that “one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter!” I think any argument that legitimizes or tries to explain the killing of innocent civilians should be rejected at once by the Muslim leaders and a consensus has to be reached that defines any deliberate, and politically motivated act of murder against civilians as an act of terrorism and morally wrong.
Not until the Muslim community separates itself clearly and decisively with the extremists, fundamentalists, and the terrorists can there begin an honest dialogue that encompasses trust and understanding among those communities hurt directly by such unforgivable acts of violence.
Can any community police itself? It seems a similar discussion about a Christian America. The fact is, we all should have to abide by the same rules. I know there are people who seem to believe everyone is out to get a particular group. What is so hard about respect for one another? There shouldn’t have to be a police force for every group in America!