Muslim Scholars Increasingly Debate Unholy War

[COMMENT: The movement referred to below must be encouraged by all Christians, reaching out to Muslims. It's success will entail a deep reworking of the attitude toward the Koran. It is not clear to me that the Koran can survive such a reworking.

The deeper issue is epistemology - how we know what we know, and, built on that, the authority of the holy book. Christians have wrestled with the same issues, but from a fundamentally different historical and epistemological background.

The Koran will be hard to free from the "infallibility trap" because of the way it was allegedly written. Claims of infallibility lead to a one-way cycle downhill, and always lead to an authoritarian mentality rather than to open, honest discussion, as in, "Come, let us reason together...." (Is. 1:18) See The Authority of the Bible in a Scientific Age.

The Bible makes no claims to being infallible, and, in fact works against any such claim. But the Koran can hardly get along without that claim because it has no rootage in history. The Koran is an untestable document, and therefore the only claim for its authority will be an arbitrary one. The Bible is testable, and indeed has been tested for most of the last several centuries more than any other book in history. Yet is still stands on its own two feet.

At any rate, the scholars below are calling for a much needed reassessment. We must gracefully assist them. And gracefully suggest the Bible as a satisfactory alternative to the Koran, and Jesus as an alternative to Mohammed. The fact that they are taking on the issue is the best sign I have ever seen concerning Islam. And the new possibility (given the success, so far, of the elections in Iraq) of an emerging government by the people will greatly encourage such helpful discussions as those below. E. Fox]

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/10/international/middleeast/10islam.html?th

December 10, 2004

CAIRO, Dec. 9 - Muhammad Shahrour, a layman who writes extensively
about Islam, sits in his engineering office in Damascus, Syria, arguing
that Muslims will untangle their faith from the increasingly gory
violence committed in its name only by reappraising their sacred texts.

First, Mr. Shahrour brazenly tackles the Koran. The entire ninth
chapter, The Sura of Repentance, he says, describes a failed attempt by
the Prophet Muhammad to form a state on the Arabian Peninsula. He
believes that as the source of most of the verses used to validate
extremist attacks, with lines like "slay the pagans where you find
them," the chapter should be isolated to its original context.

"The state which he built died, but his message is still alive," says
Mr. Shahrour, a soft-spoken, 65-year-old Syrian civil engineer with
thinning gray hair. "So we have to differentiate between the religion
and state politics. When you take the political Islam, you see only
killing, assassination, poisoning, intrigue, conspiracy and civil war,
but Islam as a message is very human, sensible and just."

Mr. Shahrour and a dozen or so like-minded intellectuals from across
the Arab and Islamic worlds provoked bedlam when they presented their
call for a reinterpretation of holy texts after a Cairo seminar
entitled "Islam and Reform" earlier this fall.

"Liars! Liars!" someone screamed at a news conference infiltrated by
Islamic scholars and others from the hard-core faithful who shouted and
lunged at the panelists to a degree that no journalist could ask a
question. "You are all Zionists! You are all infidels!"

The long-simmering internal debate over political violence in Islamic
cultures is swelling, with seminars like that one and a raft of
newspaper columns breaking previous taboos by suggesting that the
problem lies in the way Islam is being interpreted. On Saturday in
Morocco, a major conference, attended by Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell, will focus on increasing democracy and liberal principles in
the Muslim world.

On one side of the discussion sit mostly secular intellectuals
horrified by the gore joined by those ordinary Muslims dismayed by the
ever more bloody image of Islam around the world. They are determined
to find a way to wrestle the faith back from extremists. Basically the
liberals seek to dilute what they criticize as the clerical monopoly on
disseminating interpretations of the sacred texts.

Arrayed against them are powerful religious institutions like Al Azhar
University, prominent clerics and a whole different class of scholars
who argue that Islam is under assault by the West. Fighting back with
any means possible is the sole defense available to a weaker victim,
they say.

The debate, which can be heard in the Middle East, North Africa and
South Asia, is driven primarily by carnage in Iraq. The hellish stream
of images of American soldiers attacking mosques and other targets are
juxtaposed with those of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi beheading civilian
victims on his home videos as a Koranic verse including the line "Smite
at their necks" scrolls underneath.

When the mayhem in Iraq slows, events like the slaying in September of
more than 300 people at a Russian school - half of them children - or
some other attack in the Netherlands, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia or Spain
labeled jihad by its perpetrators serves to fuel discussions on
satellite television, in newspapers and around the dinner tables of
ordinary Muslims.

"Resistance was never like this - to kidnap someone and decapitate him
in front of everyone," said Ibrahim Said, delivering pastry in the
Cairo neighborhood of Nasser City recently.

"This is haram," he went on, using the Arabic word for something
forbidden or shameful, and then quotes the Koran on his own. " 'Verily
never will Allah change the condition of a people until they change it
themselves.' That means nothing will change unless we change ourselves
first."

Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, director of the Dubai-based satellite network
Al Arabiya and a well-known Saudi journalist, created a ruckus this
fall with a newspaper column saying Muslims must confront the fact that
most terrorist acts are perpetrated by Muslims.

"The danger specifically comes from the ideas and the preaching of
violence in the name of religion," he said, adding, "I am more
convinced there is a problem with the culture, the modern culture of
radicalism, which people have to admit. Without recognizing that as
fact number one, that statistically speaking most terrorists are
Muslims, we won't be able to solve it."

Mr. Rashed senses there is a movement in the Arab world, if perhaps not
yet a consensus, that understands that Muslims have to start reining in
their own rather than constantly complaining about injustice and
unfairness. The violence has not only reduced sympathy for just causes
like ending the Israeli occupation, he says, but set off resentment
against Muslims wherever they live.

On the other side is Abdel Sabour Shahin, a linguistics professor at
Cairo University and a talk show stalwart, who says the Muslim world
must defend itself and most foreigners in Iraq are fair game. In the
new middle-class suburbs stretching into the desert beyond the
Pyramids, Professor Shahin greets visitors inside a small gated
compound of high white walls that includes his own mosque where he
preaches each Friday.

"There is a large group of people who wear civilian clothes but serve
the occupying forces," he said. "So how can we demand from someone who
is resisting the occupation to ask first if the person is a civilian or
not?"

When asked what he thinks of those who chop off heads, he responds:
"When a missile hits a house it decapitates 30 or 40 residents and
turns them to ash. Isn't there a need to compare the behavior of a
person under siege and angry with those who are managing the
instruments of war?"

His remarks echo those of Sheik Yousef Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born, now
Qatari cleric whose program "Islamic Law and Life" on Al Jazeera
satellite television makes him about the most influential cleric among
mainstream Sunni Muslims, the majority sect.

Last August Sheik Qaradawi seemed to imply that all Americans in Iraq
could be targets. Asked whether that included civilians, the sheik
responded with a question, "Are there civilians in Iraq?" In the
ensuing uproar across the region he issued a clarification, suggesting
that he meant only those who abetted the occupation, and pointed out
that he had previously condemned beheadings.

Yet late last month, right after the renewed United States assault on
Falluja, the sheik again put the Islamic seal of approval on anyone
fighting back.

"Resistance is a legitimate matter - even more, it is a duty," he said
on television.

While few Muslims argue with the right to resist a military occupation,
the problem is that such sweeping, ill-defined statements are
interpreted as a mandate to undertake any violence, no matter how
vicious.

"You condemn the beheading and then on a different question you say
anybody who supports the occupation is worth fighting," said Jamal
Khashoggi, a Saudi expert on Islamic movements. "So the message does
not sink in."

In November, 26 prominent Saudi clerics signed a petition supporting
the "defensive jihad" in Iraq. Although their statement ruled out
attacking relief workers or other uninvolved parties, it was
interpreted as a signal for Saudis to volunteer. Osama bin Laden and
his followers emerged from a similar call 25 years ago to fight in
Afghanistan, a fight that they subsequently spread around the globe.

The discussion on the reinterpretation of Islam remains largely
confined to an intellectual elite, but even raising the topic erodes
the taboo that the religion and those schooled in it are somehow
infallible. There are no opinion polls on the subject, but in talking
to people on the streets, one gets the sense that they are grappling
with these issues within their own understanding of their faith.

Some utterly reject any criticism and immediately identify Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush as those bearing the most
responsibility for the butchery. They inevitably also mention the abuse
of prisoners at Abu Ghraib as needing to be avenged.

But others exhibit a certain introspection.

One sense of the growing public dismay in the Arab world is the muted
reaction to the Falluja assault last month compared with the one six
months ago. This has been partly attributed to the atrocities committed
by the insurgents, including suicide attacks killing many Iraqis.

The wide public sympathy enjoyed by those fighting the American or
Israeli soldiers, however, makes it difficult to mount any campaign
against violence and terrorism, advocates of a change say.

Proponents of jihad argue that it is only natural for Iraqis and
Palestinians to fight back, and point to what they call American
hypocrisy.

Sheik Khalil al-Mais, the mufti of Zahle and the Bekaa region in
Lebanon, compares the treatment of two despots, Saddam Hussein and
Muammar el-Qaddafi, both with a long history of abusing dissidents and
other ills. One did not yield to the West, while the other abandoned
his unconventional weapons programs.

"Qaddafi bought his way out, but Qaddafi is still Qaddafi," the sheik
said, donning his carefully wrapped white turban before leaving to
deliver a Friday Prayer sermon. "Why did they put Saddam in jail and
leave Qaddafi in power? America should not talk about principles."

Asked about those who say the problem lies deep within restrictive
interpretations of Islam itself, Sheik Mais grimaced and exclaimed,
"Take refuge in God!" summing up the viewpoint of most Islamic
scholars.

You cannot divide Islam into pieces, he says. You have to take it as a
whole.

But whose whole, the would-be reformists respond, lamenting what one
Saudi writer calls "fatwa chaos." A important difficulty under Sunni
Islam, as opposed to, say, the Shiite branch predominant in Iran or the
Catholic Church, is that there is no central authority to issue
ultimate rulings on doctrinal questions.

Those in the liberal trend believe that Islam, now entering its 15th
century, needs to undergo a wholesale re-examination of its basic
principles. Toward that end, the Cairo conference this fall recommended
reviewing the roots of Islamic heritage, especially the Prophet's
sayings, ending the monopoly that certain religious institutions hold
over interpreting such texts and confronting all extremist religious
currents.

Those taking part were harshly accused of dabbling in a realm that
belongs solely to the clergy, with the grand sheik of Al Azhar,
Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, Egypt's most senior religious scholar, labeling
them a "group of outcasts."

But Mr. Shahrour says he and an increasing number of intellectuals
cannot be deterred by clerical opposition.

[COMMENT: The next time someone tells you that "that is merely intellectual" or "just a head trip", help him to understand that "ideas have consequences". Our intellects help build our roadmaps to reality. It makes a huge difference whether the map to reality is accurate or not. Our intellects help clear up the errors, ambiguities, and fog.

The notion of the infallibility of the Koran has enormous consequences because it makes the Koran an untestable document. We need to challenge Muslims to make an honest testing of their holy books. Pray that the intellectuals among the Muslims will stand firm for truth, righteousness, love. E. Fox]

He describes as ridiculously archaic some Hadith, or sayings,
attributed to Muhammad - all assembled in nine bulky volumes some 100
years after his death and now the last word on how the faithful should
live.

"It is like this now because for centuries Muslims have been told that
Islam was spread by the sword, that all Arab countries and even Spain
were captured by the sword and we are proud of that," he said. "In the
minds of ordinary people, people on the street, the religion of Islam
is the religion of the sword. This is the culture, and we have to
change it."