Shi'a Pundit: January 2003

free will and Islam.

by way of InstaPundit, is this recycled polemic from The esteemed Reverend Donald Sensing, claiming that Islam has no free will:

Islam teaches that Allah's control over events of the world and human life is total and complete. There is no human free will, there is only rebellion against Allah or submission to Allah. Yet even rebellion is, somehow, under the controlling purview of Allah. Everything that happens, without exception, is the preordained will of Allah.
...
Bin Laden's sort of self-justifying extremism is not the mainstream of Islam, but neither is it as far removed as we might imagine. Fatalism is a characteristic of Islam. There is no human freedom. Human liberty, especially as Americans think of it, is literally a foreign concept to Islam, especially Arab Islam.

The esteemed Reverend Sensing is repeating stale antimuslim polemic a thousand years old. In actual truth, Islam has as a central principle th freedom of man and the importance of reason. Only with Wahabism has this ancient tradition within Islam been suppressed in favor of centralized theocratic control substituting for thought and rational exegesis. The esteemed Reverend Sensing makes a nod to the same trend in Christianity in the past but now claims that it has died out - presumably because he subconciously filters out the esteemed Reverends Falwell and Robertson.

Curiously, the esteemed Reverend Sensing equates Allah's omniscience with lack of free will by human agents. This is perhaps a reflection of his own religious background - not even the Wahabis believe that human actions are "pre-ordained". This is what, a Puritan belief? Only a child would fail to make the simple distinction between "pre-ordaining the future" and "knowing the future" - Allah's omniscience about what choices we humans make (as free will agents) does not negate the action of choosing. But ultimately we all do make one choice or another, and the outcomes are known.

To take an example, was Hitler pre-ordained to massacre 6 million innocent Jewish women and children, just because our history books say he did so? Would you kill Hitler as a child if you went back in time? The answer "YES" to that question is morally equivalent to what the esteemed Reverend Sensing accuses of Islam. Because if you judge a man for what he has not yet done (based on your knowledge of future history), then you do not truly believe that the man can act differently. This is what "pre-ordained" means.

But Islam says the answer to that question is NO. For example, the case of Ali AS. Ali was murdered by a former follower, Ibne Muljim. Years before his murder at Muljim's hands, Ali AS met with him and told him, "you will murder me.". Ibne Muljim, shocked, begged Ali AS to slay him so that he could never carry out such a deed. Ali AS refused, saying that he had not committed the deed yet. And yet Muljim DID murder Ali AS, despite having been informed of it beforehand!

Islam has a long tradition, spanning across the major madhabs (schools of religious thought), of holding the faculty of reason as the highest aspect of Man. Islam lays upon the believer a moral charge to excercise this faculty - the Prophet SAW himself (in a hadith that is accepted universally by both Shi'a and Sunni) exhorted his followers to seek out knowledge, even if it take them to "China" (metaphor for the far end of the world). And Ayat 2:256 within the Qur'an reminds the believer that there is no compulsion within religion - that choice is fundamental to faith.

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January 23, 2003

relative numbers: an illusion of double standards.

Another polemical meme about Islam that I want to address is the idea that there are more Fundamentalist muslims (of both Types A and B) than there are Christians. The most egregious purveyor of this meme is Daniel Pipes, whose "estimates" (ie, inventions) claim there are 100 million Muslims who are in complete agreement with Al Qa'edas world view and half a billion all together who are at least sympathetic. Anyone want to hazard a guess at how many muslims Pipes would have had to poll for these numbers to be statistically significant within two standard deviations? Others have done a better job of illustrating Pipes' dishonesty than I have - my main point is that these flights of hyperbole dominate any attempt to have a rational discussion.

This may poison my image as a moderate, but I label Palestinian terrorists (whose actions I have explicitly condemned!) as a different category - they are not Fundamentalists at all since their primary motivation is NOT religious, it is political.

As for FB(C)s, I don't buy into the weak defense that KKK, militia, hate groups, etc are atheist/masonic or "nominally" Christian, since no such benefit of the doubt is extended to me and my faith. This is as disingenious as it would be if I claimed that Al Qaeda is socialist, that the Taliban were Keynisian supply siders, etc. Put another way, was not a single KKK member who ever lit a Negro church on fire or threaded a noose, a Christian? The bottom line is another double standard. Antimuslim critics are well-prepared to ascribe deep flaws in Islam by extrapolating from the violent actions of it's Type B adherents. The same behavior by Type B's who (even if nominally) adhere to Christianity, is excused and ascribed to political and cultural forces.

One of my best commentators, Deoxy, took issue with me on this point in the lengthy comment thread attached to the fundamentalism post:

Christian vs. Muslim: If the KKK gets counted as Christian (despite overwhelming Christian disapproval), then so do the Palistinians. I would say that the KKK in particular are MUCH more political than religious, more so than the Palestinians, easily. And few Muslims say that the Palestinian Type Bs aren't really Muslims (you seem to be a wonderful exception - thank you).

Suffice it to say that there are groups that say they are Christian or Muslim which really don't seem to be. The issue, I think, is that most of these groups on the Christian side are widely, publicly denounced as not Christian (so much so for the KKK, in fact, that most people I've ever had any discussion about it with seem to attribute the "christian" elements in the KKK to general culture, merely incidental and not inherently part of the KKK at all, or that their beliefes are absolutely wacked out and bizarre), while muslim groups like that (the Palestinian Type B groups, Osama bin Laden, etc) are denounced rarely and supported loudly and in significant numbers.

Deoxy parallels the arguments that Muslims have made in defending the accusation that they too are guilty by association, and likewise strives to minimize his connection to such extremism. I have great sympathy for his position. In fact, I share it.

But the truth is, that I have never claimed that Palestinian terrorists are NOT muslim. In contrast, Deoxy is trying to argue that the KKK and other hate groups are not Christian, that they can be neatly excluded from teh circle of Christianity by a clever little definition here, a technicality there - forming a hermetic seal about his fellow believers to insulate them from these raging Type Bs.

What I have claimed is that Pealestinian terrorists are not "Fundamentalists" because that term applies to people whose terrorist actions are motivated by religious dogma. The messianic Israeili settlers dreaming of Eretz (greater) Israel are motivated by pure religious dogma - they say that God gave them the land and therefore they have a right to it. Liekwise, the rationale for hate groups and the KKK is deeply steeped in religious lore, and they turn to the Bible for justification of their essentially religious interpretations of the white race as superior, and all others inferior.

While some Palestinian groups (notably, Islamic Jihad and Hamas) do invoke religious concepts in their terrorism, these are used as supporting rhetoric for the underlying cause - which is to fight against an occupation of land. The land itself is not particularly holy (apart from the Masjid al Aqsa compound, which is already under effective Muslim control most of the time). Contrast this with one of Osama bin Laden's stated objectives, to expel "crusaders" from the Arabian peninsula - which is a purely religious argument.

Surely these are subtle distinctions, but subtlety is not falsity. The bottom line is that the Palestinian terrorists use religion for recruitment in pursuit of their political goals. The KKK are pursuing a religious goal. Hence I cannot agree with Deoxy that the KKK are not Fundamentalists.

However, to be absolutely clear, I am not denying that Palestinians are muslim, though Deoxy is certainly trying to make the case that the KKK are not Christian. In this I think I am being more realistic and not trying to wish the problem away. Embracing teh fact that extremsts lurk among your own co-religionists is the first step in purging them.

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January 17, 2003

swordpoint conversion.

I want to briefly discuss to false memes about Islam - the first is the "swordpoint conversion" one which accuses the Prophet SAW of forcing the world to convert to Islam by force. This is blatant historical polemic. Muhammad SAW in his lifetime only converted Arabia, his ethnic homeland. And that was by the message, not the sword. The image of the Prophet SAW forcing anyone to accept Islam at swordpoint is deeply offensive given that the very concept is antithetical to the spirit of Islam itself:

Ayat 2:256 - "There is no compulsion in religion"

Ayat 109:6, "To you be your Faith, and to me mine."

(click the image to hear a recitation in RM format, courtesy of islam.org)

But it has been a very useful meme in antimuslim polemic.

permalink | posted by Shi'a Pundit

January 16, 2003

moral equivalence.

Tacitus has a vibrant comment thread sparked by the assertion that "Moslem fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists are not very different." (with which, obviously. Tacitus disagrees).

The comment thread has a few lone dissenters, but the overwhelming consensus is that as a faith, islam elicits violence (and thus is inherently pro-terrorism) compared to Christianity (which, it shoudl be pointed out, is not the actual focus of the original question that Tacitus wished to discuss). The usual examples abound - stereotypes about what Muslims believe, grosssly innaccurate/polemical views of history (such as the reference to the swordpoint-conversion meme), etc. It reads like an LGF thread (my favorite of which is this one, for purely egotistical reasons). To his credit, Tacitus does not ascribe terrorism to Islam but rather to cultural forces, pointing out that Muslims in Indonesia etc don't seem to be susceptible to terrorism as those in Saudi The comments left by his readers is telling, as indicative of public perception as a whole (especially among conservatives).

I'm hardly interested in defending Islam against this kind of attack - mainly because I don't feel Islam needs to be defended, and it woudl simply be a waste of my time (does anyone with that view of my faith really have enough of an open mind to be convince-able? I sincerely doubt it).

However, I do want to point out that teh question as posed is inherently comparing apples to oranges. It has to do with a double standard, applied to Muslims and Christians, about the very word "fundamentalist". Fundie Christians (FC) actually comprise a significant fraction of mainstream Christianity in America, because it's a diluted concept. It simply means, "Christian who is aggressive about prosletyzation, and about judgement". The former leads mainly to annoyance, the latter to often overt discrimination since Christians are still the most powerful majority in the US. Judgement means, "I'm right, you're wrong, you're hellbound, I am saved". This often leads FC's to bizarre morality judgements - Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are obvious examples, blaming 9-11 on homosexuals (the irony of this is clear when you consider the actions of Mark Bingham, a hero of United Flight 93.).Despicable, but hardly violent.

There ARE violent Christians - most notably the abortion doctor murderers, but also fringe groups such as the KKK and most militias and white-supremacy groups, for whom Christianity is an integral part and motive for their terrorism. But no one (myself included) includes these in the definition of "fundamentalism" when it is applied to Christianity.

For clarity, let's call these two types "A" and "B".

Contrast this with the word "fundamentalist" as applied to Muslims - there are both Robertson/Falwell types of Muslims, as well as the terrorists. Both are lumped together in the word when it comes to Islam. In fact, most people who argue that Islam is inherently violent often invoke the words of Muslims of type A as proof that the actions of type B are mainstream. This is fundamentally dishonest (pun intended), though to be fair it is also unconscious.

As a result, the righteous outrage evoked in Tacitus' thread that Falwell could be compared to Bin Laden is actually justified - because Falwell is type A and bin Laden is type B. Falwell is not OBL.

But if you hold Islam as a faith accountable for the actions of its type B minority, then it is hypocrosy not to do the same for Christianity (which has plenty of type B examples to go around, without any need for invoking the Crusades). And likewise if you use the words of type A muslims to suggest a predisposition towards type B, likewise hypocrisy.

Overall, the vast majority of Christians and Muslims are type C. Normal people. With families jobs, desires, dreams. They live and let livem practice their faith, and go about their business. But the double standard bias which exists, especially in America (which is not unuual, given that the US has a strongly Christian majority), certainly obscures these parallels.

As i will argue in my upcoming oft-promised vaporware finale post on the silence of the media, this double standard exists and muslims need to accept it. It is useless to try and fight it, which is why you don't see me on LGF or in Tacitus' thread.

permalink | posted by Shi'a Pundit

Shi'a Pundit

January 31, 2003

free will and Islam.

January 23, 2003

relative numbers: an illusion of double standards.

January 17, 2003

swordpoint conversion.

January 16, 2003

moral equivalence.

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