It seems that Islamic terrorists have decapitated one man, and attempted to kill many more, in a barbaric attack at a US gas company in the south-east of France. It also appears that 37 people, mostly foreigners, have been killed in an attack on a beach near two tourist hotels in the Tunisian resort town of Sousse. IS supporters claim to have inspired attacks in Tunisia in the past; and an Islamist flag was found near the victim in France. IS has directly claimed responsibility for the deaths of 25 people in a Kuwaiti mosque; and today Reuters reports that ISIS have massacred 145 civilians in the town of Kobane.
It is as difficult to comprehend the malice of IS as it is to express grief commensurate with the terrible losses suffered by so many families today. So these attacks will give succour to those who wish to paint Islam as a great evil. The far right French politician Marine Le Pen has already said that “all foreigners suspected of Islamic fundamentalism should be as soon expelled from the country.” IS, of course, welcomes such responses. It knows that culture wars precede shooting wars; and it knows that sane voices will be lost in the anarchy of any moral crusade against Islam. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, immediately discerned the hidden danger:
All of us must be full of grief at the attacks in Tunisia, France and Kuwait. They are intended not only to destroy but to divide, not only to terrify but to take from us our own commitment to each other in our societies… Facing such a global and long term menace, we are called to reaffirm our solidarity with each other and affirm the great treasures of freedom, in religion and so many other ways.”
It is important to realise just how devastating these attacks for Muslims who wish to identify with liberal democracies. Implicit in the terrorism is the proposition that Muslim thinkers are too feeble to defend their own beliefs; that Muslim leaders lack the wit to discern political solutions for their problems.Western politicians generally respond to terrorism with rhetoric about tolerance and demands for greater powers of surveillance, thereby implying that Muslims are not to be trusted. Moderating voices are drowned out in the clash of the meta-narratives; mainstream Muslims are swept into intellectual and cultural ghettos.
Of course, some Islamic communities hold beliefs which are not compatible with liberal democracy and these communities need to be challenged. But it would be sheer hubris not to learn from their Islamic critics. Ziauddin Saradar, for example, powerfully argues against the “weaponised faith” of The Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and Al Quaeda. Their version of Islam is irrational, anti-religious and ultimately self-destructive. Those who weaponise their faith are immune to reason: they possess a supreme self-confidence which is the antithesis of faith (and a Christian can agree with Sardar that true faith must involve humility).
The acolytes of ISIS are incapable of questioning anything they believe: in effect, they never doubt their own piety or reason. They eliminate self-criticism as ruthlessly as they eradicate their enemies. Weaponised faith is self-destructive because it needs enemies to justify its own existence. If ISIS ever smashes the American Satan and drives imagined crusader states into the sea it will find new enemies within the Ummah. Eventually, in their relentless drive for purity, the holy warriors will turn on one another. In many ways, they are the greatest danger to the international Islamic community, which Sardar argues is essentially diverse.
Nothing in Islam’s holy texts necessitates a violent struggle with outsiders There are non-violent traditions in Islam, most notably the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Mahmoud Mohammed Taha argued that Quranic texts which authorise violence originated with Muhammad’s military struggle with Mecca. That period of history is over; today, all Muslims should value democracy, equality, dignity and religious freedom. Taha died for his beliefs. In any case, rational Muslims believe that moral experience and human reason can reveal ethical truths. They do not need a Sunnah or a Surah to know that it is wrong incinerate innocents in an act of mindless terrorism.
Perhaps Islam must contend with the “seeds of violence” within its texts, traditions and history; perhaps not. Whatever the case, seeds need to be nurtured in fertile soil. We cannot pretend that the ‘seeds of violence’ do not require social, political and economic realities to grow. And human beings, not texts, go to war; it is humans who choose to elevate one text over another. The ultimate explanation of “Islamic terrorism” is not to be found in a faceless abstraction like “Islam”; it is to be found in hatred, self-righteousness and the will to power; it is to be found in every human heart.