ADELAIDE
The need for a dialogue between Islam and the West has never been more acutethan now, but Pope Benedict XVI’s recent description of Islam as "evil andinhuman" is clearly not the best approach. In his lecture on "Faith andReason" at Regensburg University, the pope quoted the 14th century ByzantineChristian emperor Manuel II Palaeologus as saying, "Show me just what Mohammadbrought was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such ashis command to spread by sword the faith he preached." Notwithstanding theVatican’s statement that the pope meant no offense and, in fact, desireddialogue, in the eye of many Muslims his remarks only reinforced a false andbiased view of Islam – not conducive to dialogue.
In his lecture the pope made several references to Islamic theology on thenature of God, reason and faith, but his passing reference to jihad presents thestereotypical Western view of the concept, which totally ignores extensiveIslamic debates on the topic. The word "jihad" appears in more than 40verses of the Koran with varying connotations. No single "reading" of theverses can claim primacy. It is surprising that a theologian of the pontiff’sstature sees jihad as an Islamic holy war in the Christian tradition. In Islamictheology, war is never holy: It is either justified or not, and if it isjustified, then those who are killed are regarded as martyrs.
The meanings of "jihad" in Islamic history have been profoundlyinfluenced by the prevailing social, political and material conditions. "Jihad,"in other words, is not a fixed category of Islamic thought, but has a complexand contested history that refracts changing understandings about the scope andmeaning of worldly action. The meanings of "jihad" in Islamic jurisprudencehave included, first, personal striving for achieving superior piety; second,justifications for early Arab conquests of non-Muslim land; third, struggle forIslamic authenticity; fourth, resistance against colonialism; and finally, now,the struggle against the perpetrators of, what sections of Islamists havelabeled, "Muslim holocaust."
For contemporary Islamists, jihad is neither simply a blind and bloody-mindedscrabble for temporal power nor solely a door from which to pass from this lifeinto the hereafter. It is, in fact, a political action in which the pursuit ofimmortality and martyrdom is inextricably linked to a profound endeavour in thisworld to establishing a just community on earth. It is a form of politicalaction whose pursuit realizes God’s plan on earth and immortalizes human deedsin its pursuit. The penultimate focus of jihad is, Human beings must change sothat they may change the world. From this perspective, jihad can be viewed as arevolutionary process with stages that proceed from the spiritual to thetemporal realm of politics.
This interpretation is counter to the prevailing conceptions, primarilyWestern and like the one given by the pope, which view jihad in terms ofdestruction and suffering inflicted by religious fanatics on civilianpopulations. It is seen as a pure and simple expression of violent impulses bornof religious conviction. Such interpretations ignore the political dimension ofthe action. In doing so, they also ignore the violence, genocide and coercionundertaken in the name of political convictions such as democracy, with the warin Iraq just one example. American sociologist Michael Mann has called thismethod of implementation "the dark side of democracy."
Throughout history humans, inspired by faith, have undertaken action to gainfor themselves and their group immortality. In this respect, the modern-dayMuslim jihadists such as Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami,Laskar-i-Taiba have much in common with the "constant warfare" waged byPuritan saints of the European Reformation. They fought their own naturalinclinations to fulfill their visions of an ordered society and improve theirchances for divine salvation. The Puritan Christians, by linking military actionand politics to scripture, according to American philosopher Michael Walzer,were transformed into political revolutionaries, instruments of God for whomaction in pursuit of the Holy Commonwealth on earth became the ultimateexpression of faith.
The irony of modern jihadists is that the West contributed to buildingstructures and institutional frameworks that sustained their Jihadistconsciousness and these structures continue to exist to this day. In the 1980s,with the assistance of Western governments, jihadists were recruited from acrossthe Muslim world, asked to support the people of Afghanistan in resisting thecruel and unjust occupation of the Russian "infidels." President Reagancalled them freedom fighters battling an evil empire, stating, "To watch thecourageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with hand-held weaponsis an inspiration to those who love freedom." These jihadists have sinceturned into Frankenstein’s monsters, taking on the task of destroying theirone-time sponsors.
After having won the war against the Russian "infidels" in Afghanistan,jihadists have turned their attention to the sufferings of their fellow Muslimsin other "occupied" Muslim countries. My recent study of 6000 Muslimrespondents in Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt and Kazakhstansuggests that this is a significant component of contemporary Islamicconsciousness. For its strategic success, the US-led war on terror relies on theoverwhelming economic and military superiority of the West, but its veryasymmetry will likely continue to inspire the jihadists to improvise their ownweapons and strategies. Thus the war on terror will go on in the foreseeablefuture.
To understand what is driving large sections of Islamist jihadi movementsaround the world would require an understanding of the political nature of theiraction. To portray jihadists as incarnations of evil and as "Islamic fascists"is counterproductive because it only reinforces the pervasive view in the Muslimworld that the "war on terror" is a "war on Islam." This acts as apowerful catalyst for the recruitment of potential jihadists. If war is thefailure of politics, then it would seem that political action is a prerequisiteto prevent war. Again in the course of my research on Islamic consciousness, Iwas struck especially in the Middle East by an all-pervasive sense ofhumiliation arising from the inability of the Arab countries to match themilitary and economic superiority of Israel. This sense of humiliation is amajor underlying cause of Islamic militancy and terrorism.
The sense of humiliation is reinforced by the economic power and absolutetechnological superiority of the West vis-a-viz Muslim countries. For jihadists,their actions are not simply motivated by impulsive bloody-mindedness or by anoverwhelming desire to book a comfortable place in the life hereafter. For them,their jihad is fundamentally a political action through which they pursue theestablishment of a just society as ordained in the scriptures and in the processseek to immortalize their own actions beyond their own earthly lives. From thisperspective, jihad is ultimately a this-worldly political action and, therefore,amenable to resolution through negotiations as equal citizens of a globalizingworld. Such a dialogue and the negotiations it will entail would alleviate some,if not all, of the mutual suspicions between Islam and the West.
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Riaz Hassan is ARC Australian Professorial Fellow at Flinders University,Adelaide, Australia. He is the author of Faithlines: Muslim Conceptionsof Islam and Society, published in 2003 by Oxford University Press. His newbook Inside Muslim Minds: Understanding Islamic Consciousness will bepublished this year. Rights: © 2006 Yale Center for theStudy of Globalization. YaleGlobalOnline.
