Literalism
It is rather fashionable these days to bash Islam - unfortunately this is true in a literal as well as figurative sense, I was reading today that since the London bombings violent crimes against Muslims have increased by nearly 600% - and there are many ‘experts’ that have emerged to do it that have created a new genre and cottage-industry in ill-informed and dangerous comment.
The antidote to the almost blanket saturation of these pundits is not (imo) to engage them in argument as such - they are not after all, very well-versed in their chosen subject - but rather to keep putting the facts out there and encourage open and free discussion in areas where the facts are not yet established. In line with this, I thought I’d address their favourite (only?) line of attack: Islam as barbaric/backward/evil religion.
This view clearly hinges on current evidence of Islamists, terrorists and al-Qaeda etc and attempts to show through selectively referencing historical incidents (and the nearer the time of the Prophet the better for this purpose) that Islam has always been this way. This is clearly a nonsensical view for anyone with a knowledge of Islamic history, let alone spirituality, and one need only point to the convivencia and Jewish/Christian/Muslim co-existence in Medieval Spain in the historical sense and the Sufi tradition in the spiritual.
Accepting for a moment (for argument’s sake) the conflation of Islam with ‘extremism’, I am rather more interested in extremism as a leitmotif of our present time and what it may mean in a social context. To illustrate this, firstly we must do way with the term ‘Fundamentalism’ - it is meaningless and a media buzz-word that is now almost passed out of use. ‘Extremist’ is likewise loaded and I would prefer to use the term ‘Literalist’. I would employ this term to any person, or group of people, who take situations, scriptures, ideas or concepts and apply them in a rigid non-thinking way and/or as a means of control of others.
Clearly, a group such as the Taleban would fit this definition but then so would (say) the Christian literalists in the current US administration. In line with this definition my personal view is that we are not currently experiencing an upsurge of Islamic extremism or fundamentalism but we are experiencing an upsurge of simple fundamentalism across the board - ie we live in a time when the disease of literalism has reached pandemic proportions. The symptoms of this may be seen in jihadist activity in an Islamic context, repressive totalitarian tendencies in a western context, anti-science tendencies in a US religious context and, returning to the original point, xenophobic and racist manifestations as a response in a social context. What we are not seeing is the big picture: all these things are part of the same root: literalism and it’s consequence non-thinking.
But to return to the issue of whether Islam is inextricably linked to extremism as is often claimed. We do not need to cite Qur’anic verses as a counter-argument (that would after all, tend towards a literalist approach) but we can outflank the literalists - who, remember, include both religionists and Islamophobes - by a philosophical examination of certain sayings of Muhammad. One particular is of clear relevance:
A time is soon coming to mankind when nothing of Islam but its name will remain and only the written form of the Quran will remain. Their mosques will be in fine condition but will be devoid of guidance; their learned men will be the worst of people under heaven; corruption coming forth from them and returning among them.
Clearly this is a saying that is ostensibly critical of Islam, indeed the early Companions must have found it hard to assimilate, nevertheless, it appears to have become true but the point is that if this is an appropriate description of Islam today (and I do not say it is - merely that those calling for Islamic reform do) then it presupposes that Islam could not have been that way when the statement was made. Therefore ‘reform’ is an inappropriate and nonsensical term in this context - ‘return’ would be more valid.
Here’s another two:
Ziyad asked the Prophet, “How can knowledge depart when we recite the Quran and teach it to our children and they will teach it to their children up till the day of resurrection?”. The Prophet replied, “I am astonished at you Ziyad. I thought you were the most learned man in Medina. Do not the Jews and Christians read the Torah and the Bible without knowing a thing about their contents?
The Bani Israel divided into 72 sects, but my people will divide into 73 sects, all of which but one will go to hell....And folk will come forth from among my people in whom passions will run as does hydrophobia in one who suffers from it, permeating every vein and joint.
So if the current detractors of Islam were to think things through, they would realise that they are bashing a corruption rather than an original. They might find some common ground and realise that the if we can somehow establish a dialogue and open thought process that can lead us all to a better place - the alternatives are not so enticing.
