Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (3 page)

until today. They do not want literal interpretations of the Quran to block Muslims from perceiving its most relevant meanings as God’s perfect revela- tion. They believe Muslims must seek the underlying moral purposes of the Quran and Hadith, and that of the lives of Muhammad and early Muslims – grounding contemporary daily belief and conduct on that ethical thrust.14

In contrast, secularists maintain that individuals’ religious or non-religious affiliations should have no political ramifications; any person should be able to hold any political office in the state and the legal status of all citizens must be equal.15 Secularists contend that the right to legislate rests with the people and its authorized representatives, while believing that contempo- rary utility is an overriding factor which can help determine the content of laws. Secular governments may draw on the Sharia for specific guidance where popular mores and consent demand, but ultimately for the secularists the Sharia is shaped by human beings, and both Sharia and human beings are subject to changing religious, social, political, and economic conditions.16 Alongside of and, at times, overlapping these groupings are the floating middlers. While they may believe in some core Islamic principles and even in secularism, at times they are open-minded regarding the accomplishments of the West, although harboring some resentment toward it, while, at other times, they may find themselves identifying very strongly with the objectives of individuals as different as Saddam Hussein and Usama bin Laden. Like many others in the majority-Muslim world, floating middlers take great pride in the religious, cultural, and literary achievements of Muslims throughout history and retain a deep sense of dignity about the relevance of Islam’s legacy to current affairs. While they would strongly object to living under the rule of an Islamist government, the floating middlers often find themselves identifying with the grievances of Islamists. Cynicism frequently characterizes the attitudes of the floating middlers. They are skeptical of existing secular governments in the majority-Muslim world, of Islamism’s or Islamic liberalism’s potential to make positive changes, and, probably most

of all, of the United States’ objectives and influence in the Muslim world.

No matter which of these clusters forms the primary basis of a person’s ideas, those living in the majority-Muslim world share a common under- standing of the West’s historical assaults against their region; this shared perspective may be foreign to those Westerners who may be unable to fathom the West’s historic aggression against the Muslim world.

The September 11 Attacks: Acts of Self-Defense?

From the perspective of contemporary Muslims, a genealogy of Western assaults against Islam can begin with the Crusades which started in 1096 and, from this vantage point, had a shattering effect on relationships between

Islam and the West.17 For many modern-day Muslims, the Crusades embody the worst aspects of Christianity’s belligerence and they stand as ominous portents of the West’s arrogance and rampant militarism during the colonial and post-colonial eras.18 Modern Muslims’ interpretations of the Crusades as being part of the West’s evil onslaught against majority-Muslim lands seem to have come into existence near the end of the nineteenth century. For various reasons, it seems before that time the vast majority of Muslims possessed limited knowledge of the Crusades, and before the twentieth cen- tury the Crusades played a relatively minor role in Muslims’ understandings of Islam’s relationship with the West. Modern Muslim conceptions of the Crusades as part of a grand narrative that depicted those wars as a crucial part of the West’s ongoing assault against Islam could have been influenced by such realities as Joseph-François Michaud’s Histoire des croisades (which appeared between 1812 and 1822), Sir Walter Scott’s The Talisman (which was published in 1825), and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany’s visit to Damascus in 1898. These entities seem to have had an influence on Western thinking about the Crusades, and the imagined conceptions of the Crusades that these works and events conveyed seem to have been spread among modern Muslims through various kinds of schools and media in the Middle East and other parts of the majority-Muslim world. During the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the idea that the Crusades were part of the West’s ongoing warfare against Muslims gained currency among the vast majority of modern Muslims, and various Islamist groups adopted this con- ception of history as part of their own anti-Western narratives. Thus, it has been argued that the Muslim, and oftentimes Western, belief that the Crusades are part of the West’s long-standing, constant warfare against Islam could be conceived, in some respects, as an imagined history, whose ideas could be attributable to nineteenth- and twentieth-century reconstruc- tions of the Crusades which were transmuted to Westerners and Muslims.19 The Crusades consisted of several European military offensives extending from the eleventh to the sixteenth century (and, for some historians, beyond that) when the Christian armies of the West battled Muslims of the Middle East.20 Fearing the marauding Turkomen bands in the wake of the Seljukid conquest of Baghdad in 1055, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus called upon fellow Christian rulers and the Pope to counter this Islamic tide by engaging in a military assault to wrest Jerusalem and its environs from Muslim rule.21 In a similar spirit, Pope Urban II called for the beginning of the Crusades in 1095 when he commanded European Christians to liberate Constantinople, Jerusalem, the Holy Land, and other areas in the Middle East (including locations where Christians were living under Islamic rule)

from the Muslims.22

Unprepared for Christendom’s invasion, the Muslims’ initial acts of self-defense were ineffectual. The first Crusaders captured Jerusalem in

1099 and occupied it until Saladin’s (Salah al-Din’s) military reconquered it in 1187.23 During this period, the battles were virulent and devastating. After that, the momentum remained with the Muslims. By the thirteenth century, the Crusades had degenerated into Christian in-fighting.24 By 1453, Muslim armies had taken over Constantinople (which would be renamed Istanbul in the 1920s) and made it the seat of the Muslim caliph, marking the expansion of Islam over almost all of Asia Minor.25 The Ottoman Empire from this time to the onset of British and French colonialism constituted one of Islam’s high points culturally, architecturally, and literarily.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Islam’s fortunes had reversed and Muslims faced the threats of European colonialist expansion. While during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the threats to Islam’s identity and unity were mostly internal, in the subsequent periods Muslims confronted the West’s incursions. France, Britain, and Russia in particular influenced the Middle East and Central Asia politically, economically, culturally, and morally during and after their colonialist period which began to end at the conclusion of World War II. Muslims believe that the Western countries exploited the majority-Muslim world for their own material and financial benefit in ways that allowed the West to progress to the detriment of most Muslims. British and French citizens who lived in the Muslim world established separate neighborhoods and distinct laws, and enjoyed much higher incomes and standards of living than most of their Muslim counterparts. The colonialists’ ostentatious displays of privilege com- pounded Muslims’ frustrations. As Western powers expanded their influ- ence during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Muslims reinterpreted their sacred texts and histories, while revitalizing their religious institutions, in response to the rapidly changing circumstances. Islamism is one of the most striking manifestations of this response.

Near the end of World War II as British and French colonialist influence in the Middle East and North Africa (among other regions) began to wane, the United States became a major power in those and some other majority-Muslim areas. According to many Muslims, the most visible and violent example of the United States’ intervention in that part of the world has been its military, economic, and political support of Israel in such a way that it has empowered Israel to occupy Palestinian lands, stripping Palestinians of their livelihood, education, autonomy, and dignity.26 The British played a significant role in bringing the modern state of Israel to life through the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the same year their occupation of Palestine began. They were continuously involved in that area until Israel’s creation in 1948. Muslims view the United States as the most powerful supporter of Israel after that time.27

In their opposition to many Israeli and American policies in the Middle East, many Muslims would state that the United States provides Israel with

$3.65 billion in foreign aid annually, making it the largest foreign recipient of American aid.28 They say that the United States has played a leading role in making Israel (which has a population of 6.5 million and covers 8,020 square miles) the fourth largest military in the world, while consistently blocking United Nations resolutions and other diplomatic overtures harmful to Israel’s interest.29 Over the course of half a century, Muslims throughout the world have watched in horror as Israel – with the expressed support of the United States – has killed thousands of Palestinians and occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Muslims often say that since the first Jewish settlers arrived in Palestine in the early twentieth century, Palestinians have seen their properties expropriated, their equal opportunities for education, careers, and medical care hindered, while their friends and family members have been killed, unjustly imprisoned, and tortured by the Israeli military and government.30 Muslims who oppose Israel’s policies also state that since the Israelis’ occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began in 1967, the Israeli Defense Force has blocked Palestinian ambulances in emergency situations, has bulldozed Palestinian homes, and has made the killing of Palestinians a daily occurrence.31 Critics of these Israeli policies say that since the second uprising (or intifada) against Israeli occupation began in September 2000, more than three times as many Palestinians have been killed as Israelis.32

Among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, 30 percent live under the poverty line, in contrast to 16 percent of Israelis, and average life expectancy for Palestinians is approximately seven years less than that of Israelis.33 In addition, Muslims would state that the Palestinians have been forced to watch as the Israelis have diverted their dwindling West Bank water supplies toward swimming pools, flower gardens, and broad expanses of green lawn in Israeli settlements on the West Bank, while, in the meantime, a large number of Palestinian communities have had little or no running water.34 Muslims who oppose Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians would point to United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan’s statement that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is illegal, and South African anti- apartheid activist the Revd Desmond Tutu’s observation that Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians are tantamount to apartheid.35

Many Israelis and supporters of Israel view the situation differently. They state that British and American backing of Israel has never been automatic. They refer to repeated instances where Jews and Israelis have had to work very hard to garner support for their cause. Those who support this argument would, for example, point to the harsh military and political restrictions which the British placed on Jewish immigration to Palestine during the time leading to Israel’s independence in 1948.36 One of many examples of British recalcitrance was the British navy’s violent military seizure in 1947 of the Palestine-bound ship Exodus-1947, which contained 4,500 Jewish holocaust survivors who wanted to immigrate to Palestine, forcing it to turn back to

Europe where the Jews on board were placed in displaced persons camps.37 This attack, which was part of a larger British naval blockade in the Mediterranean that sought to disrupt the immigration of Jews to Palestine, resulted in the deaths of three Exodus-1947 passengers and the wounding of approximately 100 Jews.38

Many supporters of Israel would also say that the financial, political, and military aid which it has received from the United States and other countries is well deserved since Israel is surrounded by hostile or potentially hostile neighbors and requires a strong military to defend itself.39 In making this observation, at least some Israelis would refer to the $2 billion per year the United States grants to Egypt, the continued strength of that Arab nation’s military, and the possibility that if a government hostile to Israel comes to power there, it may launch an attack against Israel.40 Israel’s backers also state that it is surrounded by other untrustworthy countries such as Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. Substantial evidence indicates that Syria’s govern- ment – which also has enormous influence in Lebanon – has trained and backed groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and other violent organizations that have perpetrated constant attacks, killing and wounding hundreds of Israelis.41 Many of these anti-Israeli assailants receive backing from other majority-Muslim countries where they receive enormous popular and governmental support.42 Israel and its allies state that American backing of Israel is one very helpful countervailing force to the tremendous aggression Israel confronts on a daily basis.43

Advocates of this argument also believe that Israel must protect itself against other hostile countries such as Iran, which has weapons of mass destruction and supports Palestinian militant groups.44 Those who back Israeli policy toward the Palestinians state that when it has come to making peace with the Israelis, Palestinians and other Arabs have “never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”45 According to this position, Israeli leaders throughout history have been ready to make peace with Middle Eastern countries and organizations, yet repeatedly those bodies have reacted to Israel’s peaceful desires by responding negatively or by making war with Israel. Many Israelis and their supporters would point to the wars of 1948, 1967, and 1973 as obvious cases where Israel had to respond militarily to either hostile threats or actions from its neighbors.46 They would also state that when Yasir Arafat, the President of the Palestinian Authority, had the chance to enter into peace agreements with the Israelis during the first and second Camp David meetings (in 1978 and 1999 respec- tively), he refused.47 In addition, Israel has implemented aggressive measures vis-à-vis the Palestinians so it can defend itself against repeated belligerent actions including suicide bombings against hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians and soldiers.48 Most Israelis are particularly alarmed by the Palestinian suicide assaults against Israelis in the heart of Israel and in West