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| V V: From fatwa to jihad | |
| V V / New Delhi June 6, 2009, 0:15 IST | |
Kenan Malik, Senior Fellow in Politics at Surrey University, asks two questions in From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy (Atlantic books/Penguin India, Rs 399) on the 20th anniversary of The Satanic Verses: First, to what extent did the Rushdie fatwa give rise to contemporary debates about the nature of Islam and terrorism? Second, has multiculturalism given rise to ‘political correctness’ that restrains people from freely expressing their views, driving militant movements underground? Both questions intercede to examine how radical Islam has gained hold in Muslim communities, how multiculturalism has contributed to this, and how the Rushdie affair has affected the nature of tolerance and free speech.
At the root of Malik’s book lie more fundamental questions (though he doesn’t state them explicitly) that are being asked everywhere: Are Islam and democracy compatible? Why do Muslims also have problems with non-Muslim nations? Bernard Lewis of Princeton, an authority on Islam, has argued that whereas the West sees the world as a system of nations, subdivided in various ways, including into religions, Islam sees the world as a system of religions, subdivided in several ways, including nations. This gives Islam a special, and potentially troubling, role in international relations.
Lewis points out that Muslim states identify with one another in a way that non-Muslim states would find strange. Muslim governments have built up “an elaborate apparatus” of consultation and cooperation that cuts across political and ideological differences. (To elaborate: fifty-six Muslim states have created the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, with permanent headquarters in Saudi Arabia.)
The brotherhood of man isn’t such a bad thing. But loyalties that spill across borders make the world less orderly. To a certain cast of mind, the umma—the worldwide Islamic community of believers—is both a political and religious entity and must be defended when it comes under attack. This is not a new idea thought up by terrorists—though it has become a part of their ideological vocabulary and is stated quite openly—it is an authentic part of their faith, rooted in the Koran and elaborated by Islam’s jurists, particularly in the madrasas. Not anyone is authorised to declare a jihad, and not for any reason. Malik doesn’t provide this background but it will be helpful to get a hang of the book and the drift of his argument.
Malik starts off with Khomeini’s fatwa condemning Rushdie, and then examines how radical Islam rose in Muslim communities over six chapters. It is a personal pure narrative, straight and simple, one event after another. There may be nothing new in Malik’s presentation but he has brought together the sequence of events that would put the whole picture of Islamic terrorism in a certain perspective.
The question that intrigued many is: How did someone like Mohammed Sidique Khan (the chief organiser of the London bombings) and others with similar backgrounds turn into killers without pity or conscience? By what strange path did radical Islamists take to violence? Malik attempts to provide answers in “The Rage of Islam” which is the key chapter in the book.
There are two explanations. First, quoting British commentators, that “Islam is not just a religion…There’s a global jihad lurking within this religion, which is bloodthirsty...” So, he says, quoting Martin Amis, “the West confronts an irrationalist, agonistic, theocratic/ideocratic system which is essentially and unappeasingly opposed to its existence.” The other explanation takes the opposite view: the problem is not Islam but the treatment of Muslims, “The western hatred of Islam makes for the Islamic hatred of the West.”
Neither explanation holds up. Muslims have been around in large numbers in many parts of the world but it is only in the last twenty years that radical Islam has gained a foothold. You can’t blame it all on Islam or on the Koran or even on the changing character of Muslim communities. Or, that the terrorist rage has been driven by Western foreign policy. That would be just too simplistic.
Probably the answer lies in the kind of characters who have joined and led the movement: they are all oddballs who have been thoroughly indoctrinated (brain-washed again is a meaningless term) since early childhood. Add this to the general malaise of Western society where boredom and ennui is an essential part of the fabric of daily lives. With nothing to do and the whole day to do it in, it is easy to be gulled into mindless militancy.
This is an interesting read but it is limited to the rise of British jihad and doesn’t take in a broader perspective of militant Islam and its discontents.
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