“As Islamist terror appeared on the world stage over the
past few decades, many Muslims cried out, claiming that
such terror besmirched Islam and didn’t represent it. The
terrorists have kidnapped Islam, they said. But the
question that begs to be asked is, Who kidnapped whom? Isn’t
it more reasonable to assume that the Islamic texts are
the ones that kidnapped the terrorists, not the reverse?”
Terrorism's roots lie in literal Islam
Only a root canal of Islam’s ideas can move the Arab and Muslim world toward modernity.
A
member loyal of ISIS waving the group's flag in Raqqa,
June 29, 2014. Photo
by Reuters
One
of the fundamental problems with Islam is the view that its
doctrines – exactly as written, exactly as they were
developed and forged in the Arabian desert in the 7th
century – “are good for all times and all places.” The
religious ideology that all Islamic scholars of all Islamic
sects uphold rests on the Koranic text and the canonical
traditions attributed to the Prophet Mohammed.
According
to Islam, the world is divided into two: the camp of the
faithful, comprised of those who believe in the religion of
Islam, and the camp of the infidels, which comprises the
rest of the world, including Christians and Jews. “The
infidels are divided into three categories: people of the
book – the Jews and Christians ... those who have a sort of
book – the Zoroastrians ... and those with no book – those
who worship idols or the stars,” the Shi’ite scholar Al-Tusi
wrote in the 10th century.
And
Islam’s attitude toward unbelievers nowadays is made very
clear in the words of religious arbiter Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz,
the former grand mufti of Saudi Arabia: “The Koran, the
laws of the prophet and the general agreement among
Muslims all teach us that Muslims have an obligation to be
the enemies of the infidels – the Jews, the Christians and
the rest of the idol worshippers.”
As
Islamist terror appeared on the world stage over the past
few decades, many Muslims cried out, claiming that such
terror besmirched Islam and didn’t represent it.
The terrorists have kidnapped Islam, they said. But the
question that begs to be asked is, Who kidnapped whom?
Isn’t it more reasonable to assume that the Islamic texts
are the ones that kidnapped the terrorists, not the
reverse?
When
reports emerged after a recent conference of Islamic
scholars at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University that one religious
arbiter had implied that members of ISIS were heretics,
Al-Azhar was forced to issue a denial. Muslim religious
scholars find themselves at a disadvantage compared to those
who wave the banner of militant Islam – for reading the
publications of these fundamentalist organizations shows
that they derive their strength and inspiration from the
very same foundational texts of Islam itself.
These
Islamists aren’t ashamed to proclaim their worldview in
public. >From their perspective, Islam is “an aggressive
religion, a religion of war, a religion of jihad, a religion
of beheadings and bloodshed,” as Hussein bin Mohammed
wrote in an article published on an Islamist website under
the title “The beheading issue.”
“It’s
neither beheading unbelievers nor terror that besmirch
Islam,” he argued, but rather “all those who want Islam
to be in the image of Mandela or Gandhi, without bloodshed
and beheadings.” The provocative writer then added, “That
isn’t the religion of Mohammed, who was sent out with his
sword until Judgment Day; Mohammed, of whom the only
chapter in the Koran that bears his name is called the war
chapter. ... All those who try to paint Islam as a
religion of peace, doves and love ... are doing so under
the influence of the West’s false views and its evil
ideas, which are being exported to the Islamic nation in
order to weaken it.”
The
author wasn’t making anything up. He cites Islamic sources.
These are the same sources from which all Muslim
religious scholars derive their worldviews.
So
who is the abductor and who is the abductee in this story?
It
seems that Islam needs a serious ideological shake-up. Or to
be more precise, it needs a revolution that will bring it
into alignment with the modern era. The “sacred” job of
being the standard-bearer of this revolution must fall on
the shoulders of Muslim intellectuals everywhere. For only a
root canal of Islam’s ideas can move the Arab and Muslim
world toward modernity.
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