Aren’t they all alike?
Earlier this month I wrote a post detailing seven admirable things about Islam. Though the actual idea was my colleague Mike Parker’s idea, I thought it necessary for several reasons:
1. True Latter-day Saints know that there is good in every religion.
2. I wanted to show that LDS opinion on Islam was knowledgable and even-handed. Most Latter-day Saint I know are not willing to accept the worst of Islam just because some loudmouth says so.
I would suggest reading Brother Spencer Palmer’s book, Mormons and Muslims, for a more thorough scholarly treatment.
3. Many people that I know, both LDS and non-LDS, seem to conflate Islam with its virulent cousin, what David Horowitz calls “Islamo-Fascism.” I felt that I had to properly define Islam before I could define Islamo-Fascism in contra-distinction. The two are different.
4. Perhaps most important, I am aware of attempts by people like Jon Krakauer and Timothy Egan to define the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by its worst elements–especially those who were cut off from the mainline Church long ago. The Church shouldn’t be defined by apostates who were excommunicated long ago; Christianity as a whole shouldn’t be defined by the behaviour of medieval knights a millennium ago; and certainly, Islam shouldn’t be defined by those who violently pervert it.
There are several differences between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) and its apostate cast off (the FLDS):
1. Though both accept the principle of polygamy, the Mormons–according to its law-abiding principles (See D&C 98:5-6 and AF 1:12)–discontinued the practice after the US Supreme Court declared its outlawing constitutional. The FLDS–to this day–lives in defiance of the relevant laws.
2. Even during their polygamy period, the Mormons limited the practise to those who could otherwise legally be married. The age of consent was lower during the 19th century, but as it rose, the so did the age of plural wives. Whether it is the first wife or the 25th, marrying underage women means excommunication. On the other hand, it is reported that the FLDS still forces 14-year-ols women into marrying.
3. Related to #2, among the Mormons, polygamy was entirely voluntary. Not only must the intended husband and wife consent, so must every other wife. The FLDS, to the contrary, leaves no choice regarding who marries whom.
4. The Mormons did NOT require the practise. There is a story about Elder Reed Smoot, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who was facing expulsion by the US Senate because of the Church’s polygamy. Like the woman taken in adultery [John 8:3-11], Senator Smoot was dragged to the GOP Senate leader. Spotting a few adulterers in the midst, the leader bellowed, “I would rather have seated beside me in this chamber a polygamist who doesn’t polyg than a monogamist who doesn’t monog.” The FLDS tend to shun men who refuse to partake.
I will leave distinguishing extremists from normative Christians to the Apologetics Index, which declares, “The Westboro Baptist Church, of Topeka, Kansas, is a hate group masquerading as a Christian church.” Over the past two and a half centuries, the USA has been working on the art of marginalising extremist Christians. While we are still imperfect, the fact remains that the denizens of Topeka, Kansas need not worry about getting slaughtered by Westboro Baptists.
For the sake of those of us who must fight Islamo-fascism, and normative Muslims who wish to obey Allah’s will, rather than some mullah’s, I now distinguish the former from the latter:
1. Devout normative Muslims care about morality; Muhammed Atta and his ilk were seen in strip clubs on 10 September 2001.
2. Islamo-fascist state Iran executed a 16-year-old rape victim for “crimes against chastity.” Devout normative Muslims believe that it is the rapist who should be executed (Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 38, Number 4366).
3. As my colleague, Dr. Greg Smith, pointed out, to a mainline Muslim, Jihad means to wage war against one’s sinful desires. To the Islamo-fascist, it means, “Kill the Infidel!” or, more accurately, “Kill anybody not like me!”
4. To the Islamofascist, possessing the Bible is worthy of death; normative Muslims want to possess the Bible to better understand their Christian neighbours. Moreover, mainline Muslims know that the Qur’an commands that Muslims study the Bible [Al-Baqarah, 2:121].
5. To the Islamofascist, Christians and Jews are infidels to be killed. To normative Muslims, they are “People of the Book,” and thus, allies in the fight against godlessness [See, for example, Quran, Al-Imran, 3:79-80].
6. As I said in my earlier post, Islam preserved and extended knowledge. Islamofascists prefer that we all live in the stone age.
7. Normal Muslims see honour in being good hosts. Killing Nick Berg, as the Islamo-fascists did–and prefer to do, is NOT hospitality!
Unfortunately, all this gets lost when, as commenter Rudy said in responding to my previous post, “moderate groups like CAIR” defend not only Muslims in general, but even extremists. It is one thing to say that one abhors killing; one must also move to ostracise the extremists, or risk being tied to those extremists.
I think that Islam could take a lesson from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It excommunicated Samson Avard and his Danites before they could do much damage. Unfortunately, that may have been too late to avoid Missouri’s extermination order.
Furthermore, the Church excommunicated not only the main perpetrator of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (John Lee), it excommunicated local authorities who were present at the atrocity–and did nothing to stop it. While Brigham Young was removed as Utah’s Governor, the excommunications probably prevented the US Army from continuing its quest to detroy the Church.
Why is there no overarching Muslim authority that condemns Islamofascist Jihad? One possible answer is that normative Islam is no more monolithic than Christianity. Not only is there a difference between Sunni and Shia Islam, each major group has many subsets. Osama bin Laden is the leader of an extremist group in the ultra-conservative Wahabbi sect of Sunni Islam, the Qutbists.
Perhaps the normative Muslims are afraid of the extremists…. That is entirely possible, seeing that many of us won’t help protect the good ones from the bad….
The good Muslims need our prayers; the bad ones need to receive exploding daisy-cutters.
UPDATE: There is a correction in the third from last paragraph. Hat tip to Ray Agostini.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Why is there no Muslim authority that condemns Islamofascist Jihad?
You may be interested in this link:
http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php
May 10th, 2008 at 9:37 am
You’re right. I should have said, “… no overarching Muslim ….”
I’ve made the correction. Thanks.
May 11th, 2008 at 8:26 am
I think that Islam could take a lesson from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It excommunicated Samson Avard and his Danites before they could do much damage.
Perhaps someone with more expertise on the subject could correct me on this, but it is my understanding that Muslims don’t have anything analogous to excommunication, they believe that Allah decides who is a true Muslim and it isn’t a person’s place to judge in that regard. Also, the lack of a clear hierarchical structure as we have in the LDS church makes it difficult to kick people out. Sure clerics can denounce someone or some group, but it would be kind of like one bishop saying that a ward in his neighboring stake has gone apostate–that’s not really his call, it’s up to a general authority or someone with stewardship over the other ward. The bishop in one ward can’t excommunicate someone in another ward, and since Muslims don’t have general authorities it makes things difficult in this regard.
Also, Islam is like Christianity–it is made up of many, many different factions and sects, as you correctly pointed out. If Mormons excommunicate someone, that doesn’t make them no longer Christian, it just makes them no longer LDS. So even if Sunni Islam somehow excommunicated Osama bin Laden, he could still claim to be a Muslim.
Thank you though for pointing out all the wonderful things that normative Muslims believe and differentiating them from extremists. My Islam and the Gospel teacher once shared a story about being in a taxi in a Muslim country and telling the driver that he was Christian. The cab driver couldn’t believe it, because he thought all Christians were weird people who liked to hold poisonous snakes and speak in tongues after seeing a story about one such Christian church in America. I think it’s similar with how many Americans view Muslims–we only really hear about the crazy ones who do stupid stuff, not the good, honest, normal ones who worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience and allow all men the same privilege.
May 11th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
austin s wrote:
I think it’s similar with how many Americans view Muslims–we only really hear about the crazy ones who do stupid stuff, not the good, honest, normal ones who worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience and allow all men the same privilege.
Too true. Although I’ve mixed with some Muslims since 2001, it was only a year and a half ago that I became closely acquainted with their culture and beliefs (at least in Australia), and was able to associate with them, and as I previously mentioned my boss is a devoted Muslim. One thing I also admire about them is that whether they are believers or unbelievers, they have little tolerance for “evil speaking” of The Prophet or Islam. This may seem like a bad thing to many, and the seed of extremism, but even in unbelieving Muslims there’s respect for the religion, because they recognise the good in it, and many of them still observe Ramadan for cultural reasons. I am careful not to say anything derogatory about Islam, though it’s obvious I don’t believe it. They are not a back-stabbing community, and personal honour is held in high regard. In jest I once asked a lapsed Muslim friend to teach me some swear words in Arabic, and he refused, because he said, anyone could use those words against him or his religion (though he was non-practising), and to hear curses in Arabic would be too much. I think there is certainly a place for criticism, but not mockery in any form. This doesn’t arise from literal beliefs, but out of respect for their culture. I once asked another Muslim friend, who told me he’s really atheist, what Muslims do in mosques. His jest-ful reply was “plan how to blow up buildings”. This was of course healthy mockery of the stereotype. After 9/11 Muslims in Australia were treated with suspicion and even antagonism (”they are all like that”), and this friend, though an unbeliever, was taunted at work about this, and he ended up nearly losing his job after threatening to “knock the block off” anyone else who taunted him or his religion. How different we often are, where for some nothing is held sacred, and even the name of the founder of Christianity has become a common swear word. Some former Mormons also hold their erstwhile religion in total public mockery. How can anyone respect that? “Er, excuse me, but you were once a true believer yourself, and you now mock beliefs you once held sacred? Not sure if I can trust you as a friend, because you’re likely to turn on anyone or anything.” There is something universally odious about traitor-like characteristics, hence Judas’ universal infamy (even to unbelievers). Not merely unbelief, not mere criticism, but actively turning on those you would once have died for. Perhaps I’m only in one end of the ball park and my view is skewed, but I haven’t seen this among Muslims I associate with, and I respect that.
The most frequent complaint I hear about the young generation today (in my country) is that they have “lost respect”. Should this surprise us? If we have set the example by openly mocking our religious traditions, upon which the country was founded (and believe it or not, using the name of the Deity was once a criminal offence in Australia), why should they hold anything in respect - including us?
May 11th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
The problem with this term is that modern Islamic extremist movements have almost nothing in common with fascism, which is a statist, totalitarian political philosophy based usually on racism or nationalism. Horowitz invented the word to rally Americans to his neoconservative position that Islamic fundamentalism must be fought with no-holds-barred military force. (After all, we fought fascism in WW2, therefore we should as eagerly engage “Islamofascism.”) This perjorative construct for purely political means is both disturbing and misguided.
You know, I seem to remember Jesus saying that in the Sermon on the Mount.
The problem is that even precision-guided bombs have what the military euphemistically calls “collateral damage”, and all too frequently hit the wrong target — or the right target based on wrong intelligence. (In fact, the first bombs of the 2003 Iraq war, dropped by F-117s over Baghdad, hit innocent civilians instead of miltary targets.)
The United States rarely apologizes for such mistakes, and even more rarely compensates victims’ families. The result is that we create more anti-American extemists than we destroy, as the living now wish to avenge their dead.
In 2001 George W. Bush could have responded to the 9/11 attacks with a “police action”-style limited engagement to apprehend or kill al-Queda’s top leadership. Instead he foolishly listened to people like David Horowitz, and now we find ourselves with a million dead Iraqis and four million more displaced, on the verge of attacking Iran, and having enflamed tens of millions of Muslims against us.
As ye sow, the apostle Paul warned, so shall ye reap. Sow daisycutters, reap the whirlwind.
May 11th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Mike,
Perhaps you ought to rethink your praise of my honour!
First, you are mistaken in saying that fascism is racist, per se. While Hitler and Tojo were indeed racist, Mussolini and Franco were not. Former Columbia University Professor Robert O. Paxton says that:
“Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism.
I’ll comment more later.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Steven,
Please note that I said fascism is “based usually on racism or nationalism.” In other words, fascism is a common component, but not a required one. I haven’t done a survey, but I would strongly suspect that nationalism is far more common in fascist societies than is racism.
And yet neither are found in Islamic extremism. The Muslim nations of the Middle East are thoroughly fractured and extremely unlikely to give up their individual sovereignty to a greater Islamic caliphate. Their mutual mistrust is based largely on extensions of tribal or family power structures, as well as rifts between Sunni and Shi’ia, and Arabs and Persians.
With regard to Paxton’s quote, you’ll note that there is a lack of “part[ies] of committed nationalist militants” within Middle Eastern countries that have any ties to al-Quaeda extremism. Nor have they “abandon[ed] democratic liberties” (they never had them to begin with) or “pursue[d] with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.” A huge logical stretch is required to argue that nations like Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are “fascist,” and without a nation, military, or power structure, disparate groups like al-Quaeda cannot be considered “fascist” in any sense.
Like I said, “Islamofascism” is a polemical term devised to rally support for a wrongheaded and failed war policy. It is very much like the application of “cult” when applied to Mormonism — designed to stir up feelings to achieve an end, not to accurately describe the group.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:03 am
Certainly not. I appreciated your last post, and while I disagree with your conclusions in this post, my disagreement with you doesn’t make you any less honorable.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:37 am
I’ve been hesitant to comment on this or the original post on this topic because I haven’t had much experience with non-extremist Muslims. Since my context is admittedly one-sided, I’ll refrain from arguing one point or the other. Instead, let me ask a question (that isn’t intended to rile anybody, though it surely will)
“By their fruits ye shall know them.”
What has greater Islam contributed to modern society (aside from ancient innovation and record-keeping)? World’s fastest growing religion- an ideology with over a billion adherents. What has Islam given us? What does it give us today? What are the fruits of Islam?
May 14th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
D.Sirmize:
What has Islam given us?
Historians of Islam would be best qualified to answer that. I think Dr. Peterson could also give a good summary.
What does it give us today? What are the fruits of Islam?
I think it gives us what just about every religion does: An “answer” to the meaning and purpose of life. And I say “answer” because everyone receives this “answer” individually, and people born in countries where a specific religion dominates tend to accept that religion. Every religion that I know of has progressed and accommodated to modern views in some aspect, some more than others. Who could ever believe that Catholicism would go from burning heretics to officially accepting evolution, and offering an apology to Galileo? This same religion which tied Giordano Bruno to a stake and burned him for his philosophical and scientific ideas, one of which was the vast plurality of the universe and the possibility of other inhabited worlds, has just issued a media release speculating about how and to what extent the mediation of Jesus Christ might cover aliens in other worlds. Marvels never cease. Before 1890 the Mormons were implicit that polygamy would never change, and suffered persecution and imprisonment for it. The penalty for this failure to change is now seen in the FLDS abuses and the heartache that polygamy really causes.
The critics of Islam have a leg to stand on when they criticise extremists. But “mainstream” Islam extends the same benefits that most religions do - it tends to make people more civilised, more honest, and to deal justly and mercifully with others. Maybe others don’t see this, but to me it’s all too obvious (53 year old turtle speaking here). Like the sun shining at midday. There is one purpose in which I would join with both Mormons and Muslims, and that is to stop the tide of apparently growing belief that atheism is sound, or healthy, or “natural”. Religions need to stop fighting each other, and join in this common cause. There is plenty of room for dialogue here, but none with the hardcore, pro-active atheists a la Hitchens and Dawkins and Shermer. The extremists and fundamentalists in any religion aren’t going to help this cause, they will only give the gold medal to the proactive atheists by default. This isn’t to say fundamental beliefs shouldn’t be kept, in fact that might be necessary to preserve any religion. It’s when we resort to “my God can beat up your God”, then we are in for trouble.