Western Resistance

Muslims who, in his own words, are woefully ignorant about their own religion, are the ones committing terrorism, persecuting women and religious minorities, and at the same time refusing to admit their ignorance, threw the burden of understanding upon the shoulders of non-Muslims, then complain, cry and readied charges of bigotry and racism whenever negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims are expressed. To his credit, El Fadl does advocate, if somewhat rather weakly, Muslims take a hard look at themselves and how they practice their religion. El Fadl divided Muslims into two camps: Puritans and Moderates. The former is the source of the negative perceptions non-Muslims has for Islam and Muslims. The latter, in his view, is the hope of a Christianity type reformation much needed for Islam.

The Wahhabis also sought to control Mecca and Medina, and by doing so, gain a huge symbolic victory by controlling the spiritual center of the Muslim world. -- Part One, Chapter Three, The Rise of The Early Puritans.

The Wahhabis did managed to control Mecca and Medina through an alliance with the House of Saud, resulting in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. El Fadl then explained how control of these cities came to influence Muslims' minds about Islam according to Wahhabist interpretations. The hajj, the at least once in a lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca requested by Islam for Muslims is described by El Fadl as a unifying symbol for Muslims, presumably in spite of sects. Muslim clerics were reluctant to deviate from Wahhabist interpretations lest their access to these two cities were denied. Oil wealth were spent on proxy Muslim organizations such as the Muslim World League to distribute Wahhabist literature. Much of the Muslim world became financially enthralled to Saudi-Wahhabist money.

The Christian Reformation was not held hostage by any similar temporal symbols of faith. Christians who allied to Martin Luther did not feel removed from their deity by their denial of entrance to the Vatican. The pilgrimage to Mecca as requested by Islam to Muslims is conditional that if it is possible and if health permit. Given the millions of Muslims throughout the world who managed to make this pilgrimage year after year, some Muslims several times in their lives, there is no doubt this part of the faith is taken very seriously by Muslims. What provisions should be made available to courageous moderate Muslim clerics and their followers who would dare defy the Saudi-Wahhabists, and who would inevitably be denied entrance to Mecca, El Fadl does not address.

There is no doubt that Islam-haters and Islamophobes will continue to write this drivel, but the average non-Muslim can help by not buying these books, creating a financial disincentive for prominent publishers to distribute materials that essentially reproduces the hateful worldview of the puritans. At the same time, it is of crucial significance that non-Muslims support the work of moderate Muslims by purchasing the distributing their works. This is the only way that non-Muslims can help overcome the formidable financial resources of
the puritans. If non-Muslims purchase and read moderate Islamic literature, not only will they help overcome the financial vulnerability of moderates, but they will also find much common grounds with moderate Muslims upon which to build partnerships to promote goodness and Godliness on earth. -- Conclusion.

These are laudable words in El Fadl's Conclusion, but there are times where he appears to be of the complain-and-cry Muslims when referring to non-Muslims. There are no ifs about the willingness of non-Muslims to support moderate Muslims should the moderate Muslims be significantly numbered, visual and vocal about their goals at reforming Islam. The intellectual tradition of the secular West practically demands its citizens to give a chance or two to any advocates of any views. The drivel El Fadl refers to are the many criticisms of contemporary Islam in print and e-formats. Certainly El Fadl is intelligent enough to understand this is inevitable. If anything, given the current puritan interpretations of jihad, where non-Muslims lives and unique cultures are at stake, non-Muslims have been well restrained in reactions and accommodations to all Muslims. In terms of the importance of issue for each, the state of Islam for moderate Muslims and the survival of unique cultures for non-Muslims, non-Muslims have very good cause to seek out moderate Muslims and have been actively doing so.

El Fadl did an excellent job of distinguishing for the reader the differences between puritans and moderate Muslims, but another critical omission from this book is the Israeli-Palestinian issue. El Fadl informed the reader that he does not entertain the Israeli-Palestinian issue in his class and that usually a considerable number of the enrolled students quietly unenrolled from his class once he made clear he does not want to talk about the subject. Yet later he acknowledged that even moderate Muslims entwined the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into their thinking. If, as El Fadl advised, that moderate Muslims should begin to engage puritan Muslims in an intellectual jihad to save Islam, and since it is obvious that the puritans have absorbed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into their interpretations, and that this conflict is a political, not religious problem, then refusal by one of El Fadl's stature to attempt to persuade moderate Muslims to divorce this conflict from their own thoughts is a serious tactical error.

If the soul of Islam is to be saved in the manner of the Christian Reformation, then it would benefit Muslims if they take on Jesus' advice and leave unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Let the caesars of the international community come to a political compromise without a pious Palestinian injecting Allah into the process. If Allah himself had not made his will known about the Sunni-Shi'ite divide, what make El Fadl or any Muslim so certain that the will of Allah about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be deciphered from the pages of the Quran? Certainly many people have willingly sacrificed themselves for nationalistic causes, but there is no doubt the religion called Islam is a major factor in recruitment and the spiritual sustainment of the individual up until the detonation of the suicide bombs. El Fadl does seem to have an impressive amount of knowledge about the Quran, surely he understands that theologically speaking, God is perfect and by extension so are His words, and perfection is uncompromising. As long as some imams have theological justifications for basing their opinions on the Quran about the Israeli-Palestinians issue, no matter how much the politicians pleads their arguments and how often they reach a compromise, the religious few will be uncompromising and they will take matters into their own hands. El Fadl is also a jurist by training, he must understand the dangers of extrajudicial actions and the effects of such upon a society. For the Israelis and the Palestinians, the results will be the cliche "cycle of violence" in the foreseeable future. The removal of Islam as an influence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is important.

The major issues addressed by El Fadl in his book are the theology of Islam, terrorism, democracy, law, human rights and the treatment of women. These are items most visible about Islam in non-Muslims' eyes. Less known and not addressed by El Fadl are the character of Islam's highest prophet, Muhammad. If a comparison is made between the recorded life of Christianity's Jesus and Islam's Muhammad, each the greatest figure in their respective religions and exhorted to believers to emulate, the contrast between the two could not be more startling. Jesus was a celibate while Muhammad had many wives, one of them was only 9 years old at consumation. An idea that would repulse most non-Muslims. Jesus was a man of peace while Muhammad was a military leader overseeing the expansion of Islam. Muhammad also allowed the rape of women captives during those military campaigns. It would not be a stretch of the imagination to assume, or of theological exegesis to deduce, that extreme Muslims have a better role model and heroic figure to justify their extremism than extreme Christians have for theirs. It could even be reasonably argued that extreme Islam, or militant Islam, is an established religious and even theological aspect of conventional Islam, a militancy ready to be called upon. It is a sheathed sword visible to all.

Imran Waheed, spokesman for the British chapter of the highly political Islamic organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, commented that Hizb ut-Tahrir is prepared to prove wrong Francis Fukuyama's thesis when Fukuyama stated that absent a rival ideology as powerful as communism, an "end of history", as the world experienced history, is near. Hizb ut-Tahrir aims to be the new ideological challenge to the West that will create a new continuum of history for the world, except this time, instead of two secular but ideologically opposing sides, it will be secularism versus Islam. Hizb ut-Tahrir is a transnational movement that is both religious and political with Sunni Islam as its theological base. The organization's foremost goal is to unite the global Islamic community, the ummah, under a common Islamic banner. It tells Muslims wherever they are living, their primary identity and loyalty is religious rather than ethnicity, race or citizenship. It is an irony that paranoid authoritarian regimes in the Middlle East acted upon perceived political challenges to their rule that Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned while the liberal democracies of Europe, with their political correctness in vogue, is now under a threat of Islamization of their societies.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is not registered as a political organization, although its rhetorics are clearly political. The organization endorsed no political figures or even a political system. Hizb ut-Tahrir prefers the followers of its beliefs to act on their own initiatives in accordance with the situations at hand. For the Middle East, Hizb ut-Tahrir's members in Jordan, with the assistance of some of Jordan's own military, tried to overthrow the government in 1968 and 1969. A coup attempt in Egypt in 1974. For the liberal democracies, Hizb ut-Tahrir adapted and portrayed itself primarily as a religious organization, knowing and taking full advantage of the West's respect for religious freedom, and to date have been quite successful at framing any criticisms of the organization's branches into suspicions of a government's attempt at religious prosecution.

El Fadl raised a serious question for moderate Muslims and non-Muslims -- "Who in the West or the United States gets to decide what are to be considered fanatical, extremist, and militant as opposed to moderate, reasonable, and ultimately, acceptable Muslim beliefs?" The answer is complex and possibly even nonconclusive. As popular media continues to report anti-West demonstrations by Muslims from around the world, the suicide bombings in the Israeli-Palestinians conflict and Iraq, the vocal militant Muslims or the overall backwardness of Muslim societies, Western non-Muslims will inevitably formed their own opinions about Islam and in an oblique manner answered El Fadl's question for themselves, shutting out moderate Muslims' disorganized protestations about what they considered to be the "true" Islam. It is not who "gets to decide" but rather what is available, and the Western non-Muslims are puzzled at the lack of moderate Muslims' voices. The time will come when Western non-Muslims will conclude there are none worth hearing if the current situation continues.

How far will El Fadl go in his persuasions to moderate Muslims to save the soul of Islam from militant Muslims and to enlist non-Muslims' assistance? British Prime Minister Tony Blair introduced legislations that would ban religious extremism even in rhetorics as a consequence of the subway bombings. Hizb ut-Tahrir would be targetted. It is a precarious situation for liberal democracies. If the version of Islam espoused by the likes of Hizb ut-Tahrir, al-Qaeda, al-Mujaharoun, or The Muslim Brotherhood does not represent the "true" spirit and soul of Islam as El Fadl insisted, would El Fadl support legislations that would assist liberal democracies in preserving themselves and by consequence, the "true" Islam? The power of a government is not to be taken lightly and everyone should be concerned for the potential of a period of religious McCarthyism. The best preventative measure for this potentiality is for moderate Muslims to gather their still disparate voices, organize themselves and assist non-Muslims in the intellectual jihad as El Fadl advocated. The non-Muslims have only been recently warned of a "clash of civilizations", but it appears militant Islamists have been planning for this conflict all this time.