On Sept. 9, a select group of scholars and intellectuals gathered in Makkah at the invitation of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. The objective of this “Preparatory Forum of Eminent Muslim Scholars” was clearly defined: To formulate, over three days of intense discussions in the shadow of the Kaaba, a new vision for the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the world body of the Islamic Ummah. The key word of the new vision was also clearly defined: Reform. M.J. Akbar was the only Indian invited to the forum. He presented these ideas, in which he outlined the response to the American neocon onslaught against Islam and Muslims, as well as the real challenges facing the Muslim world in the 21st century: Poverty, knowledge and equality.
Islam and Muslim nations, particularly those with energy resources, are being subjected to an intellectual assault, based on a carefully constructed dialectic, disseminated through mass media, that must be challenged by facts and reason. We Muslims lose the argument when we become either submissive-defensive, or aggressive-hysterical. There is a lot of space in-between.
We need to establish that an alternative voice is not a hostile voice.
It is ironical that there should be so much misunderstanding between Americans and Muslims over faith, given that they may be the only true believers left. A Pew poll taken early this year indicated that 60 percent of Americans pray once a day, 70 percent say that the American president must have strong religious beliefs and 61 percent favor tighter restrictions on a moral issue like abortion. I do not have equivalent figures for Muslims, but in each category the number would probably be the same or higher. A Muslim president or prime minister makes it a point to be seen periodically at Friday prayers. Europe, in contrast, lost religion to rationalism or one of its byproducts, communism. Two European atheists, Marx and Lenin, had such impact that they ravaged Tao, Confucius and Buddha in half of Asia and Christ in half of Europe.
Religion is not limited to human reason. Faith is ethical, aesthetic, doctrinaire and inspirational. Islam acknowledges the power and beauty of the one Creator, Allah and accepts that while we may know how we are born and die, we do not know why. Muslims believe in existence before and after death: Inna lillahe wa inna e-laihe raajaoo (From Allah we come, to Allah we go). The Islamic view of heaven and hell is no more “unreasonable” than the Christian or Judaic one.
Problems arise when one incidental aspect of a faith is wrenched from context and used to demonize a religion and its believers. Every suicide mission is sneered at as a journey to the virgins of Heaven rather seen for what it often (though not always) is: A cry of despair. Even a cursory reading of the Islamic text indicates that we do not retain our physical bodies after death and that the needs and pleasures of this life are very different from those of the next. But allegory is deliberately misrepresented, because it seeks to trivialize the roots of sacrifice, particularly the sacrifice of life. Demonization is conducted like a choir through the media and it must be answered. This answer must come from a common voice.
The Organization of Islamic Conference must have two sets of priorities: Tactical and strategic. An immediate priority is to establish that common voice to win the battle for the mind.
A critical fact: The intellectual onslaught against Muslims started long before 9/11, it was not a reaction. Huntington wrote about a clash of civilizations seven years before 9/11. It was a time when almost every Muslim nation had supported America in the wars for the liberation of Afghanistan and Kuwait. To blame the neocons is not enough. We have to answer them.
Judging by some of the reporting in the West, one would imagine that suicide was invented by Muslims. Suicide missions have always been an element of war tactics, with the highest honors being reserved for those who risk their lives to the maximum. One commentator wrote recently in the Guardian that surely Samson was the world’s most famous suicide-missionary. Japanese Air Force pilots in World War II made kamikaze a tool of battle. The American reaction was interesting and is still relevant. “The psychology behind (kamikaze) was too alien to us. Americans who fight to live, find it hard to realize that another people will fight to die,” said Adm. William Frederick Halsey (1884-1959), commander of the US 3rd Fleet, after the kamikaze attack on USS Intrepid, Oct. 25, 1944.
The Japanese did not view kamikaze as suicide: They called it a moral victory over cowards who take comfort in numbers. They told the pilots: “Put the sorrows and joys of life behind you, for as you move toward death you move toward heaven.” Vice Admiral Takiiro Onishi wrote a haiku for the pilots:
Blossoming today, tomorrow scattered
Life is like a delicate flower
Can one expect the fragrance to last forever?
The most effective use of suicide missions in what might be called irregular war has been made by the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, who are Hindus. One such mission took the life of a beloved prime minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi. But such has been the distortion of world opinion that the average person today believes that “terrorism” is something created by the doctrines of Islam. This is calumny of the most perfidious kind.
We must address the complex and emotive reaction to events like 9/11 and the London bombings. I do not agree with suicide missions, but surely we need to understand that they are not all alike. In some cases, as during the obvious occupation of territory by a foreign, hostile power, a suicide mission becomes an expression of the depths of a young person’s despair and desperation. We must work to end suicide missions by finding answers to that desperation. We must also define the difference between unacceptable terrorism and the need for struggle. There is no age in history without its share of problems and injustice. But if injustice is addressed through peaceful dialogue, which must always remain the objective of any sane individual or nation, then there is no need for armed struggle or suicide missions. This must be a central theme of our worldview.
A few weeks ago, in mid-August, I was at a seminar in Berlin on “Europe and Modern Islam”. My German hosts, members of a political party that hopes to be in power later this month, were neither prejudiced nor malicious; in fact they were anxious to build bridges over the stream of ignorance that has entered contemporary consciousness. And yet, almost every prejudiced nuance about Muslims was raised, almost always unconsciously. The chairman of one session kept criticizing female circumcision until I pointed out that its origins were African-tribal. The hijab, naturally, was mentioned, until I argued that covering the head was a normal symbol of modesty for women in the East across religious denominations — and that I had never ever seen an icon or painting by a Christian of the Virgin Mary in which she did not wear a form of hijab; and that every Catholic nun till today wore the traditional headdress.
It was a strange paradox, I thought, that a thong was considered civilized but a scarf was called barbaric. I heard the oft-repeated jibe that Muslims had not had their renaissance and had to point out that you needed renaissance only if you had gone through the Dark Ages: China, India, and the regions of the Ottoman Empire had no experience of such a dark age, for there were a hundred bookshops in Baghdad when Oxford University was still two hundred years away. A lady who had a doctorate said, in response to my remarks, that a Muslim had assassinated Mahatma Gandhi and was astonished when I pointed that a Brahmin called Godse had been the assassin.
Like so many other Muslims, I too have been taunted and told that my religion is nothing but “jihad”. I am not defensive about the basic tenets of my faith. Islam is a religion of peace, but it recognizes that in certain conditions, war may be forced upon you. It defines a legitimate war vis-à-vis an illegitimate one. Jihad is a war against injustice. The Prophet (PBUH) never took up arms during the long years of oppression and tyranny in Makkah; the war verses of the Qur’an were revealed only when persecution began to try and destroy the faith, and the Prophet was forced to take up arms against injustice. Jihad has clear rules: It has been stressed that you cannot kill women, children and innocents in a jihad; you cannot even destroy palm trees. And hence my proposition: Every jihad is a war fought by Muslims, but every war fought by Muslims is not a jihad.
