Note: this is a rough draft of an article I’m writing. Watch it grow! (The bits in [brackets] will be relegated to footnotes when the whole article is finished).
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ISLAM: Is there a ‘Christian’ Approach? A Brief Review of some recent Australian publications.People Like Us – How Arrogance is Dividing Islam and the West (Waleed Aly, 2007). Islam: Human Rights and Public Policy (ed. David Claydon, 2009). The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom (Mark Durie 2010).
First, key quotes from a couple of credible world leaders.
Tony Blair, ex British Prime Minister: ‘The voices of extremism are no more representative of Islam than the use in times gone by of torture to force conversion to Christianity represented the teachings of Christ’ [‘Islam and Muslims in the World Today’ conference, June 2007. Full text – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6719153.stm ].
Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: ‘No one can deny that at its core Islam is entirely consonant with the principle of fundamental human rights, including human dignity, tolerance, solidarity and equality… No one can deny… [that] Islam… bestowed rights upon women and children long before similar recognition was afforded in other civilizations. And no one can deny the acceptance of the universality of human rights by Islam States’ [http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=3128&Cr=Robinson&Cr1 . For a critique of Robinson’s position: Human Rights and Human Wrongs (David G. Littman) http://article.nationalreview.com/267689/human-rights-and-human-wrongs/
david-g-littman ].
And now these:
* The British Secret Service reported in 2007 that around 200 million Christians are subject to persecution [www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=9669].
* In a May 2007 report, the Congressional U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom nominated six Muslim countries among its list of the worst 11 nations for religious persecution [www.uscirf.gov/images/AR_2007/annualreport2007.pdf].
* Open Doors, an organization which supports persecuted Christians each year prepares a World Watch List of 50 nations (and some regions) where Christians are persecuted for their faith: in the January 2010 WWL three quarters of these were majority Muslim areas (and nine of the worst 10:
North Korea topped the list for the most severe persecution). [
http://members.opendoorsusa.org/site/DocServer/WWL2010_test.pdf?docID=5801]
And as I write this, today’s headlines from the evangelical Barnabas Fund: Pakistan: Christian man Burned to Death; Iran: Church Leader Released on Bail; Egypt: Christians Trapped Inside their Church as Mob Attacks; Nigeria: Another Massacre of Christians in Jos; Pakistan: Christian Aid Agency Mourns Brutal Killings of Colleagues’ [http://barnabasfund.org April 1, 2010]. And from Australian news-sources: Growing number of Muslim men [in Australia] taking multiple wives; Muslim leader wants elements of Sharia law in Australia [http://www.ausprayernet.org.au/ April 2010]
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The world changed dramatically on September 11, 2001. It was one of those occasions where most of us remember where we were when we watched with horror the saturation-TV coverage of the planes ploughing into the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center. Militant Islam – especially al-Qaeda – got our attention, brilliantly. 2,973 victims and the 19 hijackers died; over 3000 children were left without one or more parents. In a 1998 fatwa Usama bin Laden had written: “For more than seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples” [February 22, 1998. Nation, 2/15/1999, quoted in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks] .
What are we to make of this ‘clash of cilizations’? [The theory was proposed by political scientist Samuel P Huntington, though the term itself was first used by Bernard Lewis in an article in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly – ‘The Roots of Muslim Rage’. [http://www.cis.org.au/Policy/summer01-02/polsumm01-3.pdf ]
1. Human Rights Declarations
The UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights (Article 1). Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance (Article 18).
The Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed at UNESCO in 1981 (‘a declaration for mankind, a guidance and instruction to those who fear God’) [Al Qur’an, Al-Imran 3:138] was followed by the “Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam” (CDHRI), adopted in August 1990 by the 19th Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers. Article 24 of the CDHRI states that it is “subject to the Islamic sharia,” and its article 25 confirms that sharia “is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of this Declaration.” So sharia has supremacy, and the 1990 CDHRI has primacy — in the view of its authors — over all universal instruments, including the International Bill of Human Rights (UDHR included) and all other U.N. covenants. [1 David G. Littman, “Islamism Grows Stronger at the United Nations”, Middle East Quarterly, Sept. 1999, pp. 59-64. See the relevant Wikipedia articles for more].
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2. Two Islamic Perspectives
2-1 Wikipedia tells us Waleed Aly is an Australian lawyer, Muslim academic and rock musician. He has been a member of the executive committee of the Islamic Council of Victoria and served as the Council’s head of public affairs. He is a frequent media commentator on Australian Muslim affairs and is currently a lecturer at the Global Terrorism Research Centre at Monash University, Melbourne. In ‘People Like Us’ he says there is a gulf in Australian society between Muslim and non-Muslim, fuelled by fear and ignorance but, more significantly, by arrogance. Perhaps his most-quoted paragraph responds to the idea that Islam needs to undergo a reformation, akin to the 16th-century Reformation in Christianity. His response: “But if you’re even vaguely familiar with classical Islamic tradition, you’ll recognise at once that we’ve had our reformation, and it’s called al-Qaeda.”
In a thoughtful review of Aly’s book, Barry Peters, who has lived in Islamic countries, is critical of Aly’s perspective, due to Aly’s ‘privileged upbringing in genteel and tolerant Melbourne [which] has sheltered him from the over-crowded, poverty-ridden and corrupt cities of Asia, Africa and the Middle East where most Muslims live.’
Peters commends Aly’s referring to holocaust denial as ‘uncivilised nonsense’ (p.6), his positive statements about some Jews (p.238), and defending the West against Muslim “saints” such as Sayyid Qutb (p.258) – comments which ‘would have him branded a Muslim “Uncle Tom” in many Islamic countries…
‘Generally, Peters continues, local imams in Melbourne accept the anti-semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion as genuine – Aly rightly exposes it as a forgery. Although he decried the violence of 9/11 as contrary to his preferred version of Islam, Muslim students in Melbourne schools openly celebrated the attacks. It is important to recognise the ideas in his book as minority opinions from a Western-educated dissenter, rather than revealing a widely-held outlook within the Muslim world.’
More: ‘To Aly’s credit, he exposes the much-quoted “greater/lesser jihad” saying as a fraud (p.153). Muhammad never said it – it was concocted in the Middle Ages, emerging posthumously from the Prophet’s mouth.’ Aly admits that ‘Islamic scholarship has been stagnant for a long time (p.235). It is small wonder that a Muslim such as Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf could make a statement about the umma (worldwide Muslim community) like: “Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race” (BBC Feb. 2002) and be certain that no-one could contradict him… The book reveals several attempts to dodge responsibility for Islam’s failures, with the blame shifted onto others. [But] Aly is rightly critical of many countries in the Muslim world for their lack of human rights (p.69)… One can only hope that, like Wesley in England, Aly’s more enlightened views will become widely accepted within the household of Islam.’
[Barry Peters November 2007 http://207.57.117.110/magazine/issue/2008/4/people-like-us-how-arrogance
-is-dividing-islam-and-the-west-by-waleed-aly
Full text: http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/20519.htm ]
Waleed Aly quotes the American scholar Hamza Yusuf addressing a London Muslim audience in September 2005, as follows: ‘I don’t like the term Islamophobia, because a phobia is an irrational fear. I think many people have instead a rational fear of Islam and Muslims in that they have valid reasons to be worried’. Aly comments: ‘It is difficult to disagree’ [Aly, 29]
2-2 And from another Muslim moderate: Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish Islamic educator whose followers have established 1000 schools worldwide – a dozen in Australia – is on record as saying ‘Terrorists are as bad as atheists’ and both will end up in hell. His followers apparently have no problem affirming ‘Osama bin Laden is the most evil man alive’. [More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fethullah_G%C3%BClen ]
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3. Some Christian Perspectives:
The following facts/opinions are culled from Mark Durie and David Claydon (ed.) These two well-written/researched books are ‘tell it like it is’ offerings with what I would call a mainly ‘Conservative-to- Progressive Evangelical’ flavour. Islam: Human Rights and Public Policy is an up-to-date collection of chapters/essays by well-known experts on Islam – including Mark Durie (five chapters), Patrick Sookhdeo (two chapters), Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, Elizabeth Kendal (two chapters), Bishop John Harrower and others. Mark Durie’s book concentrates on one major issue: Dhimmitude: the condition of non-Muslims (‘dhimmi’) living under Islamic rule.
3-1. Sharia vs. Human Dignity and Freedom
‘Recognizing [Sharia’s] jurisdiction in terms of public law [in Western democracies] is fraught with difficulties… as it arises from a different set of assumptions [like the solidarity of the umma against the freedom of the individual]… Every temptation to theocracy, on every side, must be renounced’ [Michael Nazir-Ali, ‘Human Rights in Jeopardy’, Claydon, op. cit., 47-49]. Another view (part of the findings of the European Court in the 1998 case in Turkey, where the ‘Welfare Party’ wanted to establish a separate Sharia legal system for Muslims): ‘The plurality of legal systems would lead to discrimination based on religion or belief. Sharia is incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy’ [Kit Wiley, ‘Human Rights, Sharia Law and the Western Concept of Democracy’ in Claydon, 69]. One Islamic jurist’s summmary: ‘The Western perspective may by and large be called anthropocentric… the perspective of Islam on the other hand is theocentric’ [Ibid 77].
3-2. Apostasy.
According to the high profile Islamic Studies scholar Professor Abdullah Saeed (Melbourne University) the ‘vast majority’ of contemporary Muslim scholars believe that people who leave Islam should be killed. ‘He acknowledges that some Muslim countries today incorporate the death penalty for apostasy in their legal codes; that in at least one country – Pakistan – blasphemy laws “function like an apostasy law”… [Peter Day, ‘Australian Public Policy: Examining the Foundations’ in Claydon, op. cit., 7]. In a recent poll of Muslims aged between 16 and 24 years in the UK, ‘no less than 36 per cent believed “Muslims who convert to another religion should be punished by death”‘ [Ibid 9]. This is all in contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms the freedom/right of a person to change their religion or belief. A 2008 constitution adopted in the Maldives ‘makes it a formal requirement for all citizens of that country to be Muslims’ [Ibid 11]. The Iranian parliament in September 2008 voted in favour of a draft bill imposing the death penalty on any male who leaves Islam [Ibid 12]. Note however that many Muslim states hhave constitutions that guarantee religious liberty, although, notes Elizabeth Kendal, ‘in some cases this is motivated by the need to maintain positive relations with Western donors… The reality is that the Sharia prohibits apostasy [Claydon, 83]. Both Afghanistan and Iraq have produced constitutions that offer full religious freedom… but here’s the catch: it’s subject to Sharia. In Malaysia, everyone who is registered as a Muslim is thereby under Sharia law (which conflicts, as has been experienced in a recent court case there, with the religious freedom granted under Article 11 of the Constitution. ‘When Muslims present to the Sharia Court for permission to convert out of Islam, they are often sentenced to re-education prison camps until they recant [Elizabeth Kendal, who concludes her chapter: ‘There is no place for repressive laws in a modern, open, rights-affirming, liberal society’. Claydon, 92,93].
3-3. Dhimmitude.
Mark Durie’s summary: ‘For [conquered peoples] who declined to convert to Islam, “dhimma” status assured the vanquished an institutional legal framework which guaranteed their religious freedom and determined their social and economic place in the Islamic state. In return the… dhimmis were required to pay tribute in perpetuity to the Muslim community (“umma”) and to adopt a position of humble servitude to it. The Koranic verse which dictates this fundamental character of dhimmitude is Q 9:29: ‘Fight against those who do not believe in Allah… and do not practice the religion of truth, of those who have been given the Book [that is, Jews and Christians] until they pay the jizya [head tax] readily and are humbled’… History records many examples where dhimmis were attacked by their fellow Muslim citizens on such grounds, for example the massacre of the Jews of Granada in 1066 and of the Christians of Damascus in 1860.’ [The Hidden Currents of Western Responses to Islam, Claydon 30-1]. ‘Like sexism and racism, dhimmitude is not only manifested in legal and social structures, but in a psychology of inferiority… “The situation, determined by a corpus of precise legislation and social behavior patterns based on prejudice and religious traditions, induced the same type of mentality in all dhimmi groups. It has four major characteristics: vulnerability, humiliation, gratitude and alienation”.’ [Bay Ye’or, quoted by Durie in Claydon 31-2. ]. A ‘fact sheet’ produced by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (2001) claimed that ‘Islam gives its followers the right to absolute and complete equality before the law’. ‘This statement conceals the truth,’ writes Mark Durie, ‘for Islam discriminates against female Muslims and Muslim slaves, and it glosses over the reality that the Sharia does *not* grant equality to non-Muslims’ but when Muslim apologists are confronted with such truths, ‘the reaction to deserved criticism, when it manages to find a voice, can be shock, denial and outrage’. [Durie, in Claydon, ibid, 34].
3-4 Women and Honour Killings
According to Rosemary Sookhdeo most Muslim leaders in the U.K. have spoken out against honour killings and consider them un-Islamic [Claydon 97]. More than half of all Arab women are still illiterate, according to a UN report [2002, Claydon 99]. Arranged marriages are the norm within many Muslim communities in the West. One problem is is that over 55% are first cousins, and so British Pakistanis are 13 times more likely to have children with genetic disorders than is the case in the general population [Claydon 102]. In Australia it is known that some Muslim men are marrying second or more wives (in mosques under Sharia), with each wife given her own unit to live in with her children and gains Government social security support as a single mother [see footnote 37 Claydon 106]. It is estimated that there are about 1000 men with multiple wives living in Britain and another 1000 men with one wife in Britain and other wives abroad [Claydon 107].
* Female genital mutilation is commonly practised in 32 nations (of which 29 are members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference). The Shafi’i School teaches that it is mandatory – just like male circumcision. [Claydon 108].
[See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing, Amnesty International – http://www.amnestyusa.org/violence-against-women/stop-violence-against–
women-svaw/honor-killings/page.do?id=1108230 , http://www.gendercide.org/g_and_g.htm ].
3-5 Blasphemy
Laws pertaining to blasphemy in Muslim states, which reject freedom to criticise or offend in order to protect Islam from criticial analysis. [See footnote 4 re Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law, Elizabeth Kendal in Claydon 82]. In December 2004 Britain’s Prince Charles met with Christian and Muslim leaders… to broker efforts to end the Muslim death penalty on apostates. London’s Telegraph reported, “The Muslim group, which included the Islamic scholar Zaki Badawi, cautioned the Prince and other non-Muslims against speaking publicly on the issue”. This was because it is regarded as blasphemous for a non-Muslim to criticize Islam, and this is grounds for jihad’ [Elizabeth Kendal, in Claydon, 82].
3-6 Dialogue: The Way Forward
Serious dialogue between Muslims and Christians has been going on since the 1950s when the World Council of Churches and the Vatican (later joined by Orthodox churches) initiated talks with Muslim scholars and leaders. More recently, especially since 9/11, Evangelicals and Islamists have joined the discussions. [More: Recent Changes in Christian Approaches to Islam, Patrick Sookhdeo (Barnabas Fund website, March 2010).]*
Of course, there’s also a range of views within the Islamic community about the value of dialogue with ‘People of the Book’ (Jews and Christians). (For example Gulen believes the Muslim community is obliged to conduct such dialogue).
Concerning the key question ‘Is Islamist/Al-Quaida terrorism a radical
aberration within the world-wide Islamic community or does ‘essential Islam’ have an agenda which inevitably produces such violence?’ Liberal/Ecumenical and Evangelical Christians generally come down on different sides.
Christian Evangelicals can be classified three ways: ‘Moderate Evangelicals’ who are loathe to criticize Islam publicly in any way; more conservative Evangelicals (I’d put these two books into this category) who aim to ‘speak the truth in love’; and more militant fundamentalist Christians (eg. the answering-Islam website).
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Remarkable story by Elizabeth Kendal about what happens (in Canada) when
Muslim women are allowed to speak for themselves.
There’s a useful glossary and ‘Significant’ book-list*
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Culture of victimhood among younger Muslims in Western countries [Peter Day, in Claydon 24]. Latrobe University (Melbourne) professor Robert Manne believes that ‘inflating the threat of Islamophobia helps [Muslim] community leaders to consolidate their power base… The more [this] threat is exaggerated, the more that ordinary Muslims come to accept that theirs is a community under constant attack. It helps create a siege mentality, stoking up anger and resentment, and making Muslim community more inward-looking and more open to religious extremism’ [Robert Manne, ‘Yes, Virginia, There is a Clash of Civilizations: Islamism, Islamophobia and Australia’, The Monthly, August 2006]. ‘Most Muslims have only a limited understanding of Muhammad’s life, and do not have a detailed working knowledge of the Koran… Indeed, some of the prophet of Islam’s actions and statements are shocking. These… encompass the use of violence to silence critics, the ethics of Muhammad’s warfare (including the treatment of male and female captives), penalties handed down upon transgressors of the Islamic legal code, treatment of apostates and non-Muslims, and women, and the reliance on deception under certain circumstances… Few things offend Muslims more than referring to the moral questions that hang over Muhammad’s life, even if they are known to be well-documented from authentic Islamic sources’ [Durie in Claydon, 52,53,55].
TOLERANCE
Minette Marrin (Sunday [London] Times): Religious tolerance has put a
fatwa on our moral nerve
We have put ourselves in a position in which we cannot discriminate
between religions and between religious practices; even joking may be
against the law now. Not taking religion very seriously ourselves, we
failed until recently to understand that others do and do not consider
it a private matter. At the same time, we seem to be in a state of
cultural moral funk, in which even the Archbishop of Canterbury could
recommend that aspects of sharia should be incorporated into English
law and then wonder at the fury he aroused.
Beyond a certain point in a liberal society, religious tolerance is a
loss of moral nerve.
http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article7094227.ece
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Mark Durie, The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom (2010)
Critiquing Islam, some can be so “truthful” they come across as bigoted (one Christian politician wants “no more Muslim immigrants”); others are so “politically correct” they can be guilty of appeasement. Mark Durie, in this well-researched book, works hard to “speak the truth in love”. An expert on the language and culture of the Acehnese, Dr Durie has published several books and many articles on Christian-Muslim relations.
Throughout Islamic history, conquered peoples could convert to Islam, die by the sword, or accept “dhimmi” (inferior) status and pay tribute under sharia law. A benign explanation of dhimmitude (like Wikipedia’s) emphasizes “protection”, “guarantee of minority peoples’ rights” etc. Mark isn’t so sure. Rather, these subjects – Christians, Jews and others – are often denied basic rights and personhood. Consider, for example, the two million lives lost – many of them Christians – in the Sudanese jihad; in Egypt or Turkey it’s difficult (and in Saudi Arabia impossible) for Christians to get permission to build churches. Many other examples are cited.
Durie ‘tells it like it is’. Example 1: Why do Muslims – one in twenty of Denmark’s population – comprise the majority of the country’s convicted rapists? 2. “Even in non-Muslim societies some Muslims can be aggressive and confrontational in pressing for their rights, and yet take offense when non-Muslims insist on theirs”. 3. “The Muslim world has not to this day apologized to non-Muslims for jihad and dhimmitude. Muslims have not confronted their bitter past”. 4. “The precedents for violence in Muhammad’s life have absolutely no parallels in the life of Christ”.
But what about the Old Testament? And the sometimes bloody history of Christianity – forced conversions, Crusades etc? I’d also have wished for more insights from moderate Muslims (like the Turkish educator Fethullah Gulen, who asserts that “Terrorists are as bad as atheists”).
A fascinating chapter links historic Islamic psychology to episodes of rejection in Muhammad’s life.
It’s a great read: and I learned a lot from chasing many of the excellent footnotes on the Web.
Rowland Croucher
John Mark Ministries
Rcroucher's Blog 