Fabricating an Enemy

We are not at war with Islam, argue a growing number of pundits, but we should be. As exemplified by Ross G. Douthat in his editorial published in this paper, these writers and pseudo-intellectuals have eschewed the labor of informing themselves about other cultures and religions for the easy but shallow polemics and stereotypes reminiscent of 19th-century racist colonial literature. By perpetuating the myths of inescapable conflict and clashes of civilizations, they become the unwitting pawns of the Osama bin Ladens of this world who are itching for such a fight.

These writers allege that violence is fundamentally written into the ideology of Islam, and thus a clash of civilizations is inevitable between Islam and the West. From Douthat, we learn that this ideology comes from the Prophet of Islam himself, “a Prophet who makes war—in self-defense, arguably, but with a glad heart, a war-like spirit...a spirit that divides the world into the House of Islam and the House of Unbelief, and declares irrevocable enmity between them.” Where, in all that we know about the life of the Prophet, the history of Islam or the beliefs of Muslims, did Douthat find the evidence to support this conclusion?

For 13 years the leaders of Mecca tortured and oppressed the Prophet and his followers, forcing them to flee the city. For another decade the Meccans waged a war of annihilation against them. Despite over 20 years of persecution, the Prophet’s victorious return to Mecca was unmarred by violence. Before a fearful crowd of Meccan leaders, this supposedly vengeful Prophet proclaims in the words of Joseph to his brothers, “This day, there is no reproof against you!” He even renounces the claims of Muslims upon the property confiscated from them in the years of persecution, and makes the chief of his conquered enemies in Mecca the governor of the city.

Muslims make no secret of the fact that they are permitted to fight in self-defense, against oppression, in defense of the freedom of choice in religion (not just their own) and in the protection of justice. Each of the military campaigns of the Prophet’s time can be traced to these causes, as can the wars of the early caliphate that saw the Muslim Empire spread from Persia to Morocco. But, there is no call in the religion for a “glad heart” in war, as Douthat claims, no “war-like spirit.” The Koran proclaims fighting to be a grave sin, exceeded and justified only by the graver evil of oppression and tyranny.

Let there be no doubt: Fighting is absolutely forbidden when the conditions mentioned above do not exist. And if at any point, the tyrant stops his oppressive ways or the cause of self-defense is removed, then fighting must stop immediately.

Where war is unavoidable, it must be fought under an extremely strict moral code. Non-combatants cannot be hurt under any circumstances. Even trees, animals and non-military buildings must be spared harm as far as possible. Prisoners of war cannot be harmed or tortured. Enemy casualties must be buried with dignity. All treaties must be respected, unless broken first by the other side. Wells cannot be poisoned—perhaps the world’s first prohibition of bioterrorism. These precepts may seem familiar from today’s Geneva Conventions—even if continuously violated in world of total warfare and “collateral damage.” But for the Muslim, these rules were not devised over time, but come directly from the teachings of the Prophet 14 centuries ago.

The Koran declares that if a non-Muslim group is at peace with the Muslim community, then the Muslims should treat them with justice and kindness. Douthat insinuates that the Prophet’s example declares “irrevocable enmity” between Muslims and non-Muslims. Yet all evidence speaks to the contrary. Consider for example, the Charter of Privileges to the monks of the St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai, in which the Prophet swears to “hold out against anything that displeases them” and promises that Muslims shall defend the monks. Property and freedom of access were guaranteed protection. There are at least a handful of “democratic” allies of the U.S. that do not grant the same protection to mosques.

The Koranic spirit of “justice and kindness” rather than a belligerent heart, formed the hallmark of the Prophet’s dealings with the peaceful non-Muslim communities around him. So impressed, for example, were the Jews of Medina with the fairness of the Prophet that they often asked him to resolve their disputes according to Jewish law. The tolerance inherent in Islam lived on long after the Prophet. When the Spanish Inquisition drove the Jews (and Muslims) out of Spain, they found refuge in the Ottoman Empire, where many served in high official positions.

The injunction to “slay...the unbelievers” that Douthat cites regarding violence against non-Muslims is not to be found in the Koran. This quotation is a pure fabrication—the writing of an artifical “Koran” to support a flawed argument. Although Douthat did not make this error intentionally, his failure to check his sources on such a fundamental matter results in misinformation and bad journalism. However, reading these verses in these terms would make sense if and only if the rest of the Koran and the sayings of the Prophet that serve to explain and complement the Koran are blithely ignored. How many times has the verse Matthew 10:34—“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword”—been used to justify acts inconceivable to the message of Christianity?

Verses of the Koran cannot be decontextualized or interpreted independent of the entire tradition. For 14 centuries, scholars of the religion have perfected a science of Islamic jurisprudence that is both elaborate and subtle. Yet both Douthat and bin Laden ignore contexts, misquote texts and elaborate as they will without any respect for a tradition that is both developed and tested.

Douthat claims that the understanding that he puts forward is that of the Muslim mainstream. In doing so, he uses the example of an extremist in New York (whom the Muslim community itself has intensely criticized for his comments) and a favorable review of a book by the Defense Minister of a totalitarian secular government (Syria) that bombed and killed 20,000 of its civilians because their Muslim faith asked them to protest the government’s tyranny. Might as well define America by Jerry Falwell and David Duke. The fact that the favorable book review was published in a respectable mainstream newspaper like Al-Ahram again does not say anything about the position of the mainstream. If we were to open the pages of the eminently mainstream Crimson last Monday, then using Douthat’s logic, we would think that most Harvard students are profoundly ignorant of and biased against Islam. But, we know that columnists and reviewers speak for themselves, and newspapers often don’t restrain them when they push the margins of decency.

Had any other tradition been misquoted, maligned and misinterpreted the way that Islam often has been, we would be outraged, and rightly so. In these sensitive times, when the mettle of America is being tested, it is important that the standards of fairness and decency apply to all. If we claim to represent the universal values of truth and justice, it is essential that we maintain the highest standards of fairness and honesty.

Saif I. Shah Mohammed ’02 is an economics concentrator in Leverett House. Zayed M. Yasin ’02 is a biomedical engineering concentrator in Leverett House. Shah Mohammed is President of the Harvard Islamic Society (HIS). Yasin is a former president of HIS.