Author: Michael Anbar
Publication: FrontPageMagazine.com
Date: May 2, 2003
One of the most important feature
of any culture is its religion -- its belief in a supernatural power or
powers, its explanation of the origin of man and his purpose on earth,
its interpretation of death and a possible afterlife, its set of ethical
values and the penalties for their transgressions. Over mankind's long
history, religions and cultures were born, grew and developed and eventually
died. Religion is generally the most conservative element of a culture;
it may change or even give birth to a new distinct religion but only under
cultural stress, upheaval or duress.
In the history of Islam, the assassination
of Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Mohammad, and the subsequent massacre
of his son Hussein together with his followers in Karbala (680 CE), resulted
in the separation of the Shiites from Sunni Muslims. This split was precipitated
by internal politics rather than by a change in theology; the two kinds
of Islam are basically very similar. When it comes to violence and terrorism,
for instance, the Shiite Hizballah and the Sunni Islamic Jihad or Al-Qaeda
have identical religious and political ideologies. Since that fateful event
in Karbala, no significant religious changes occurred in Islam, and no
major religious variations have grown out of it.
Islamic fundamentalism, which has
become politically active in the last hundred years, is not a new religion
or a new variation of Islam. It is an expression of classic theocratic
Islam in reaction to the secularization of certain Muslim counties, such
as Turkey, Kuwait or Iraq. Classic Islam feels threatened by modernization
and potential secularization. However, since Islam is practiced by 1.2
Billion people, it is unlikely to disappear or be displaced by secularism.
Following the defeats of the "mighty"
Arab armies by the fledgling IDF in 1948, and then again in 1967 and 1973,
after the political defeat and retreat of the atrocious Muslim Indonesians
from East Timor in 1999, and after the recent military collapse of fundamentalist
Islamic Afghanistan and the Arab militant dictatorship in Iraq, Islam is
due for a major shake-up. Unlike Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism
and most other religions, Islam is a politically driven religion bound
on military triumph, conquest and subjugation. Consequently, this chain
of recent military and political defeats, in addition to the realization
that defeating Israel or the US by indiscriminate terrorist attacks on
innocent civilians is futile, must give Muslims worldwide ample material
for soul searching. It seems that Islam is due for a major reform.
There has been lots of talk in American
media about a difference between "moderate" and fundamentalist Muslims.
People have been wondering, however, why the "moderate" Muslims have not
denounced the Islamic fundamentalists and their violent deeds. The reason
is that there is no theological or cultural distinction between the two.
Built into Islam are the doctrines of the infallibility of Mohammed and
the Qur'an, the superiority and supremacy of Muslims over all non-believers
(infidels) -- implying religious intolerance, the concept of the Umma -
the Islamic universal nation, and the goal of having all of humanity become
Muslim or at least subjugated to Islam. "Moderate" or even "secular" Muslims
feel uncomfortable to publicly violate any of these doctrines, even if
they may privately disobey the dietary or other behavioral rules of Islam.
Secular Muslims are not a well-defined
subset of Muslims, like Christian or Jewish atheistic Socialists or Communists.
Under appropriate circumstances, secular Muslims readily revert to traditional
Islamic ideology, and they are cheerfully accepted by the traditionalist
masses. We just witnessed this in Iraq where Saddam Hussein, a secular
national socialist dictator, used traditional Islamic premises to bolster
his defiance of the West. We saw the same trend even more dramatically
in the Palestinian Authority (PA). Here, the secular PLO leadership invoked
fundamentalist Islamic tenets to produce hundreds of suicidal terrorists,
available for export to any Islamic country in need, with Arafat threatening
to sacrifice a million Muslim martyrs (Shahids = suiciders) to conquer
Jerusalem from the Jewish "infidels". Secular PLO has thus become the hotbed
for upbringing a new generation of Islamic fanatics.
The Islamic premise that land conquered
by Arabs belongs to the Umma for perpetuity and cannot ever be given back
to infidels is the ideological basis for the one-hundred-year-long bloody
war with the Jews in the land of Israel. This bloody war is aimed at eradicating
the Israeli Jews, although the territory in dispute is less than 0.2% of
the total territory of the Umma, the Arab nation. That disputed territory
includes land that Jews purchased for inflated prices from Arabs in the
Land of Israel. Although purchased legally, this land is still considered
-- according to the Islamic ideology -- as land "stolen" from the Umma
(in most Arab countries infidels cannot own any real-estate, in Saudi Arabia
they cannot even live as permanent residents).
One wonders why moderate Muslims
do not disavow in public Islamic terrorism against Americans, terrorism
that started long before 9/11. It started in 1973 with the murder of the
US Ambassador to the Sudan by the PLO, continued with the massacre of 241
Marines in Beirut in 1982 by the Hesballah, and has continued even since
(e.g. the Khobar Tower in 1996, the East African US Embassies in 1998,
the USS Cole in 2000). By the same token, no one has ever heard moderate
Muslims renounce the brutal Arab campaign against the Jews in Israel, starting
with the terrorist massacres in 1921 and 1929 and continuing up to date.
Both these terrorist campaigns seem to be tacitly endorsed by the "moderate"
Arabs. Harvard's Professor Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations"
is, therefore, not illusionary. The Islamic clergy is threatened by the
secularization of the Muslim masses and is worried that this secular trend
will take over the political structure of Muslim countries as it did in
Turkey. That threat becomes increasingly more ominous as the Islamic masses
are exposed to Western culture through satellite TV and the Internet. Islamic
clergy fights back by polarizing these masses and inciting them by religious-nationalistic
slogans. The result of this militancy is, however, humiliating military
defeat and economic misery. One can see this clearly played out in the
PA territories. What is needed for the benefit of all parties concerned
is a reformation of Islam. Such reform, which is a natural development
in all religions following military calamity, can be facilitated by new
technology.
Let us pause for a moment and consider
the occurrence of reforms in other religions. The stress of the fall and
destruction of Samaria (722 BCE) and the momentous siege of Jerusalem by
the Assyrians some 20 years later, were evidently a terrible national calamity.
This led to the first significant religious reform in Judaism, culminating
in the establishment of the Deuteronomic Law by King Josiah. The destruction
of Solomon's Temple (586 BCE) was followed by another set of dramatic changes
in Jewish religion, formulated and instituted by Ezra the Scribe in the
early days of the Second Temple. The loss of Judean political independency
to Rome raised apocalyptic messianic beliefs that culminated in the rise
of Christianity following the destruction of the Second Temple. The same
cataclysmic event made Rabbinic Judaism dominant, constituting the third
major reformation of Judaism. In spite of scores of recent Jewish books
on the theological ramifications of the Nazi Holocaust, it may be too early
to tell whether this cataclysm will eventually result in another major
reform in Judaism.
In Christianity, the socio-economic
changes in Europe in the 16th Century following the discovery of the "New
World" and the rise of the bourgeoisie, diminished the grip of the Roman
Church on the Christian po pulation. This resulted in Martin Luther's Reformation
that was facilitated by the new technology of the printing press. Unlike
Islam, both Catholicism and Protestantism have undergone many theological
evolutionary changes. But although the Pope expresses occasionally political
views and the Evangelic Protestants wield some power in US internal politics,
Christianity has given up territorial ambitions a long time ago.
Unlike Islam, which politically
dominates a third of humanity and has aspirations to conquer the rest,
Judaism has just a minimal territorial desire - to regain sovereignty over
its ancient national homeland, a sliver of territory at the edge of the
lands conquered by the Arabs in the seventh Century and held by them for
a relatively short period. This modest desire of the oldest nation in Western
civilization is, however, rebuffed by the Arabs, leaving the Jews in an
existential struggle with the intrinsically intolerant political Islam.
The Arabs, who have been achieving nothing by their indiscriminate terrorism,
seem to bound to continue that futile "holy war."
To end the futile Jihadistic Muslim
terrorism that will only result in additional loss of innocent lives, and
to avoid additional devastating military defeats by the "infidels," Islam
must undergo reformation. As it stands, Islam does not have the theological-
religious tools to live in full harmony with non-Muslims. This reformation
must come from within the Islamic religious community. Islam must give
up its global political ambitions and its claim to supremacy over all other
religions. This means an end to Islamic expansionism and intolerance, and
possibly also an end to Islamic ancient tradition of despotism. One can
only hope that a wise and conscientious Islamic theologian, one who realizes
the dangers in perpetuating the current Islamic beliefs, will come up with
a formula that will allow giving up some of the basic tenets of the Qur'an.
Other religions have done it. Islam can do the same. This would mean the
establishment of a new reformed Islamic religious movement that will no
doubt face bitter and violent opposition. In view of historical inevitability,
it will prevail. Like the printing press that helped Luther, modern global
communication technology should make it possible to reach the hundreds
of millions of Muslims who may be ready for such a needed change -- a change
that will make the Muslims welcomed as equal partners in the modern world.
Michael Anbar , Ph.D., is a Professor
of Biophysics and Chairman of Dept. of Biophysical Sciences at the School
of Medicine, University of Buffalo (1977-2002, now retired). Previously,
he was Director of Technical Program Development, at the Stanford Research
Institute.
