Andrew Bostom: <i>The Legacy of Jihad</i>
By Paul J Cella Posted in War — Comments (61) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Dr. Andrew Bostom is a physician specializing in Epidemiology. Since 1997 he has been part of the full-time medical faculty at one of the two major teaching hospital affiliates of Brown University. His current research focuses on the relationship between kidney and cardiovascular disease. Bostom is also the editor of the newly-released book The Legacy of Jihad, a compendium of writings, both modern and ancient, on the uniquely Islamic institution of Jihad. I interviewed him via email over this past week.
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PC: Dr. Bostom, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Your new book, The Legacy of Jihad, is a rich and chilling catalogue of the horrors visited upon peoples across the centuries and continents by the Islamic doctrine of holy war and its attendant corollaries; it is scholarly in form and execution, including a number of texts never before available in English; 
yet you yourself are by profession a medical doctor. Can you tell us about how you became interested in Islam, and how that interest developed into so ambitious a book?
AB: September 11, 2001 shocked me out of the complete absorption in my career in medicine and an accompanying uninformed complacency about world affairs. I grew up in New York City, spending the first 34 years of my life there, and the wife of one of our nephrology fellowship trainees barely made it out of the second World Trade Center tower before it collapsed. The cataclysmic events of 9/11 had very little context for me, so I set out to learn about Islam, reading voraciously. Starting with the writings of Karen Armstrong and John Esposito (how naïve and ironic it seems in retrospect!), I became thoroughly dissatisfied, in short order, with the entire genre of thinly veiled, treacly apologetics, sadly characteristic of modern popular and “academic” works on Islam. So I began what has become a ceaseless endeavor to educate myself, making liberal use of the vast research resources of the Brown University system. Learned, patient mentors, in particular Bat Ye’or and Ibn Warraq, facilitated my efforts. They encouraged me to complete what became The Legacy of Jihad, sharing the view, expressed so appositely by the prominent Middle East Studies Professor, Dr. Raphael Israeli, that the book filled a “yawning gap” in the literature on jihad. That is why in one rather large volume I combined a comprehensive analysis of both jihad theory and practice, the latter being a detailed survey of the brutal way jihad campaigns have always been waged — using a physician’s favorite learning and teaching tool, the mnemonic, in this case “MPED” — massacre, pillage, enslavement, and deportation.
PC: The Legacy of Jihad begins with “A Note on Cover Art” that alone is probably enough to shock and disturb readers unfamiliar (as many will be) with the centrality and antiquity of jihad in Islamic doctrine. Why did you choose the painting you did? To what extent is the event depicted there a pattern for how the Islamic religion came to understand itself?
AB: Tedious research lead to a wonderful discovery. In pouring through each written entry from an enormous catalogue of Persian miniatures held by the British Library (via The British Museum), I came across an item entitled, “The Prophet, Ali, and the Companions at the massacre of the prisoners of the Jewish tribe of Beni Kuraizah [Banu Qurayzah].” Three months later when a CD-ROM arrived in the mail, I was ecstatic to learn that the British Library staff had responded to my special request — based only the title of the miniature — and reproduced what turned out to be this striking image.
September 622 C.E. marks a defining event in Islam — the hijra. Muhammad and a coterie of followers (the Muhajirun), persecuted by fellow Banu Quraysh tribesmen who rejected Muhammad’s authenticity as a divine messenger, fled from Mecca to Yathrib, later known as Medina. The Muslim sources described Yathrib as a Jewish city founded by a Palestinian diaspora population which had survived the revolt against the Romans. Distinct from the nomadic Arab tribes, the Jews of the north Arabian peninsula were highly productive oasis farmers. These Jews were eventually joined by itinerant Arab tribes from southern Arabia who settled adjacent to them and transitioned to a sedentary existence.
Following Muhammad’s arrival in Medina, he re-ordered Medinan society, eventually imposing his authority on each tribe. The Jewish tribes were isolated, some were then expelled, and the remainder attacked and exterminated. A consensus Muslim account of the massacre of the Qurayzah — one of the Jewish tribes of Medina — has emerged as conveyed by classical Muslim scholars of hadith (putative utterances and acts of Muhammad, recorded by pious Muslim transmitters), biographers of Muhammad’s life (especially Ibn Ishaq), jurists, and historians. This narrative is summarized as follows: Alleged to have aided the forces of Muhammad’s enemies in violation of a prior pact, the Qurayzah were subsequently isolated and besieged. Twice the Qurayzah made offers to surrender, and depart from their stronghold, leaving behind their land and property. Initially they requested to take one camel load of possessions per person, but when Muhammad refused this request, the Qurayzah asked to be allowed to depart without any property, taking with them only their families. However, Muhammad insisted that the Qurayzah surrender unconditionally and subject themselves to his judgment. Compelled to surrender, the Qurayzah were lead to Medina. The men with their hands pinioned behind their backs, were put in a court, while the women and children were said to have been put into a separate court. A third (and final) appeal for leniency for the Qurayzah was made to Muhammad by their tribal allies the Aus. Muhammad again declined, and instead he appointed as arbiter Sa’ad Mu’adh from the Aus, who soon rendered his concise verdict: the men were to be put to death, the women and children sold into slavery, the spoils to be divided among the Muslims.
W.H.T. Gairdner, the renowned early 20th century scholar of Islam, also relying exclusively upon Muslim sources, highlights the pivotal role that Muhammad himself played in orchestrating the overall events, concluding:
The umpire who gave the fatal decision (Sa’ad) was extravagantly praised by Muhammad. Yet his action was wholly and admittedly due to his lust for personal vengeance on a tribe which had occasioned him a painful wound . . . The arbitration of Sa’ad . . . had been forced on him by Muhammad; for Sa’ad first declined and tried to make Muhammad take the responsibility, but was told “Allah has commanded you to give sentence in their case.” From every point of view therefore the evidence is simply crushing that Muhammad was the ultimate author of this massacre.
In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, the Muslims benefited substantially from the Qurayzah’s assets which they seized as booty. The land and property acquired helped the Muslims gain their economic independence. The military strength of the Muslim community of Medina grew due to the weapons obtained. The captured women and children were sold for horses and more weapons. The Jewish tribe of the Qurayzah ceased to exist.
Abu Yusuf (d. 798), the prominent Hanafi jurist who advised Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid (d. 809), made the following observations about the Qurayzah massacre in his writings on jihad, which highlight how the Qurayzah’s grisly fate became a normative model in Islamic Law:
Whenever the Muslims besiege an enemy stronghold, establish a treaty with the besieged who agree to surrender on certain conditions that will be decided by a delegate, and this man decides that their soldiers are to be executed and their women and children taken prisoner, this decision is lawful. This was the decision of Sa’ad b. Mu’adh in connection with the Banu Qurayzah . . . It is up to the imam to decide what treatment is to be meted out to them and he will choose that which is preferable for religion and for Islam. If he esteems that the execution of the fighting men and the enslavement of their women and children is better for Islam and its followers, then he will act thus, emulating the example of Sa’ad b. Mu’adh.
PC: In a recent speech President Bush insisted that the “ideology” of the terrorists, who “distort the idea of jihad,” is “very different from the religion of Islam” and indeed “exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision.” In your view, is the President’s assessment sound?
AB: The President’s comments regarding jihad were a profound disappointment. Indeed, such words could have been written and uttered by the most uninformed, or deliberately disingenuous apologists for this devastating institution, which is uniquely Islamic, well over a millennium old, and still wreaking havoc today.
The origins of the Muslim institution of jihad are found in the Qur’an. Sura (chapter) 9 is devoted in its entirety to war proclamations. There we read that the Muslim faithful are to “slay the idolaters wherever you find them. . . . Fight against such as those who have been given the scripture as believe not in Allah. . . . Go forth, light-armed and heavy armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah. That is best for you, if ye but knew.” From such verses in the Qur’an and in the hadith, Muslim jurists and theologians formulated the Islamic institution of permanent jihad war against non-Muslims to bring the world under Islamic rule (Shari’a law).
The consensus on the nature of jihad from major schools of Islamic jurisprudence is clear. Summarizing this consensus of centuries of Islamic thought, the seminal Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun, who died in 1406, wrote:
In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty because of the universalism of the mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense.
Only Islam, Ibn Khaldun added, “is under obligation to gain power over other nations.”
Muhammad himself waged a series of proto-jihad campaigns to subdue the Jews, Christians and pagans of Arabia. For example, within a year after the massacre of the Banu Qurayzah, referred to earlier, Muhammad, according to a summary of sacralized Muslim sources,
. . . waited for some act of aggression on the part of the Jews of Khaybar, whose fertile lands and villages he had destined for his followers . . . to furnish an excuse for an attack. But, no such opportunity offering, he resolved in the autumn of this year [i.e., 628], on a sudden and unprovoked invasion of their territory.
Ali (later, the fourth “Rightly Guided Caliph”, and especially revered by Shi’ite Muslims) asked Muhammad why the Jews of Khaybar were being attacked, since they were peaceful farmers, tending their oasis, and was told by Muhammad he must compel them to submit to Islamic Law.
The renowned early 20th century scholar of Islam, David Margoliouth, observed aptly: “Now the fact that a community was idolatrous, or Jewish, or anything but Mohammedan, warranted a murderous attack upon it.”
Within two years of Muhammad’s death, Abu Bakr, the first Caliph, launched the Great Jihad. The ensuing three decades witnessed Islam’s most spectacular expansion, as Muslim armies subdued the entire Arabian peninsula, and conquered territories which had been in Greco-Roman possession since the reign of Alexander the Great.
The essential pattern of the jihad war is captured in the classical Muslim historian al-Tabari’s recording of the recommendation given by Umar b. al-Khattab (the second “Rightly Guided Caliph”) to the commander of the troops he sent to al-Basrah (636 C.E.), during the conquest of Iraq. Umar reportedly said:
Summon the people to God; those who respond to your call, accept it from them, (This is to say, accept their conversion as genuine and refrain from fighting them) but those who refuse must pay the poll tax out of humiliation and lowliness. (Qur’an 9:29) If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency. Fear God with regard to what you have been entrusted.
By the time of al-Tabari’s death in 923, jihad wars had expanded the Muslim empire from Portugal to the Indian subcontinent. Subsequent Muslim conquests continued in Asia, as well as Eastern Europe. The Christian kingdoms of Armenia, Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, and Albania, in addition to parts of Poland and Hungary, were also conquered and Islamized. Arab Muslim invaders engaged, additionally, in continuous jihad raids that ravaged and enslaved Sub-Saharan African animist populations, extending to the southern Sudan. When the Muslim armies were stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683, over a millennium of jihad had occurred. These tremendous military successes spawned a triumphalist jihad literature. Muslim historians recorded in detail the number of infidels slaughtered, or enslaved and deported, the cities and villages which were pillaged, and the lands, treasure, and movable goods seized. Christian (Coptic, Armenian, Jacobite, Greek, Slav, etc.), as well as Hebrew sources, and even the scant Hindu and Buddhist writings which survived the ravages of the Muslim conquests, independently validate this narrative, and complement the Muslim perspective by providing testimonies of the suffering of the non-Muslim victims of jihad wars.
It is the consensus view of orthodox Islamic jurisprudence regarding jihad, since its formulation during the 8th and 9th centuries, through the current era, that non-Muslims peacefully going about their lives — from the Khaybar farmers whom Muhammad ordered attacked in 628, to those sitting in the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 — are muba’a in the Dar ul Harb. And these innocent non-combatants can be killed, and have always been killed, with impunity simply by virtue of being “harbis” during endless razzias or full scale jihad campaigns that have occurred continuously since the time of Muhammad, through the present. This is the crux of the institutionalized ideology that we are fighting, i.e., jihad, notwithstanding President Bush’s unfortunate public mischaracterization.
PC: Given the nature of Islam as laid out by the Islamic authorities you have quoted, what is a Western policy toward Islam, including the sensitive issue of Muslim immigration to the West, consistent with these Islamic realities?
AB: I agree with the thrust of what Dr. Raphael Israeli described in his seminal analysis of modern jihad terrorism published in 2003. He proposes the creation of an Alliance of Western and Democratic States (AWADS), consisting of a nucleus of the United States, Canada, Australia, and Western Europe (and these core nations can sponsor other countries proven to conform to its rules and standards, for example, India), with the following six avowed “rules of engagement”:
- Strict control of immigration from Muslim countries without reliance on the "efforts" of the countries of origin, who have shown neither the will nor the means to stop this massive flow, much of it already illegal. This policy should include interception and routine unceremonious repatriation of the illegal immigrants themselves, and expulsion from AWADS nations of those who assist them.
- Reciprocal arrangements for controlled immigration, tourism and educational exchanges between Muslim countries and AWADS nations to guarantee equivalent, unimpeded bilateral flow — Muslim nationals to AWADS, AWADS nationals to Muslim countries — devoid of characteristic Muslim discriminatory regulations towards other races, faiths, or nationalities.
- Rendering various forms of economic, technical/infrastructural, health, agricultural, and educational assistance by AWADS to Muslim countries contingent upon basic conditions met by the applicants, including: accountability; progress in human rights; meaningful efforts at population control; renunciation of force/violence in dealing with other nations/communities; and monitoring and controlling incitement to hatred and violence in mosques and media outlets.
- Terminating all military assistance and weapons sales by AWADS to non-member states, supplemented by a policy that any weapons-manufacturing third party which sells or transfers weapons to those regimes will itself forfeit the right to deal with AWADS members.
- Mosque construction, as well as the building of other Muslim institutions in AWADS nations, particularly projects funded by Saudi Arabia, will be contingent upon reciprocal arrangements to construct religious institutions for other faiths in Muslim nations, including each country situated on the Arabian peninsula, and the binding commitment by all parties — AWADS and non-members of AWADS — that no incitement or hatred will be propagated in any of these religious institutions.
- The importation into AWADS nations from Muslim countries of cultural commodities and assets — books, movies, art shows and exhibits, performing arts groups, clerics and missionaries, print media or audio/video tapes — must also be reciprocal, contingent upon the unrestricted flow of similar AWADS assets into Muslim countries- and all such assets will be required by law to be devoid of messages that disseminate hate.
PC: Given the resistance among Americans to anything that smacks of discrimination, what steps might we take to emasculate the doctrine of jihad?
AB: Fifteen years ago (September, 1990), Bat Ye’or made these prescient observations regarding what needed to be done by the Muslim leadership and clerical and intellectual elites to initiate an Islamic version of Vatican II, a sort of “Mecca-Cairo-Qom-Najaf One (I)” self-examination, mea culpa, and reform process:
This effort cannot succeed without a complete recasting of mentalities, the desacralization of the historic jihad and an unbiased examination of Islamic imperialism. Without such a process, the past will continue to poison the present and inhibit the establishment of harmonious relationships. When all is said and done, such self-criticism is hardly exceptional. Every scourge, such as religious fanaticism, the crusades, the inquisition, slavery, apartheid, colonialism, Nazism and, today, communism, are analyzed, examined, and exorcized in the West. Even Judaism — harmless in comparison with the power of the Church and the Christian empires — caught, in its turn, in the great modernization movement, has been forced to break away from some traditions. It is inconceivable that Islam, which began in Mecca and swept through three continents, should alone avoid a critical reflection on the mechanisms of its power and expansion. The task of assessing their history must be undertaken by the Muslims themselves . . . There is room to hope that the ending of the contentious dhimmi past will open the way to harmonization of the whole human family.
Sadly, a decade and one half later, most Muslim (and many Western) intellectuals continue to justify the concept of jihad as an inoffensive spiritual engagement with one’s own evil instincts, or purely “defensive” combat for “justice,” and dhimmitude is still completely denied, ignored or obfuscated. Therefore non-Muslims of all kinds who have been victimized and continue to be victimized by these heinous Muslim institutions must abandon their silence and be encouraged to describe this history openly in the hope that this process will elicit a sincere movement of acknowledgement, reform, and reconciliation within the world Muslim community. Admittedly, we seem generations away from such an overall process now. Thus in the interim, those preaching the bigoted and murderous doctrines of jihad within the West should be deported. Moreover, we in the West must press our political and religious leaders to demand that such bellicose, hate-mongering “educational” practices be abolished in all Islamic nations, without exception, under threat of severe, broad ranging economic sanctions.
PC: Thank you for your time, Dr. Bostom.
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Note: a longer version of this interview is here.
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Andrew Bostom: <i>The Legacy of Jihad</i> 61 Comments (0 topical, 61 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
concerning mosque construction and the importation of cultural materials, there's no way that could be restricted under the 1st Amendment
Why not? We exempted Communism in material ways from First Amendment protection during the Cold War. We outlawed Morman polygamy. We restrict religion is many ways.
We could, for example, prohibit the doctrine of jihad -- saying that it is the settled opinion of We the People of the United States, that this doctrine, whatever its true function in the Islamic religion may be, is a clear and present danger to our nation, and anyone who espouses it will be subject to legal restrictions.
Islam is. Also note that we never outright banned people from espousing Communism, or forbid Mormons from building temples. In contrast, this policy of Bostom's, if implemented, will in the end make the worship practices of AMERICAN CITIZENS contingent on the behavior of foreign entities.
If you don't think it will, I suggest that you look up an expert in medieval Judiaism and ask them about the complexities inherent in getting a synagogue built.
Moe
While we're on the subject, am I correct in understanding that Bostom's first bullet point would result in the stripping of citizenship from individuals aiding illegal immigrants?
about the implications of Bostom's bullets points. My own bullet points would be somewhat different.
It is true that Islam is a religion, but jihad is not. That is why, in my view, the focus on that doctrine is necessary. I see no reason, constitutionally, why it cannot be prohibited outright.
...I'm not yelling at you. If it seemed that way, my apologies. :)
Look, I'm not in favor of letting the crazies have a free hand, either: advocacy of the violent overthrow of the United States is something that we shouldn't tolerate in our visiting guests, and it's certainly something that should result in an automatic refusal of a citizenship application. And we need to clean up our immigration policy.
But this guy wants us to essentially hunker down and seal off the world, and I think that such a policy is neither practical nor a good idea in the long term.
like preventing communists from entering the military or civil service. In the aftermath of Wounded Knee the federal government did suppress Indian religious practices, something that continued well into the 20th century.
But this guy wants us to essentially hunker down and seal off the world, and I think that such a policy is neither practical nor a good idea in the long term.
I hope it's clear that his recommended strictures against immigration refer only to Muslims. I do not know what his broader immigration position is, but I suspect it is closer to yours than to mine.
So, "seal off the [Muslim] world" would be a fair description, and one that I heartily endorse. Until Islam can get its house in order (read: the acknowledgement and emphatic renunciation of jihad), we should carry on as little business with it as possible. (I know, I know: oil really complicates this option.)
...not the belief itself. If you want every individual connected to a jihadi-supporting organization to flunk a security clearance check, I'm all for that. Institute strong limitations on foreign funding of domestic organizations? Give me the specifics, but I'm fine with the general idea. But if a bunch of American citizens who share the same horrid belief system decide that they want to build a religious structure with their own cash, I cannot support telling them no simply because they have the same belief system with an independent foreign entity*.
Because while the definition of what 'horrid' can and does change, legal precedents do not.
Moe
*Prove that it's not their own cash, or that they aren't independent, and that's a differnt story.
OK, he explicitly does say 'Muslim'. I don't think that there is any way such a specific policy can be instituted, but that's a different issue.
If you want every individual connected to a jihadi-supporting organization to flunk a security clearance check, I'm all for that.
Not good enough. I propose that standing American policy should include a prohibition on jihad. If in fifteen years this democratization project has worked out, and Islam begins repuditaing its thus-far unbroken history of jihad conquest, then we can re-evaluate.
I'm interested in what you think of this, Moe (and anyone else of good will.)
you cant ban or prohibit something without defining it. You refuse to accept muslim-Americans' definitions. So, whats your definition? Write th elaw as you would see it implemented. then lets discuss that.
Paul -
Do you think it is possible for Muslims to live peaceably with people of other faiths?
Or do you think that Muslims, by virtue of being Muslim, must fight people of other faiths until those others are either converted to Islam, subjugated into dhimmitude, or killed?
Thanks -
Re: We could, for example, prohibit the doctrine of jihad
Paul, I cannot conceive of banning a religious doctrine (though certainly I can see banning certain religious behaviors that are crminal in nature.) That puts us right back in the 16th and 17th century when governments dictated what theolgical positions were and were not acceptable. To me, that's 1000 times worse than anything the fool jihadis could ever accomplish. So my position is simple, and I believe eminently practical: make no windows into men's souls but make it known and absolute that violations of the law of the land will be met with certain and severe punishment. And of course that attacks by foreign entities will be met with the force force and might of the US military. As someone one said, a good hanging focuses the mind wonderfully.
Obviously that is a difficult and sensitive question, Aziz. The reason for focusing on jihad, however, should be pretty obvious: a reluctance to actively discriminate against a religion.
We would need to retain some constructive vagueness in definition, so as to give us some leeway either way. (Did we ever define Communism in law?) The main point here, as I see it, would be the power of the public announcement. The primary way a republican people "speaks" is through its duly-enacted laws. We need to "say" in that manner, that the historical institution of jihad, understood as conquest and subjugation in the service of conversion, is intolerable.
How about Ibn Khaldun's definition:
"Holy war is a religious duty [to] convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force."
Leaving the definitional, legal, and practical considerations aside, I think you err by assuming that you can separate religion (Islam) from a religious belief (jihad, however defined). It's a bit like saying that one can ban belief in transubstantiation without also banning Christianity. (Note that it's perfectly possible to belong to a Christian denomination that does not require a belief in transubstantiation.)
But there's another problem, here. Some, including me, question whether it is a good idea to use even the most pernicious beliefs as penalty "enhancers" -- to say nothing of banning such beliefs outright. For instance, I have some problems with hate crimes laws.* What you've proposed here is an uber hate crimes law: one which not only enhances the penalty for a crime committed with a certain belief, but makes the belief a crime itself. If we should ban belief in jihad, surely we should also make racist pay a greater price when they put their racist beliefs into action -- racism has done more damage to this country than all jihadists combined. But why stop there? White Surpemecist Christian Identity groups are more than willing to cause terror, if given the means. Why should we accept them in our midst? If banning their religion gives you pause, surely we can ban their belief in racial superiority (at least, under your and the Doctors' logic).
von
*"Some problems" means that I'm conflicted on the issue.
is not a religious authority. One might well rely on Ann Coulter - or perhaps George W Bush - for the definition of conservatism.
But OK. Are you settling on Khaldun's definition for your proposed policy? I am willing to grant that his is a definition of jihad for the purposes of policy formulation.
As I said, please draft teh text of the policy, complete with definition. You might be surprised at my reaction.
laws but I also believe sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
You can't mean that half the world is muslim because that isn't even close to factual.
Ibn Khaldun compared to Ann Coulter? Good grief. Is it not arguable that Khaldun was one of the greatest intellects that Islam ever produced? And Islam has no religious heirarchy, so it is quite impossible to adduce a proper "religious authority," no? In my mind, citing Khaldun is analagous to citing Augustine or Aquinas as Christian authorities. Am I mistaken?
Are you settling on Khaldun's definition for your proposed policy?
I'm not settling on anything yet. My proposals are provisional. I'll consider drafting some text if you think it will be useful here, but that will have to come later.
Khaldun was a great historian, a sociologist, a brilliant mind - but NOT a religious authority.
I deliberately quoted Bush as well as Coulter not to equate them, but to illustrate that neither a media personality nor a politician, regardless of their mastery of their respective professions, can be honestly invoked as an authority on a philosophy (ie conservatism).
Taking the analogy to religion (and conceding that religion and philosophy are not the same thing), Khaldun nor Bin Laden are authorities on faith.
If you want to quote Ali ibn Talib on jihad for your definition, then that is an unaassailable authority. Likewise Hanifi, Maliki, Shafi, etc.
However, since you prefer to take Khaldun, and in doing so extrapolate a universal application to his idea despite the fact that he wrote for a very specific social and historical context, then that is your prerogative and your opinion .I have even indicated my willingness to play along. But don't think for a moment that you can get away with insisting that a historian has anything of value to add to a theological discussion.
No, I have no love for Khaldun despite his brilliance. His critique of Hussain AS is enough to sour me upon him. But as I said, choose your definition of jihad from where you will. I am willing to play, though I think that you have not done sufficient due diligence with respect to teh concept you seek to address.
Maybe Sam Huntington can be president.
On a related note, I wonder if anybody's read an opinion on whether or not the current wave of jihadist action will die down when the generation that was raised and trained on the cult of jihad in Afghanistan in '79. It seems like a plausible theory to me, and I'm curious if any scholar has examined it...a scholar with more credentials than an MD and a few years poking around the Brown library. If Dr. Bostom is concerned with apologists obscuring the real history of jihad, he should read Age of Sacred Terror by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, a great history of the whole movement, addressing the idea of jihad throughout history and its current application in a case study of al-Qaeda. I guess I should say REread it, since he read so "voraciously" and must have come across it.
It's a bit like saying that one can ban belief in transubstantiation without also banning Christianity.
In fact, it's not remotely like saying that. This comparison is foolish. Transubstantiation is not a call to action of any kind; assenting to it is an act of the intellect alone. At most, it might lead to the action of attending a church that teaches the doctrine. By stark contrast, assent to the doctrine of jihad implies action of a very drastic sort.
What you've proposed here is an uber hate crimes law: one which not only enhances the penalty for a crime committed with a certain belief, but makes the belief a crime itself.
Yes: criminize a belief. This, I'll note, is not something addressed by the First Amendment. But I think the comparison to hate crimes unhelpful. It is not "hate" that we would be targeting. We would be targeting a religious doctrine which, in our settled judgment, we find to be incompatible with our traditions as a free people.
Nor am I much impressed with your demand for logical consistency vis-a-vis white supremecists. It strikes me as more of an attempt to score a debating point than address a serious issue. Are Christian white supremecists really something worthy of new attention in this country? Jihad, again in constrast, is indeed something unique and novel to America.
On the one hand, hatred of someone on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin is well-known as a motive for committing some crimes that can be pretty heinous. But we also believe in free speech.
On the other hand, for a KKK member to shoot a black person just because the victim is, say, a black man dating a white woman, I'd have no problem with the extra penalties. Because the hatred has now been translated into actions - and I'm of the belief that actions receive less protection than mere words. Violent acts based on hatred need to be unacceptable in the United States - knocking off someone over their race or religion is the type of BS we see in the Balkans or some parts of Africa (see the Sudan) or the MidEast, I don't want it here, and I think it should be permitted as an aggravating factor in determining a sentence for someone who has been convicted.
Why don't you take a look at the book before disparaging it and insulting its editor?
Here is something to consider: Bostom himself accounts for less than 10% of the book. The great bulk of it is other scholars, from other eras and cultures.
Two areas that are particularly obscure, but critical, to a proper understanding of jihad are (1) the jihad on the Indian subcontinent, which is illuminated in the contributions of K.S. Lal, as well as in a lengthy documents section; and (2) the Ottoman jihad campaigns. BOTH of these pieces of the puzzle were so studiously ignored or whitewashed given the geostrategic concerns of the Cold War and post-Cold War era. The longest single essay in the collection, other than Bostom's Introduction, is a remarkable study by the outstanding historian of Balkan Islam, Dimitar Angelov, on the jihad campaigns waged by the Ottomans in the Balkans. This is appearing in English for the first time, and we are all richer for it.
is that certain violations of the law are much more likely given certain beliefs. Lex orandi, lex credendi. We can certainly prevent adherents of the doctrine from immigrating, and we can hound its domestic adherents the same way Communists were hounded. Whatever the rights of citizens, no one has a right to immigrate to the US. If the US, UK, and Spain had not permitted Muslim immigration since WWII, the attacks of 9/11, 7/7, and 3/11 would not have taken place.
Paul, I cannot conceive of banning a religious doctrine (though certainly I can see banning certain religious behaviors that are crminal in nature.) That puts us right back in the 16th and 17th century when governments dictated what theolgical positions were and were not acceptable.
The distinction is rather forced. If a doctrine requires behavior of believers, and you ban that behavior, you are banning the doctrine and asserting the state's superiority to religion. Let us not mince words about it.
Sorry about that.
What I don't apologize for is disdaining people who charge into a field and start making conclusions based on a few years of research...especially when those conclusions are politically, racially, and religiously loaded. It sets off a warning flag for objective readers, and they stop reading. I'm not saying you or I or some other epidemiologist can't write a book about jihad. But we need to make our nods at the folks who have been reading and watching and writing a lot longer than we have, rather than making digs at them. It's pretentious beyond belief to think that you can fill a "yawning gap" in such a prolific literature.
But we need to make our nods to the folks who have been reading and watching and writing a lot longer than we have.
Yes: which is why Bostom has given voice to many of these very folks by bringing their unjustly neglected work to light.
It's pretentious beyond belief to think that you can fill a "yawning gap" in such a prolific literature.
More pretentious still is the notion that only scholars are worthy of attention. The "prolific literature" in question is enriched immeasureably by the contribution Bostom has made. I am more inclined a trust scholars removed from current controversy by the accident of death than I am scholars working today amidst the strictures of p.c. ascendance. In other words, the complaint you are making is precisely what Bostom's book tries to address: the parochialism of modern scholarship on jihad.
once again I misunderstood. Congratulations to him if he's amassed some pertinent scholarship or original source material that others had not looked at. I'm just not particularly interested in the conclusions that he might draw from there.
You're confusing the issues.
In fact, it's not remotely like saying that. This comparison is foolish. Transubstantiation is not a call to action of any kind; assenting to it is an act of the intellect alone. At most, it might lead to the action of attending a church that teaches the doctrine. By stark contrast, assent to the doctrine of jihad implies action of a very drastic sort.
Your first assertion was that one could ban a religious belief without banning a religion. I responded by saying that this was akin to arguing that you could ban belief in transubstanitation without banning the religious that require that belief. Your retort is that transunstantiation is essentially harmless. Perhaps, but you've elided my point: Again, calling for the banning of a particular religious belief is tantamount to calling for the banning of any religion that requires that belief. Your purported distinction between religious "religious belief" and "religon" is artificial.
Nor am I much impressed with your demand for logical consistency vis-a-vis white supremecists. It strikes me as more of an attempt to score a debating point than address a serious issue. Are Christian white supremecists really something worthy of new attention in this country? Jihad, again in constrast, is indeed something unique and novel to America.
The point here is that your argument "proves too much": That is, if it is legitimate to criminalize pernicious belief X because someone might act upon it in this circumstance, what is to prevent criminalizing pernicious belief Y because someone might act upon it in that circumstance? I realize that you think (with ample justification) that jihad is presently more dangerous than white supremecy, at least in terms of the potential to inflict mass casualties. But is that a justification for not stopping evil beliefs where we find them? Why not stamp out evil before it becomes a problem?
Put more simply, you're setting a precedent with your call to ban a religious belief -- a precedent that cannot be narrowly confined solely to those beliefs that you personally deem evil enough to rise above a certain threshold. I guarantee that your called-for precedent will be applied in ways that you may not wish to see it applied. The lesson here is as old as Pandora: don't open the box unless you're prepared for what will come out.
von
P.s. what does it matter if I'm trying to score a "debating point" in demonstrating the overbreadth of your claim? This is a debate.
Let us all sit back in amazement at the impressive number of spelling mistakes that I made in my last post.
Re: We can certainly prevent adherents of the doctrine from immigrating
And I agree with this entirely. Beliefs are a valid immigration filter. But that's a different topic entirely from criminalizing a belief. Entry to this country is a privelege not a right, and we don't toss rejected immigrants into jail.
Your purported distinction between religious "religious belief" and "religon" is artificial.
That may be true. It may be, that is, that jihad is simply inseparable from Islam, though I note that you are insisting on this, not me. If it is -- and I hope that it is not -- then we must nevertheless go ahead with it, and risk that our actions, imposed upon us by necessity, will be "tantamount to calling for the banning of any religion that requires that belief."
Von, you know that I am not afraid of calling for explicit discrimination against Muslims. Indeed I think the whole anti-discrimination regime largely a racket and a usurpation. But here I am trying to appeal to a wider audience who may not share my view on the matter. I am very prepared to compromise. But I'm not sure what you, as a moderate, hope to accomplish by attempting to collapse the distinction between doctrine and religion. It is a bit discouraging, the whole thing. Does banning polygamy infringe upon the free exercise of Mormans? Does banning evangelism in state-funded charities infringe upon the free exercise of Christians? Like it or not, the State has got its hands in everything these days, and religion is hardly excluded.
I guarantee that your called-for precedent will be applied in ways that you may not wish to see it applied. The lesson here is as old as Pandora: don't open the box unless you're prepared for what will come out.
A fair admonition. I have never said this business would be simple are easy. But if we cannot legislate against a clear and present danger, if we cannot, as a self-governing people, decide what we will and will not tolerate, then we are doomed.
But even with immigration policy that would be a big step. To announce that those Muslims applicants for visas, etc., who will not renounce jihad, are unwelcome is hardly standard procedure. Its effects could be significant.
I'm glad you're on broad with this, Aleks.
Von, you know that I am not afraid of calling for explicit discrimination against Muslims. Indeed I think the whole anti-discrimination regime largely a racket and a usurpation. But here I am trying to appeal to a wider audience who may not share my view on the matter. I am very prepared to compromise. But I'm not sure what you, as a moderate, hope to accomplish by attempting to collapse the distinction between doctrine and religion. It is a bit discouraging, the whole thing. Does banning polygamy infringe upon the free exercise of Mormans? Does banning evangelism in state-funded charities infringe upon the free exercise of Christians? Like it or not, the State has got its hands in everything these days, and religion is hardly excluded.
My argument here is against an attempt to ban or criminalize a "belief" on the grounds that it's evil. However attractive in this circumstance, it is ultimately short sighted and will lead to immoralities that ultimately may be greater than the wrongs such a policy actually prevents (if any).
Now, if common ground is the goal, here's some: I have no problem banning or criminalizing an action or intended action, regardless of what "beliefs" inspire it. I have no problem using an individual's known or professed beliefs to investigate them or subject them to greater scrutiny. I have no problem using an individual's known or professed beliefs to bar them from certain key jobs. I have no problem excluding immigrants and tourists entirely from this country based on their known or professed beliefs.
In other words, I'm in favor of exercising common sense.
But don't be misled: being a "moderate" is not the same as being without principles. And on the following principles, I won't bend: We do not make an individual a criminal based solely on his or her perceived association with a group, whether religious, ethnic, or otherwise. Our treatment of individuals is as an individual. Accordingly, if we punish person X, we do so because we have cause to believe that they are dangerous, not solely because they belong to a certain group that we've decided makes them more likely to be dangerous.
Yes, my way may increase the danger of an attack. But there are principles more important than preventing an attack; principles more important than living without fear; and, yes, principles more important than life itself.
than I.
But there are principles more important than preventing an attack; principles more important than living without fear; and, yes, principles more important than life itself.
Certainly, I just don't see where you are advocating defending any principle I'd be willing to die for. I am at a loss to define any principle that allows someone to kill me or mine.
is to be preferred to concurrence in trivialities. There are principles worth dying for - on this much we agree. The notion that a man may believe anything that pleases him, and advocate for that belief, regardless of its nature and its consequences for his fellows, is not, on any understanding of the substance of nationhood and the goods of civilization, one of those things for which we ought to be prepared to offer our lives and the lives of our children. I will neither sacrifice myself, nor my children, for an empty abstraction.
Am I to understand that this is the logical expression of the idea of America as a nation formed by a set of propositions, as opposed to the idea of America as a nation formed and sustained in a common way of life, a communion of memory and sentiment, with beliefs but one aspect of an identity that ultimately defies rational categorization?
The restrictions on Communism in the US were allowed, despite the First Amendment, because the core of communism necessarily relied on the violent overthrow of the US government. "Islamism" is similar in this regard.
It would be fairly easy to pass a Constitutional law limiting Jihadist mosques under case law from the first half ot he 20th century. However, current Scotus law would require the law to be extraordinarily carefully written in purely neutral terms (applying to "advocacy of violent overthrow of US government" only). The technical hurdle is something I don't believe Congress is willing to meet.
Even then, I'd bet most Circuits would strike down the law as being obviously biased against Islam, despite any neutral language. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, a properly worded law could survive SCOTUS review (unless the Miers slot goes leftwards).
I've debated this point with you on another thread, and while I'm not so ego-centric to think that your concluding paragraph is directed at me personally, its opening sentence so recollects the spiritual argument that I made on that thread that I am compelled to respond in kind.
I have spent almost half of my adult life studying Islam, during which time I have had the varying fortune or misfortune to discuss Islamic theology with learned men from the hinterlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan to the ulema of Omayyad Mosque in Damascus and to divinity students from Al-Ahazar in Cairo. While I will not dispute the conclusions of of a man I don't know and whose book I have not read, I challenge a central assertion of his with the following.
Chapter 9, verse 73, includes the words: "O Prophet, strive hard against the hypocrites", in which the Arabic 'jahada' clearly means to strive. This has been explained to me by several Islamic scholars to mean precisely what it says. I have also pointed out to you that Chapter 2, verse 256 states flatly that there is no compulsion in religion. How could there possibly be? Of what possible use could forced religious observance be to G-d?
Chapter 9, as I also pointed out, is an example of a chapter that many believe exists only in the time in which it was written, and as such is not applicable to the present day. And here I would like to pose a question. Would a disinterested observer reading the comments of Dr. Bostom be obliged to think that any Moslem not totally committed to violent jihad is not performing his religious obligations? It is difficult to draw any other conclusion from his argument, is this not so? Yet if that were in fact the case, then the vast majority of Moslems for the past 1000 years have been bad Moslems, including Hafiz, Rumi, ibn Arabi, Saadi and hundreds, if not thousands, of other Moslem luminaries were essentially apostates, as would be the current King of Jordan, a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed and hereditary guardian of Mecca and Medina. But Dr. Bostom is more of an authority on Islamic obligation than all of them.
I'm not a historian by trade, but it seems to me that Dr. Bostom has fallen victim to two fallacies described by Vico. The first is to assume that the ancients knew any more about what was happening then we do today merely because they were closer to events. The second, more severe, is related to what Vico called the scholastic succesion of nations, in which he pointed out that while one group can teach another, what that group learns is based on what its own history has prepared it to learn. In this case, is it suprising that the Bedouin, a people whose culture was based on war and the 'ghazi, as thier pre-Islamic poetry clearly demonstrated and which you mention, would adapt the spiritual notion of jihad to fit their own historical determinations? I think not, nor should anyone be shocked by the presence of free-booters and plunderers when one's own religious heritage is filled with more than enough Jocelyns of Edessa, hardly a 'varry parfait Christian knight' (pace Mr. Cella), although I confess to a kind of sneaking admiration for him.
The debate on whether to expel Moslems who profess jihad against the United States is, IMO, correct, and I would not hesitate to do so, as I would not with any other group dedicated to the destruction of my country - and I would have quite a long list, thank you.
Finally, and for whatever it's worth, debates like this are of urgent necessity. There are many well-intentioned people involved in this effort, which takes place at a significant historical moment, one in which the United States and the Islamic world are sparring with each other. Like attracts like, even though it may not seem that way at the moment. Hegel felt that the dialectic of Greece and Rome led to the synthesis of Christianity. We are living a Hegelian dialectic now, perhaps its synthesis will be greater than its parts. People who wnat to make violence always find a way, other people find their own way.
and nonsense on stilts. There's nothing suicidal about sticking to our ethical and legal principles-- principles from which our power and greatness chiefly derive. There is something suicidal, IMO, when you betray your most fundamental principles for the sake of mere expediency or gain.
We can easily handle the gang of nihilistic radicals that threaten us (albeit we ought be doing more on that front!) We do not need to repeal three centuries or moral and constitutional achievements to do so. Wew overcame both Communism and Naziism without needing to suspend the Constition.
for immigration reform. We are just plain nuts to be letting people in this country who cannot affirm (or at least swear to respect) the most basic fundaments of our nation. I've said this on other threads too. Now if we could just get the fool politicians (of both parties) on that bandwagon.
that we didn't have to over was rather different back then from the one that the lobbies of treason and appeasement have constructed over the past fifty years of their march through the institutions. FDR and Ike didn't have to contend with a Constitution that was believed to protect sedition.
Communism is a religion, complete with a pantheon of gods. The author's points are interesting. Why can't mosque construction, particularly foreign-financed construction be halted? We have zoning laws, do we not? That means we are already in the business of restricting building projects for a whole host of reasons, why not this one?
Prior to the 1960's we had national origin quotas that controlled immigration. Ted Kennedy sponsored the bill that ended that system in favor of 'diversity.' Why are we listening to Ted Kennedy that this is a good idea?
The other thing I found very, very interesting about this author was what he did not recommend. He did not recommend invading Muslim nations in order to turn them into democracies. He seems to feel that the religion of Islam itself must deal with its darkside as the first order of business.
The Bush strategy seems to be that political democracy will take care of that dark side by itself.
How does everyone else feel about this?
So Chapter 9 is not applicable to the present day, according to "many." Why not? How does one determine what parts of "divine scripture" are not divine? How does one determine the "expiration date" of the divine scripture when the text does not state that there is an expiration date? Who gets to determine what has expired, and when? It seems readily apparent, from the many examples above, that "many" others believe that violent jihad is in fact required.
I am not prepared to to state that all of Islam is bad or evil. Nevertheless, when the violent jihadists attack and kill in the name of Islam, there is a deafening silence from the "Mainstream" (so we are to believe from you and others) peace loving Islamic community. I want to believe that you are correct about mainstream Islam being peaceful; however, the lack of outrage from the supposedly peace loving mainstream Islamic community is troubling. If mainstream Islam really is peaceful, note to you and the like: Your religion is being hijacked by extremists. If you do not do more to rein them in, society at large will be forced to do it for you, and the results will probably not be pretty for anyone.
I suppose the best answer to this would be that historical supercession of scriptural material in Islam would follow the same path that it followed in Judaism and Christianity, neither of which exists any where near their original or even relatively recent forms. For example, slavery was once justified on the basis that since it appeared in the Old Testament, it must have enjoyed the de facto consent of G-d. This argument was used not by 19th century Jews, but by the forerunners of today's evangelicals, some of them, at least. Does anyone make this argument today? Similarly, the doctrine of papal infallibility and the selling of indulgences were once considered normal by the Catholic Church. Have these not been eliminated from Church doctrine? Shall the Moslems be denied the right to do the same thing that practitioners of other religions have done? If so, by whom, and why?
My objection to things like this post lies in the fact that they essentially confirm what the radical Islamists are saying: Jihad at all times, against all people everywhere. But if that were really the case, i.e. if mass numbers of people believed in this, what would be the point of supporting either the Shia or Kurds in Iraq - they don't use a different Koran.
The jihadists of today are reactionaries, wanting to construct a 7th century Arabia theme park out of the ruins of cultures they have already helped to destroy. How many people actually helped, or are helping the Taliban, or al-Queda?
It actually isn't my religion, at least in the conventional sense that this term is used, but as I wrote to Mr. Cella in another thread, there are many people working against this kind of reactionary thinking. Such efforts are not helped, nor hindered actually, by asserting that the jihadists are correct.
First, it is a relatively new formulation of the Pope's role, codified only in the 19th century. Secondly, it is still operational.
My objection to things like this post lies in the fact that they essentially confirm what the radical Islamists are saying: Jihad at all times, against all people everywhere. But if that were really the case, i.e. if mass numbers of people believed in this, what would be the point of supporting either the Shia or Kurds in Iraq - they don't use a different Koran.
The Islamist would say that there have always been bad Muslims, just like there were bad Jews in Jeremiah's time.
How many people actually helped, or are helping the Taliban, or al-Queda?
We don't know, precisely. Enough that they have steady supplies of recruits and money, and enough fellow travelers to provide them a sea in which to swim, just as peasants were the sea for Mao's guerrillas. Islamists win seats in parliaments, they enjoy wide support in many Muslim countries, and a non-negligible percentage of Muslims living here in the Dar al Harb either condone or tolerate terrorism in the name of Islam, so long as it is directed at crusaders and Zionists.
Similarly, the doctrine of papal infallibility and the selling of indulgences were once considered normal by the Catholic Church. Have these not been eliminated from Church doctrine?
Nope. Selling indulgences was never considered "normal" though it was done. The doctrinal concepts of indulgences and the papal infallibility are still there.
I stand corrected. For normal, I should have substituted standard. Tell me, do you believe in such things? Would a good Catholic be obliged to accept such practices if they went against his own consience?
of Papal infallibility, yes, a Catholic is compelled to accept them, to bring his conscience into line with church teachings. I don't know about indulgences, though. I'm not a Catholic, at least not yet.
Instead of Maoist tactics, it has been my own experience that the preferred tactics of the Islamist are nearer to that of the Viet Cong, i.e. terrorization of villagers, while supported by the equivalent of an intellectual, urban cadre. If that were not the case, then our strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq is misguided.
A common tactic of the Islamist is to conflate Arab political objectives with Islamic concerns, quickly: Was the war in Vietnam a nationalist struggle or a communist struggle? Similarly, is the Islamist effort genuinely Islamic (universal), or is it particular (Arab)?
As for Islamist political gains, I think you need to clarify your terms a bit. If by Islamist you mean very conservative, orthodox Moslems, I agree. If you mean those whose stated political goals are to restore the Caliphate, I believe you are mistaken.
Let us not forget that in Catholic doctrine, the pope's range of infallibility is very narrow.
Pardon the pun (ahem), but of course there is a difference between the selling of indulgences and the temporal remission of sins. I'm a bit rusty on Catholic dogma but it would be fair to say that both are connected to a relatively flimsy scriptural foundation, which is not part of the evangelical project, to the best of my knowledge. In any case, a man is going to face contradictions in his life, and how he resolves those contradictions is a matter of personal intention and conscience. Unlike the Church however, Islam never had a mechanism for imparting the resolution of contradictions to any other authority until recently.
The increasing temporal authority (imaginary) of mullahs in a religion that expressly forbids a priesthood is a sign of decay, in much the same way that the selling of indulgences was one of the chief complaints of Luther. The two are different in form but similar in substance: internal corruption that manifests itself as excessive formalism. The best example of this IMO is the almost complete disappearance of Mohammed's teaching from the pronouncements of the Islamists.
But the question of infallibility, however restricted, still begs the initial point about temporality. Again, the specifics matter less than the general idea, and it is the notion of temporality within Islam that is at stake here. The fact that infallibility did not exist as dogma until 1870 (?) is of critical importance to understanding the approach to undermining the notion of violent ex-Islam jihad.
for people who can't accept them is Protestant. I'm a Roman Catholic. Yes. They are part of my faith.
is another man's rock.
It hinges on your interpretation of Matthew 16:16-19 and your interpretation of Apostolic succession and what it means.
If you don't see those the my Church interprets them then both concepts are thin reeds. If you do see them the way I do they are rock solid.
That you see the remission of sins and apostolic succession as solid is a matter of religous conviction based on intepretation. This is precisely how I feel about the following statement by Mohammed (attested to by Fudala, Bahaqi's collection): 'A Holy Warrior is he who carries on the Holy War with his own Self; and a Refugee is he who flees from crime and sins.' This in response to the question: 'What is a holy warrior?'.
This is but one example of an entire corpus of interprative remarks that have been excluded from discussion by the Islamists and which are generally unknown to people of other faiths. Like Christians, the Moslems were given a map and a guide.
Arabia and all of the Arabian Peninsula
Baghdad and environs
Some to Iran but not all Iranian Jews are from this group some are Khazar
Some to Italy and other points in the Empire
Jews introduced olives and wine to Italy before that Romans used animal fats and drank beers.
concerning mosque construction an the importation of cultural materials, there's no way that could be restricted under the 1st Amendment, and I find the suggestion we should do so to be profoundly counter to the American tradition. On the other hand I do support the idea that we ought be much more diligent in weeding out Islamic radicals who seek to emigrate to the West.
Finally, I'm a bit dispapointed that the iunterviewee does not mention the works of Bernard Lewis. They are by far the most balanced and insightful in regards to Islamic (and specifically, Arab) history and cultural, avoiding both apologetics and jeremiads.