A recent MEMRI report
establishes beyond all doubt that the Arab media are infested with rampant
Islamophobia – at least by western standards of political correctness… But,
speaking seriously, the lengthy report is absolutely worth reading in full. It
consists of an introductory summary followed by excerpts (with commentary) of
relevant articles authored by three Palestinian writers (two of them living in
Britain), three Saudis, two Moroccans, one Jordanian and one Egyptian.
Much of what these columnists write would not be considered
fit to print by highbrow western media outlets. Consider this quote from an article
in the London daily Al-Hayat, published on July 17, 2016 in the wake of
the devastating terror attack in Nice a few days earlier. The Palestinian
writer and academic Khaled
Al-Hroub writes:
“Is terrorism attributed to
religion related to the religion itself? The answer is yes, because the
religion – any religion – is nothing but [a sum of all] explanations and
interpretations of sacred texts by clerics... Religious interpretations that
can easily be understood to mean that martyrdom means a cheap suicide [inside]
a café or club frequented by ‘infidels’ are very common in our religious,
educational, and mosque culture, and must be dealt with... What view [can] we
develop regarding non-Muslims if every week we hear thousands of preachers call
on Allah to ‘not leave a trace of them’? Every day, our sons [and presumably
daughters, too? PMB] read texts and books in schools that establish nothing but
a patronizing and disrespectful view regarding non-Muslims.”
What I find most remarkable in this passage is that Hroub
doesn’t try to diminish the problem, but emphasizes that there are “every week
… thousands of preachers” who promote bigotry and hatred as piety. To be sure,
relevant material documented by MEMRI would seem to indicate that “thousands of
preachers” may still be a somewhat conservative estimate for the entire Muslim
world. Reading this MEMRI report I was reminded that about a year ago that, I
discovered that even though the Al-Aqsa mosque is usually considered as Islam’s
“third-holiest” place, nobody (i.e. no Muslim) seems to be offended that there
are apparently fairly regular rants by “preachers” – including perhaps
self-appointed ones – who spout the vilest bigotry and hatred imaginable. As I
noted in a
related post, there seems to be something like a Muslim version of
Speakers’ Corner inside the Al-Aqsa mosque, where anyone – meaning, of course,
any man – who feels like delivering a hate-filled rant against the Jews and the
West can do so freely at Islam’s “third holiest” site. Men and young boys mull
around, some stop to listen; but the reaction of the audience shows clearly that
no one considers it unusual to come to this supposedly very sacred place of
worship and hear sermons demonizing non-Muslims and exalting Islam as destined
for the bloody – and divinely ordained – subjugation of the non-Muslim world.
And of course, western media have no interest whatsoever in covering any of
this, even though such coverage could arguably contribute greatly to a better understanding
of one of the media’s favorite topics: Israel and the hostility the Jewish
state faces from the Palestinians and the wider Arab and Muslim world.
But in a sense, none of this is really news: whatever a
low-ranking or self-appointed preacher at the Al-Aqsa mosque’s Speakers’ Corner
may say, similarly hate-filled sermons and teachings have also been given by Yusuf
al-Qaradawi, one of the most influential Muslim clerics with an audience of
many millions of Muslims worldwide. As Jeffrey Goldberg pointed out in a 2011 Atlantic
article
with the fitting title “Sheikh Qaradawi Seeks Total War,” an analysis of
Qaradawi’s “Fatwas on Palestine” by Mark Gardner and Dave Rich shows “that this
putatively moderate Islamic cleric argues clearly and consistently that hatred
of Israel and Jews is Islamically sanctioned, and that the destruction of
Israel is mandated by God.”
Qaradawi has described the notorious hadith quoted in the
Hamas Charter (i.e. “The last day will not come unless you fight Jews. A Jew
will hide himself behind stones and trees and stones and trees will say, ‘O
servant of Allah – or O Muslim - there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him’”)
as “one of the miracles of our Prophet,” and he has calmly explained:
“[W]e believe that the battle
between us and the Jews is coming ... Such a battle is not driven by
nationalistic causes or patriotic belonging; it is rather driven by religious
incentives. This battle is not going to happen between Arabs and Zionists, or
between Jews and Palestinians, or between Jews or anybody else. It is between
Muslims and Jews as is clearly stated in the hadith. This battle will occur between
the collective body of Muslims and the collective body of Jews i.e. all Muslims
and all Jews.”
In the meantime, it has apparently dawned
on some Arab-Muslim commentators that Qaradawi’s widely accepted militancy on all things to do with
Jews is backfiring:
“Sheikh Al Qaradawi permitted the
use of suicide bombing as a defensive tactic against Israel […] Practically
speaking, though, the fatwa has had far wider consequences. It has been used by
extension to justify suicide bombing against fellow Muslims. Of course, Al
Qaeda and other extremists have no shortage of fatwas to vindicate their
practices. But the danger of fatwas issued by otherwise moderate clerics is
that they normalise suicide bombings, regardless of the circumstances.”
So even for Muslims it seems to
be true that “[the] hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews.”
Which brings me back to the MEMRI report that cites a Saudi
(!) writer who thinks that terror groups like the Islamic State (ISIS) do have
quite a bit to do with Islam:
“Today, it is more urgent than ever
to renew the [Islamic] religious discourse in form, content, and goals... since
Muslims have become confused, as many issues that were once considered
uncontroversial principles are now banned in accordance to the norms set by the
modern world, such as slavery for prisoners of war, offensive jihad, and so on.”
Among the “many issues that were once considered
uncontroversial principles” is arguably also the Jew-hatred reflected in the
notorious hadith that is quoted in the Hamas Charter, and that Qaradawi wants
to uphold so faithfully. The problem is that this is a saying attributed to
Muhammad himself, and given that Islam’s founder
fought local Jewish tribes, it is perhaps all too easy to imagine that he
projected his own troubles with the Jews to the end of history. This touches on
what is arguably the fundamental problem of Islam: that it is a religion
founded by a person whom Muslims revere as the most perfect man who ever lived –
giving Muhammad in fact a Jesus-like status (minus the idea that he was God’s
son) – but who was also a warlord who founded a rapidly expanding and immensely
successful empire.
I expect that some of the related problems are addressed in
Shadi Hamid’s new book on “Islamic
Exceptionalism” – a book I’ve bought but not yet read; though on the basis
of what I’ve read about
it, I’m doubtful that I will agree with Hamid that “‘Islamic exceptionalism’is neither good nor bad. It
just is.” I’m afraid that at least for our time, I can see plenty of
evidence to support the conclusion that “Islamic exceptionalism” is pretty bad.
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