Beware The False Prophets

Interesting article that I came across and I thought it was a good one to share:

BEWARE THE FALSE PROPHETS

BEWARE THE FALSE PROPHETS
by Amir Taheri
The Evening Standard
July 20, 2005

Were the men who carried out the 7/7 attacks in London mainstream Muslims, extremist Muslims or heretics from Islam?

Did the British people bring it all on themselves by re-electing Tony Blair, as Omar al-Bakri Mohammad of the Muhajeroun group claims? And what about Anjem Chowdry's contention that no self-respecting Muslim should sit down with the government, presumably because it consists of the "infidel"?

Must Osama bin Laden be treated as a spokesman for modern Islam? And should we treat Yussuf al-Qaradawi, a man feted by London Mayor Ken Livingstone as if he were the Muslim Pope, as a "moderating voice" or the peddler of another brand of extremism?

In the aftermath of the bombing the airwaves are full of such voices claiming to speak the truth on behalf of Islam.

One of the first defensive reactions against those who inspired the bombing and who have justified it is that their views are a "tiny minority" and nothing to do with "real" Islam. It would be dishonest to claim that they have nothing to with Islam. And would be equally wrong to pretend that they fit into mainstream Islam as it is lived by some 1.3 billion people across the globe.

We need a working and accepted definition about what constitutes the difference between devout Muslim beliefs and extremism we can all agree is unacceptable in Western society. the more we attempt to fudge that divide, the more trouble we store up for ourselves.
The splintering of Islam and the arguments which spring from it are the historical background to what is happening now in Islam. Indeed, it was predicted by the Prophet Muhammad himself.
What he did not predict, however, was that Islam would divide into hundreds if not thousands of "ways" (tariqahs) and "paths" (mazhabs), and fraternities, and not just the 72 factions he foresaw.

These divisions make it impossible to talk of Islam as a single coherent entity with which the rest of the world can deal either in peace or in war. - a problem which is being brought home to British politicians now as they grapple with the question of who exactly to talk to in the hope of enlisting the help of religious leaders to combat the rise in the kin of preaching which views inculcating suicide bombing as part of a faith.

Alas, it is not as simple as that. You could organize number of meetings with "Muslim leaders" with no guarantee that the assurance that the "ummah" (community of the faithful) as a whole would abide by any agreement reached. The only realistic option, therefore, is to treat political Islam for what it is, a political movement - which includes both moderates and extremists and to draw a clear distinction in the way we treat them.

One of the most confusing questions for Westerners is how much of what is spouted by these men speaking in the name of the Koran is an indelible part of Islam and how much is a perversion of the religion's beliefs.

In one of the most celebrated sayings attributed to him, Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, forecasts that, after his death, his faith will splinter into 72 feuding sects. The figure 72 is a favourite in Islamic numerology.

God has 72 angels guarding his throne (arsh). The warriors of Islam are rewarded with 72 "perpetual virgins" in paradise. The martyr-heroes of Karbala numbered 72. And so on.
The suicide bombers who believed that they were on their way to the paradise of "72 virgins" share, to some extent a widespread belief in Islam that what they do on earth will be rewarded by a serene state of bliss (the virginity being seen as an image of purity, not a sexual challenge). That is not the problem. The problem is that they have come to the conclusion that the way to achieve this state involves murdering their fellow man.

Nevertheless, almost 15 centuries later, with the world's estimated 1.3 billion Muslims divided into hundreds if not thousands of "ways" and "paths", these divisions are, are least in part, the result of the way Muhammad structured his faith. He decided that Islam should have no clergy and no church.

The central irony of all this is that the Prophet expressed intense dislike of a clerical elite in a direct manner, observing the clergy start by "claiming they talk to God on behalf of men, but end up talking to men on behalf of God". Moderate Muslims understand this. Fro them the Mosque is a place of contemplation, prayer and study. It is not according to the Koran, a place through which political ideas should be propagated in the name of Allah.

And that is one of the hallmarks of the new breed of Islamic extremists. Moderate Muslim teaching is that Muhammad's intention was to cut out the middle man, leaving the believer in direct contact with God.

All the mullahs, maulanas, and muftis, gentlemen who grow impressive beards and cover their heads with turbans or worse, are at best actors playing priests in a faith which does not include them in its script.

Similarly, the many associations that claim a church-like authority in Islam are nothing but political organisations wearing a religious mask.

Muhammad's initial design allowed for a plurality of views that few structured religions would tolerate. For the first four or five centuries of Islam virtually all interpretations of the doctrine were allowed space in which to be exposed and examined. Different opinions (fatwas) could compete against one another, seeking consensus on any subject. A thousand years ago Muslims could say and write things that they cannot today without being put on a death-list from a self-styled mullah somewhere.

To prevent extremists from abusing its openness, Islam developed mechanisms designed to encourage moderation.

The Prophet's saying, "The best position on {all} matters is a moderate one", was used to develop the concept of "excess" (ghulow) which is regarded as a sin in all matters, including, interesting to note, the worship of God.

That period of "a thousand and one flowers" came to an end from the 12th century onwards with successive waves of invasions by Turks, Tatars and Mongols, followed by the Crusades and the economic decline of almost all Muslim states. A frightened civilisation looked for certainties and found them in a dogmatic reading of the Koran and the sayings of the Prophet.

The result was the intellectual atrophy that has made Islam the only major faith without a living theology.

The vacuum left by theology in Islam has been filled by politics and in some cases, a skewed belief that the "real" task of Islam is to impose its values on other societies.

The global media has enabled dozens of groups individuals to promote themselves as representatives of Islam. One prominent example is Mr al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian working in Qatar. The argument rages here about Mr Qaradawi's invitation - he is feted by the Mayor of London as if he were the Pope of Islam - the more interesting question is why he arouses so much interest to start with. He speaks, after all, for no one but himself. Yet all he needs to do is grow a beard and wear some kind of a head-cover, to be able to pretend that he speaks on behalf of Islam, deciding who can and who cannot be justifiably murdered in the name of the faith.

Another example is the fugitive terrorist Osama bin Laden, the spoiled scion of a business clan who, though having absolutely no theological qualifications, masquerades as a religious authority. What is striking in these cases is that the extremists have the thinnest possible claim to be representatives of Islam.

So Qaradawi is feted by the Mayor of London as if he were the Pope of Islam. Bin Laden is quoted by The Independent as saying that since Britain bombs "his" cities in Afghanistan and Iraq, he has the right to come and bomb "your cities". They are not his cities: he is not remotely entitled to claim that they are. All the dressing up, the angry looks and the sonorous statements are an act of political theatre - nothing more.

People opposed to aspects of British and American policy in the Middle East need people like Qaradawi and bin Laden to show that Islam is "seething with anger" because the Muslim peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq were freed from tyrants such as the Taliban's Mullah Omar and Saddam Hussein. The fact that the majority of Afghans and Iraqis are happy at their liberation and grateful to the liberators is almost never mentioned.

All this does not mean we should play the game of "true" and "untrue" Islam. The Jekyll and Hyde version of Islam is a recent invention by the party of the political correctness Islam's many strands and contradictions cannot be contained in the comforting idea of a "Lovey dovey" religion hijacked by hardliners.

Bin Laden and Qradawi are Muslims and the DNA of their deeds could be traced back to the Koran just as The Inquisition shared part of the Christian DNA. But what they are is politicians - of the kind who seek power through religious propaganda and terror.

Take the current debate in Islam about whom the "suicide-martyrs" are allowed to kill and whom they should spare.

Now, one thing that Islam is absolutely clear about is the sanctity of life; and that any form of suicide for whatever reason is "an unpardonable sin" . The rationale for this is that this is one deed that cannot be undone through penitence, charity, and retribution. Qaradawi and bin Laden, however, insist that that absolute Islamic rule can be qualified in the name of "holy war" (Jihad) against whomever they designate as "an enemy of the faith".

Islam recommends that men and women dress modestly. And even then this is a recommendation not a religious stricture. And yet people like Qaradawi and bin Laden turn this into " a pillar of Islam' to the point that in London one sees baby girls in prams wearing the black hijab that Al Qaeda has adopted as a symbol for its female supporters.

Terrorism grows in the soil of Islamism which, in turn, is rooted in Islam itself. There are two crucial points that the West must understand in order to combat it. The first is that the threat it faces is political, not theological. To be sure Islam must, some day, attempt it reformation and revive its dead theology. But this does not mean that nothing could be done against Islamist terrorists until a Muslim Luther has nailed his own letter to a mosque door.

On the issue of Islamic reformation the best policy the West can adopt is one of benign neglect. A modern democracy is not concerned with what people believe in and how they practice that belief in the privacy of their lives as long as it does not violate the law of the land. To that extent the best thing we can do is leave Muslims alone where they carry the religion in their hearts and treat their beliefs with respect where they do not impinge on the freedoms of others.

Whenever Islam is used as a political prop however it should be treated as such - which means without any white gloves or excuses. Anyone who seeks to use their faith to overturn the values of the democratic society in which they live in an extremist and should be treated as such - not cajoled, co-opted or given the honour of a quest to "understand" them better.

The second point is that using the threat of Islamist terror as an argument in support of this or that political analysis in a democracy amounts to a perversion. I f you dislike Tony Blair and what he does in terms of military interventions, you must try to persuade others to share your dislike through proper political arguments rather than by endorsing the real or imagined "grievances" of the terrorists and using them to make an argument.

If liberating Afghanistan and Iraq was wrong you must show why this was in terms of normal politics rather than simply because it may have angered bin Laden and/or Qaradawi. Similarly the creation of a Palestinian state must be shown to be right on its own merits rather than as a means of placating Hamas or Al Qaeda.

Muslims living in Western democracies need to understand two things. The first is that Islam does not preclude love of their adopted homeland. The Prophet said: "Love of one's homeland is part of faith".

Extremists seek to argue that Islam is the only homeland, albeit an abstract one, that any Muslim could have. That is a political fabrication and a dangerous one to boot..

The second point is that Muslims living in the West are in the same boat as their non-Muslim fellow citizens. There can be no religious Apartheid in a modern democracy. We are all in it together. And in any case those responsible for the attacks in London didn't care whom they killed.

The first victim of 7/7 to be buried was a Muslim girl. END