The following is a letter I wrote to Dean Esmay last night. He gave me a challenge in this post, as his first response to my essay Marx, Communism, Totalitarianism; Muhammed, Islam, Terrorism, and I wanted to respond. I wanted to post a more coherent answer, but it will have to do in a pinch. I do have other work. Let me preface it with a funny quote Dean sent me in reply: "I apologize for the length of this letter, but I lacked the time to make it shorter." Also, the disclaimer that it's not exactly spellchecked. Sorry. I'll respond more fully later when I'm in less of a Superbowl moment, but I think your reply is a big stretch. Seriously.

The argument for separation of Church and state is a 'core text' argument. I would also refer you to the earliest discourse on the subject, Augustine's City of God which is even more explicit. Augustine adopts the Pauline notion of secular authorities being placed in their positions by God, but he is also equally clear, as I believe the New Testament is, that these authorities are, in fact, evil. The Bible is rife with example's s of evil men doing God's work for him. And to suggest that Paul thought of the Emperor as anything less than a secular authority distinct from the congregation of believers is just silly.

Not until the adoption of a specific form of Christianity as 'universal' by the Roman Empire do we ever get the slightest hint that secular authorities are anything other than necessary evils ordained to keep a very necessary peace.

Thus, one might point out a great deal of history in which there was no seperation of Church and state, yet an apologetic was formed in order to justify what is clearly countertextual. At least, that is the general narrative as given by Reformation and post-Vatican II Christians. In other words, the vast majority of believing Protestants and Catholics say: we reject that history as a deviation
from the core-text. We were wrong.

The enslavement versus you cite are kind of out of context. I do not object to a Muslim being a shahid to Allah, or a Christian being a slave to God, it is slavery to a state in which I object to.

I just think it's lazy to equivocate religions based on nothing more than wishful thinking about what religions ought to teach, or what a minority in that religion believe. If the hadiths [ed note: sayings about the Prophet] are to be believed, which they generally are by Muslims, then Muhammed's own example of how to interpret the Koran is a very violent sunna [the way or example set by Muhammed], indeed.

One may construct an apologetic for this, which many Muslims do, in which examples of Muhammed's violence is an exception to a general rule toward's peace (or the hadith rejected as less than authentic).

But let us contrast that to Christian or Buddhist teachings which give a very clear example of non-violence, supported by the core text (and the Christian core texts of rejecting Old Testament behaviors). The problematic here is much different: how does one justify violence in the face of such overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

It is only through theology in the face of obvious exampled of pacifism being
evil that Christians and Buddhists were able to justify it [violence: eg, just war theory]. I would submit that Islam has had the opposite theologic problem: justifying non-violence in the case of clear examples of violence in both the
Koran and hadiths.

Also, please cite a single country in which non-Muslims are able to openly, and without fear of legal reprisals, able to try and convert Muslims? None exist. Even 'secular' countries like Turkey and 'moderate' countries like Malaysia have actual legal prohibitions against this.

And while terrorism itself is not necessarily part of the core-text (how could it be, since it has a specific modern meaning) the recipe for a kind of religious totalitarianism certainly is.

It is Muslims themselves that interpret the Koran in such a way that it leads to violence and oppression, not me. The example of the Prophet himself is what is actually cited, much less than the Koran. And the narrative about Islam that I have adopted is not my own, it is the narrative adopted by the vast majority of Muslim theologians themselves.

It is wishful thinking to suggest that our friends in the Free Muslim Movement are anything more than a tiny minority, just as it was wishful thinking to think that our Marxist friends who rejected the core of mainstream Communist doctrine were anything but on the fringe. Might they become the majority at some future date? sure, why not, but I doubt it even thought I wish for it.

Anyway, just a few thoughts in no particular order from the Koran, which, by the way, I've read several times and in several different translations:

4.91: You will find others who desire that they should be safe from you and secure from their own people; as often as they are sent back to the mischief they get thrown into it headlong; therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and (do not) offer you peace and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given.you a clear authority.

What is so great about this verse is the contrast in the next differentiating between killing a fellow Muslim (or a person of the book, according to what I understand is the general understanding) and the kufir.

[4.92] And it does not behoove a believer to kill a believer except by mistake, and whoever kills a believer by mistake, he should free a believing slave, and blood-money should be paid to his people unless they remit it as alms; but if he be from a tribe hostile to you and he is a believer, the freeing of a believing slave (suffices), and if he is from a tribe between whom and you there is a convenant, the blood-money should be paid to his people along with the freeing of a believing slave; but he who cannot find (a slave) should fast for two months successively: a penance from Allah, and Allah is Knowing, Wise.

Then there is the oft quoted (and misquoted)

[9.5] So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

The context of the above, it is argued by more moderate Muslims is that the verse comes in the context of several others where Allah is trying to convince Muslims NOT to kill the idolators, where at other times he had given them the commandment to kill them. But then, there's this a few versus down:

[9.12] And if they break their oaths after their agreement and (openly) revile your religion, then fight the leaders of unbelief--surely their oaths are nothing-- so that they may desist.

I personally revile their religion, much the same way that I revile a lot of religions [in the Monty Python, South Park, Mel Brooks tradition], so am I to be slain?

Again, Allah justifies this (in the next several versus) on the grounds that 'they attacked first''. True enough, but the context is different here. The nonbelievers didn't want to 'submit' (which Islam means) and fought off Muhammed and drove him out. The believers came back and win the fight. The unbelievers (here referring to Jews) are granted protection as long as they 'pay the tax'. BUT, another implicit conditions is that the non-believer keeps his trap shut and
not criticize Islam. If they do, then they have broken the terms of the peace treaty and a state of war comes back into existence.

[9.13] What! will you not fight a people who broke their oaths and aimed at the expulsion of the Apostle, and they attacked you first; do you fear them? But Allah is most deserving that you should fear Him, if you are believers.
[9.14] Fight them, Allah will punish them by your hands and bring them to disgrace, and assist you against them and heal the hearts of a believing people.
[9.15] And remove the rage of their hearts; and Allah turns (mercifully) to whom He pleases, and Allah is Knowing, Wise.

Anyway, it all sound so barbarically Old Testament too. And yes, I would be equally critically of Judaism if they still believed in imposing the Mosaic Law and such nonsense.

Again, from a pretty straightfoward translation of the Koran (found at
http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/k/koran)

[9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

Thus, while Muslims like to claim the jizza is just tax in lieu of alms, the core text of the Koran itself is clear that the tax is 'special' and that it signifies the Muslims 'superiority' and the state of Jews and Christians in Muslim dominated areas are in a 'state of subjection'.

This is not to say that many Muslims create a theology of equality. It is only to suggest that the core text itself creates a rather big problematic for them. Especially given that the verse only applies to Christians and Jews and not polytheists. And, as someone who has flirted with the idea of being a polytheist from time to time, I find that kind of a bad thing.

Next verse:

[9.30] And the Jews say: Uzair is the son of Allah; and the Christians
say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their
mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may
Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!

Okaley-dokaley. That sound SOO MUCH like the teachings of Buddha. One
might argue that the book of Revelation is pretty violent. Then again, the book of Revelation seems to have God doing all the slayings and not the followers of God.

8.38] Say to those who disbelieve, if they desist, that which is past shall be forgiven to them; and if they return, then what happened to the ancients has already passed.
[8.39] And fight with them until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah; but if they desist, then surely Allah sees what they do.

[note: contrast to the equivalent of the hadiths in Christianity, which are non-cannonical tales of the early Church. Peter is persecuted: crucified upside down. Paul: crucified. etc. No hint at anything other than non-violent resistance. No talk of unifying the believers into an army and slaying those that do the persecuting]

The specific context of the next verses is physical fighting: ie, the fighting that occured during the Prophet's own life against the disbelievers.

[4.74] Therefore let those fight in the way of Allah, who sell this world's life for the hereafter; and whoever fights in the way of Allah, then be he slain or be he victorious, We shall grant him a mighty reward.
[4.75] And what reason have you that you should not fight in the way of Allah and of the weak among the men and the women and the children, (of) those who say: Our Lord! cause us to go forth from this town, whose people are oppressors, and give us from Thee a guardian and give us from Thee a helper.
[4.76] Those who believe fight in the way of Allah, and those who disbelieve fight in the way of the Shaitan. Fight therefore against the friends of the Shaitan; surely the strategy of the Shaitan is weak.

So, I guess jihad is just an 'inner struggle'? Again, theology is amazing adaptive, but when the core text is so violent (especially given the example of Muhammed as a way to interpret the core text) it becomes easy to see why those who read it might be inspired to violence and why the theology has much working against it. The same thing, I believe, works against Christians doing violence when violence is necessary and why you have such a strong pacifistic root among fundamentalist groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses & Mennonites
(fundamentalistm being a rejection of all historical theological constructs in favor of a literal reading of the core text [and not, I would add, a perjoritive to only be used against a group, such as Conservative Christians who are rarely, I have found, fundamentalists]).

Anyway, ask and ye shall receive.

Posted by: Rusty at 12:02 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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