Some Muslim people are obviously very aware of the potential damage to the reputation of Islam if the full extent of the exhortations to violence in the Qur’an and traditions (which I discuss at length in my articles) become obvious.
They can mitigate this by relying on the fact that the average Westerner has little knowledge of the Qur’an and will, therefore, not be able to challenge assertions that it teaches a certain doctrine. Many Muslim leaders make use of this fact by constantly making claims about the supposed peacefulness of Islam, especially after acts of violence committed by people quoting the Qur’an. These claims are, often, based on the outright ignoring of problematic Qur’anic passages, out-of-context quotation of others and the very selective presentation of some favorable (but weak) traditions.
Since most non-Muslims are not able to critically evaluate the merits of this whitewashed version of Islamic teaching on violence, it has become the accepted orthodoxy among many in the West.
It is an open question whether Muslim spokespersons in the West deliberately set out to create a much more benign picture of Islam’s view of non-believers than the one that can be found in the foundational texts of their religion. The answer to this question is a very complex one and would, most probably, differ from case to case. I would suggest that the following factors are at play:
Only a minority of Muslims in the West use Arabic as a home language. They are, therefore, very unlikely to read the text of the Qur’an in its original setting and context. Essentially, this means that their understanding and interpretation of Islam will often be mediated through the teachings of spiritual leaders and secondary literature on Islam. Simply put, many Western Muslims will understand Islam not so much through the Qur’an as much as through what is being taught at their local mosque. If it happens to be the case that their local mosque under-emphasizes certain aspects of Islamic teaching (e.g., hatred towards unbelievers), then these Muslims may genuinely and sincerely believe that their version of Islam is the full and correct one.
Their (limited) understanding of what is in the Qur’an does not, however, somehow magically erase some of the troubling passages that we will be looking at later in this book. They are still believed and practiced by other Muslims who emphasize different parts of Islam’s holy text.
The second scenario is related to the previous one. I call it the development of “personal Islam”. This is where individual Muslims in the West become very uncomfortable with aspects of classical Islamic teaching and propose to reform them to be more in line with the Western emphasis on individual human rights. Many of them then proceed to push this new version of Islam (essentially their own “personal Islam”) as the true understanding of what the faith should be. This is often done through online activism, which is why this phenomenon is sometimes known as “Cyber Islam”.
The problem with this approach should immediately be apparent. The individuals working away at trying to convince others that their own idiosyncratic interpretations of Islam are indeed the correct ones are just that – individuals. Unless, and until, they can manage to convince mosque authorities, Islamic institutions of higher education or legal authorities within the major Islamic legal schools to adopt their perspectives, they only speak for themselves. As such, they represent only an infinitesimally small minority of Muslims through their promotion of positions that are fundamentally at odds with centuries of Islamic teaching and that would be rejected by the vast majority of religious authorities in the Muslim world.
Thirdly, we find what might charitably be called deliberate under-emphasis of problematic aspects of Islamic theology. This is where Muslim leaders are probably perfectly aware of the teachings of Islam regarding warfare and violence but choose to counteract this by emphasizing more positive (although traditionally secondary) teachings. A prime example of this is the image makeover that the word “jihad” is receiving at the hands of Muslim apologists. They never cease to point out that the word simply means to struggle in Arabic. Based on this, they then proceed to state that “jihad” can be anything from striving to be a better Muslim, getting your sinful desires under control or (as the high-profile #myjihad campaign in the U.S. would have it) even getting into shape. All of this is based on a limited exposition of the Arabic meaning of the word and a very weak tradition calling inner struggle the “Greater Jihad”.
This sounds very plausible and heart-warming to Western ears. What these apologists fail to mention is that the Qur’an itself, and many sound hadiths, explicitly state that offensive warfare is the most important form of jihad that a Muslim can possibly engage in. The treatment of the word jihad as an example of the general trend of over-emphasizing positive secondary Islamic teachings to divert attention from much more belligerent core doctrines.
Finally, it is, unfortunately, necessary to highlight the doctrine of taqiyya at this point . This is the teaching that Muslim people are allowed to deceive non-Muslims in cases where the interests of Islam are under threat. It is clear that at least some Muslim leaders feel that the development of unfavorable perceptions of Islam as a result of a full appreciation of its violent teachings qualifies as a circumstance where such deception would be justified. This is presumably the case because these leaders perceive that such unfavorable perceptions would make the spreading of Islam among non-Muslims more difficult.
It is, therefore, possible to cite numerous examples of Muslim spokespersons who toe the “Islam is peace” line in front of non-Muslim audiences, only to exhort their fellow Muslims to the cause of jihad when they believe they are out of earshot of unbelievers.
For much more about the links between Islamic teaching and violence, please see my book ‘Nothing to do with Islam - Investigating the West’s Most Dangerous Blind Spot’.
Kind regards,
Peter
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