Religious Attacks
by Michael Lame, posted January 11, 2010
In the wake of the Ft. Hood bloodbath and the Christmas Day attempted suicide bombing of flight 253 to Detroit, Americans are bound to ask about the attackers’ apparent religious motivation.
I have noticed a pattern in the arguments of those who claim that terrorist attacks by Muslims against Western targets have nothing to do with Islam. They claim that any apparent Qur’anic advocacy of jihad – in its violent and war-like sense – is so limited and so self-defensive in nature, that a true reading of the Qur’an will show that Islam, properly understood, is anything but bellicose. Al-Qaeda and its ilk have “hijacked” Islam.
Furthermore, they claim that the negative references to Jews and Christians in the Qur’an and hadith must be understood in context, and that context reveals that the targets of Islamic opprobrium were specific historical figures from the 7th century and earlier.
They never claim, however, that the positive references to Jews and Christians must likewise be contextualized. The good is universal. The bad is severely circumscribed.
The problem with this approach is that, with rare exceptions, when people quote from Scripture or Shakespeare, we quote out of context. We don’t provide the background for our quotes, whether it’s “To be or not to be” or “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”. The point of quoting is to add weight, authority, or apt expression in order to drive a point home.
Given the length, complexity, and varied subject matter of the Tanach, the New Testament, and the Qur’an, one can find textual justification in them for everything from world war to unilateral disarmament. The war mongers and the peace mongers can all find bona fide scriptural passages to bolster their positions.
Osama bin Laden is a devout Muslim and a mass-murderer. I do not question his faith, his knowledge of the Qur’an, or his sincerity. Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Muslims in Hebron in 1994, was a devout Jew. I did not question his faith, erudition, or sincerity. The acts of both were monstrous, though certainly not equivalent.
Both of them found scriptural support for their religiously-based acts. It is pointless to try to absolve Judaism and Islam by claiming that the murderers’ interpretation of their faith was wrong-headed.
There are as many Judaisms and Islams as there are practitioners of these faiths. In a world of Orthodox, Ultra-Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and many other strands of Judaism, one cannot deny the legitimate multiplicity of interpretations of Judaism, some more militant than others. Similarly, in a world of Sunni, Shia, Sufi, Alawi, and many other varieties of Islam, one cannot convincingly claim that the jihadists are not true Muslims.
While some may find comfort in calling Judaism a religion of justice, Christianity a religion of love, and Islam a religion of peace, these gross over-simplifications do not help us cope with the Osama bin Ladens and Baruch Goldsteins of the world. Such fanatics may be religions’ bastard offspring, but thousands of Jews admire Goldstein and millions of Muslims identify with bin Laden.
Let’s not deny that the horrific acts of Nadal Malik Hasan and the near-catastrophe caused by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab are related to Islam. Future attacks are more likely to be prevented if Muslims own up to the Islamic provenance of the problem.
As Prospero said of Caliban at the end of The Tempest (to quote out of context), “This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.”
3 responses so far
Still, equating violence in the name of Judaism with violence in the name of contemporary Islam is a stretch. Baruch Goldstein was an isolated instance of a depraved individual. And yes, Israel is an assertive military power; it has to be. Islamism is a coherent jihad ideology that has three unique qualities. First, the world is sharply categorized into Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb or the house of Islam and the house of war. You are either in the in group or the out group. The out group is excluded from a category of protection and killing them is justified. Second, jihadism is a triumphalist ideology that sees Islam as the eventual conquering religion. Third, it believes in a revolutionary vanguard that will lead the people to truth (Bin Laden, Ahmadinejad). Martyrdom is justified all over the Qur’an and the Hadith. Jihadism takes a favorable view of death in battle. Judaism has no such history or interpretative tradition. I accept the distinction between Islam and Islamism. But Islamism is too big to ignore.
A thought-provoking piece as usual, Michael. And as usual, some significant caveats and demurrers seem in order.
Throughout history, religion has been used by political leaders and would-be leaders to generate fervor, cow opposition, and provide cover for heinous acts. Christianity and Islam have been particularly abused in this regard. If you look only at the core texts of Christianity, the Gospels, you will find no ammunition for incitement to murder. (The purity of Christ’s tolerance drops with Paul’s writings, as he dealt with the practical problems of oppression of and division within the early church; and Revelations seems the product of a fevered mind.) Unfortunately, both Jews and Christians have the Old Testament to mine for examples of bloody-minded and divinely-inspired hatred of “the other,” including God’s commands to very flawed humans like David to kill every man, woman and child of nearby kingdoms which were out of God’s favor. Such stories echo loudly in the teachings of some West Bank settler rabbis, and in the sermons of some television evangelicals.
We should be skeptical of any motive attributed to a terrorist, or claimed by a terrorist, including but not limited to religion, and try to judge by all of the available evidence. That is, it is unwise to accept that UBL, or Goldstein, was sincerely or solely responding to religious beliefs. Bin Laden presumably knew that the towers were full of people of all faiths, including observant Muslims, but it was the most spectacular way in his power to frighten the “occupiers” of “Muslim land.” Goldstein chose to kill as many Muslims as he could, at prayer, in a holy place. Was that religious hatred only, or a political act to cleanse the real estate coveted by the settlers?
Bin Laden has been praised, and emulated, in the name of religion, but shelves of books have also been written about the mix of cultural humiliation, economic despair, personal powerlessness, and other factors which activate those who would call themselves jihadists. Efforts to de-brief jihadists have shown that they often are among the most ignorant of their professed religion. Jews who seek to “canonize” Goldstein, by means of the sickening Goldstein memorial in Hebron and the yeshiva writings formalizing multiple grounds for killing non-Jews, are equally ignorant of mainstream Judaism. They are dangerous because they are citizens of a state with the power to act on their hatreds, and are not currently being confronted effectively.
As Michael says, we cannot ignore religion’s use and abuse in thinking about terrorists and how to confront them. We should also not ignore the political reasons they themselves give. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is quoted in the 9-11 commission report as saying it was U.S. support of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians that motivated him. UBL also regularly cites the Palestinians, although he came to that late, having started with an expressed intention to remove the Americans from Saudi Arabia. The Jordanian doctor who murdered U.S. and Jordanian intelligence officers had sought to go to Gaza to provide care for Palestinians injured by Israeli arms; he also listed that issue second after revenge for the American killing of Mehsud in his “martyrdom video.” As with quotations from the Koran or hadith, these claims of motive cannot be blindly accepted as true, or as the whole story. But at the least, they suggest how powerful the Palestinian issue is as a recruiting and motivational tool, and therefore how important it is to American interests. As a political solution to the conflict is strangled by those who don’t want it (jihadists and settlers among them) and delayed by those who deceive themselves into thinking time is on their side, the U.S. may need a deal more than the parties think they do.
To Don Ellis: Whether in the name of Torah or not, Israel is an exclusivist state. You are either a Jew or you are someone less worthy of respect and protection. And you conflate jihadism with Islam, which is entirely wrong. The Muslims I know do not believe that all non-Muslims are enemies or belong to the “house of war,” and most Sunnis do not accept the idea of a “revolutionary vanguard.” In fact, while they respect the wisdom of learned teachers, they reject the idea that they must follow anyone’s reading of the holy texts.
Definitely, a thought-provoking and an argument-provoking subject. The main component of this argument, that I will address, is making and focusing on the main cause and issue of any and all terror attacks mainly attributed to religion. In that, we are ignoring a more real and important factor and that is the real cause of the anger, disillusion, and despair that drives so called terrorists, to carry such an awful act against themselves first, then others, with the ultimate price of paying for it with one’s life.
I look at it as this group of hunters, who decided to go for a hunting safari. They are all well-equipped, with their high- powered rifles, telescopic long range guns, armored jeeps, and vehicles, GPSs, maps, food, and sometimes reconnaissance air support, to locate and guide. Let us say they are after big or small game, it makes no difference. To the hunters the animals are wild and savage, and deserve to be hunted. Plus never mind that it’s a lot of fun for the hunters. So the hunters drive, or fly long distances to reach where these animals have lived for ages. They ride their noisy vehicles. driving all over their terrain, destroying everything in their path, with little consideration and respect for the land which these animals call their peaceful home. They shoot a few here, a few there, killing some of these animals that could be part of a tribe or a family. They could be the fathers, the mothers, the brothers, sisters, or even the playmates and friends of one another. The hunters do not seem to care what role they played to others before they hunted them down. The hunters only wanted to have their trophy, and show their power of dominating those savage animals. So, they set their camp on the grounds somewhere. They light up their fire, big and fiery, with flames that light up the skies. They eat, and drink. They celebrate, and laugh, and boast to each others about their victory. No care, no thought of what has been done to the savage animals. The next day, they go out again to do the same thing, yet this time they want a bigger one. And while they are driving, one of these animals, who was startled yesterday by the noises, and what he has witnessed of the murdering of his fellow animals, panics, and attacks, and tears into the throat of one of these hunters, and kills him. The other hunters, of course, immediately shoot him and kill him, while they are yelling, “Terrorist…terrorist, animal…, all animals of this stripe and this color are terrorist, because their religion tells them so!”