This is three weeks old, but I just saw it, and it is worth examining. With Ali Eteraz I have had many exchanges in the past; you can judge for yourself about what they may or may not have revealed. In one of them, he stated feebly that peaceful Muslims should remain silent in the face of jihadist violence and supremacism, claiming that Martin Luther King, Jr., stayed silent in the face of racist oppression.
That was preposterous enough, but now Ali Eteraz has made an even more preposterous move, going from supine passivity to defiance:
"Muslims Should Raise the Other Finger," by Ali Eteraz at True/Slant, November 26 (thanks to James):
During the salat, or prayer, Muslims raise their index finger to bear witness to the oneness of God. In America today, with all the calls for Muslims to condemn every little act of violence committed in the name of their religion, Muslims should start raising up the other finger. The middle one.There is no need for one Muslim to condemn the crimes of another. Collective responsibility cannot, and should not, be accepted. Where one accepts collective responsibility one opens the door to collective punishment. Are Muslims individuals? Or are they one singular marionette that pirouettes each time its string is pulled?
One of the most egregious acts of kowtowing to the "massa" occurred recently in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings. At Huffington Post, Muslim Public Affairs Council's Salam al-Maryati wrote an article directed to Muslim-Americans, extolling them to "amplify our Muslim American identity." No thanks. The only thing I'll amplify is the length of my middle finger. A law-abiding American-Muslim has no need to do anything, one way or the other, when someone with a Muslim sounding name goes off the rail. The reason for this abstention-from-condemnation is not because "Christians don't do it" or "Jews don't do it." It is nothing communal. Rather, it has to do with individual dignity, and individual accountability. We are all, each one of us, responsible for our actions, and liable for our mistakes. The ambit of our accountability cannot be allowed to extend beyond that. Why are the boundaries between one Muslim and another blurred and the individualities fused together? Muslims are not inkblots.
I have been against the notion of Muslims having to condemn this or that for years now, but previously my tone was restrained as I felt that calm persuasion was the right way to go about presenting this position. Not any more. Next time someone asks me to tell them why x or y Muslim murderer is evil I will bear witness in ways that are rated R.
Now in the name of Allah I'm going to go slaughter a turkey.
(As for the turkey bit, remember, this piece came out around Thanksgiving.)
The core assumption Eteraz makes here is that it is an exercise in collective responsibility that diminishes Muslims' individuality if they are asked to condemn Islamic terrorist attacks. After all, Islam is not a monolith, as we are reminded endlessly. So if one Muslim believes that Islam teaches warfare against unbelievers and acts upon that belief, what does that have to do with Ali Eteraz, who presumably eschews such beliefs?
It's a fair question. To what extent does membership in a group make one responsible for all the other members of that group? If one Christian does some evil deed and ascribes it to Christianity, are all Christians everywhere responsible for that?
Well, to a certain extent, yes. They wouldn't rightly share any of the blame for it, but it would be incumbent upon them to show to those who might be concerned about a recurrence of such evil deeds that the way in which the evildoer used Christianity was actually wrong, and condemnable, and that they were working against such a recurrence by teaching against such false beliefs.
The point, in other words, is not collective responsibility at all. To blame all Muslims for the actions of jihadists would be asinine. But to take note of how those jihadists use Islam -- its texts and core teachings -- to justify violence and supremacism and warfare against unbelievers -- and to ask peaceful Muslims what they're doing to combat such teachings within the Muslim community is not asinine at all.
And it is not blaming anyone for anything he didn't do. It is simply to ask someone like Eteraz this: "The jihadis say that they're following the authentic path of Islam. If they're correct, the implications of this would be many and ominous, for it would suggest that all Muslims, if they decided to follow the authentic path of Islam, would become jihadis -- working either by violent or peaceful means to impose Sharia upon non-Muslims. You say you're living out an authentic expression of Islam, and reject all that. Good. What case are you making against the jihadist understanding of Islam within the Muslim community? How are you combating it?"
I don't think these are unreasonable questions. For if Muslims who profess to reject the jihadist understanding of Islam don't fight against it, who will? And if they profess to reject the jihadist understanding of Islam but don't do anything to stop its spread, of what ultimate value is their rejection of it? They may not be responsible for it, but since they profess Islam, shouldn't they feel any responsibility to combat the jihadist claim to represent authentic Islam?
Apparently not. In years of calling for peaceful Muslims to present a viable alternative to the jihadist understanding of Islam, one that will convince Muslims not to take the jihadist path, we have seen numerous vague assertions that the jihadis are violating Islamic teaching; some vague condemnations of "terrorism" and attacks on "innocent civilians" that don't define either term or rule out the jihadist understanding of Islam; some transparently flimsy constructions based on selective Qur'an quoting that will convince ignorant non-Muslims but not a single Muslim; and some "reformist" interpretations of Islam that roll out with much fanfare in the mainstream media but end up being only condemnations of attacks that kill other Muslims or attacks that don't have state authority behind them (which latter point ignores the fact that in Islamic theology defensive jihad is incumbent upon every Muslim, state authority notwithstanding, and all contemporary jihads are presented as defensive).
And now we get the finger.
All right. I wouldn't expect anything else from Ali Eteraz, but I do hope that some people who have been counting upon peaceful Muslims to work against the jihadists within Muslim communities will take careful note.
Allah didn't provide a pious Mahoundian with much wiggle room for unIslamic thoughts and activities...I won't give them much slack either...If it's good enough for Allah, it's good enough for me...Allah is an absolutist...You are absolutely for him, or you are absolutely against him...You are a submitter, or you are kufr, you are of the body of dar al-Islam, or you are of the body of dar al-harb...Allah and Mahound made it perfectly clear how to deal with kufr...Those who disagree with Allah and Mahounds instructions are in violation...No submitter want's to be in 'violation'...One moment of 'violation' cancels out years worth if 'internal struggle'...There is Islam and there is sanity, Mahoundians have made their choice...
Holding up one finger every time they pray to "bear witness" to "the oneness" of God. There are just too many things about Islam that are idiotic. So you believe there is one god and not many like some other religions. So what. Then they have to make it into some sort of sports cheer like a group of fans holding up one finger and chanting that they are number one. The problem with Islam is that one god is Satan. Every single thing associated with Islam, in this case "prayer" is perverted into something other than what it should be. The real one, good, true, God is not impressed by the huge public prayer "performances" in Islam even if they do hold up one finger. They can stick that finger where the sun don't shine. Morons.
And it is about 1400 years past time that the infidels of the world give the middle finger to Islam.
If all we ever got from the Moslems was "the finger", we'd be a lot better off. Unfortunately, they prefer to present us with lots of fingers -- tens of thousands of them -- blasted and blown off of people by their incessant mayhem.
Letter to Robert,
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I have been visiting this site, among other sites, close to 4 months now and I wish I could say that I feel better every time I read the news. Quite on the contrary I feel more and more concerned and depressed whenever I hear that Muslims do this and Muslims do that. All I can imagine in my head are the banners held by Muslims throughout the world “Islam will dominate the world”. Of course I should be happy knowing that the level of awareness is on the rise because of your work, Robert, and the work of other anti-Jihadist such as Mr. Wilders, Father Zakaria Boutros, Wafa Sultan etc. but I don’t! The more I read the more I realise that we are way in over our heads with this.
Since nearly 4 months now I find myself in constant campaign against Islamization of the world by talking to family, friends and sometimes colleagues sending emails to especially female friends telling them about the sharia and how it almost gained status here in Canada and how they should be aware of it and ready to fight back when the Muslim community tries to re-introduce it again hoping to make small difference. However I sometimes ask myself whether this is indeed making a difference. All the news that I read regarding this subject is showing the contrary. So I thought about something that you can do Robert, since you have much more resources and access to more delicate information on organizational levels, and that is by having a small section, let’s call it “the good news” section, created on the site, that gives us, ok that gives me, some hope that things are indeed starting to move forward with making people aware of this problem.
For instance I see that the ban in Switzerland on minarets is somewhat a good news because it tells me that if Switzerland, one of the most peaceful countries in the world, is willing to admit that Islam is being used politically, that leaves more hope for other countries who’s stakes are much higher such as the U.S.A or Great Britain.
God bless all those who are working hard and thank you for opening my eyes especially you Robert.
Collectivists when they need to be, individualists when they don't. Especially when it comes to answering Elephant-in-the-room questions from the kuffar.
It's all in the book.
Next time someone asks me to tell them why x or y Muslim murderer is evil I will bear witness in ways that are rated R.
Nerves are starting to fray. Sounds like the kuffar are beginning to ask too many uncomfortable questions about "peaceful" islam.
I remember the good ol'days, when the kuffar would believe anything they were told about islam. What is the world coming to?
In one sense Ali Eteraz may be seconded. Denunciations by Muslims are not to be taken at face value, though they so often are, and no one should put much stock in them. How can someone who takes as the immutable, uncreated Word of God what is contained in the Qur'an, who refuses to regard more than 100 Jihad verses (see them listed in, for example, the Calcutta Qur'an Petition), possibly denounce, and mean it as something other than an example of a desire to protect the image of Islam, to keep folling the gullible Infidels, to offer an example of taqiyya-and-tu-quoque "war is deception" in practice?
So in a sense, but not in the sense that Ali Eteraz has in mind, we can dismiss the idea of Muslims, individually or collectively, at this point, after all the crocodile tears and alligator indignation of CAIR and ISNA and MSA, tutti quanti, as meaning anything at all.
Not by words, but by acts, ye shall know them. And if there is no full-throated collaboration with the security services of the West, no widespread turning in of all those imams and other clerics who presumably "lead Muslims astray," and if, above all, there is no attempt to explain to Infidels what we, those Infidels, should make of the texts -- make, say, of Sura 9, to start with -- and what might be said, truthfully said, to assuage our growing alarm, the more we find out about the contents of the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira. But of course, there is nothing that the ali-eterazes of this world can say about that content, those passages. And so they are at an impasse. Ali Eteraz himself once thought he somehow could "reform" Islam. I suspect he knows by now that that is impossibile, but he still does not want to abandon Islam. He is not in the same mental league as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, Ibn Warraq, and many others. He can't bring hisemlf to do it. Filial piety? A confusion between memories of pious parents and grandparents, who seemed not to do any wrong (in fact, they didn't do any wrong), and how to square that memory with the reality of today, when on his visits home to Pakistan he is confronted with the grim truth, and old friends who think he's being "too American" in his attitudes -- it's all so confusing, all so disturbing.
So, instead of facing up to the reasons why Islam can't be reformed, and instead of bravely making the break others have managed to make, Ali Eteraz is retreating into the shell of defensiveness about Islam. Always at the edges, because he can no longer allow himself to see the ideoloyg of Islam steadily and whole, can not dare to begin to grasp the nature of this ideology that is a vehicle of Arab imperialims, and that, in the hands of Muslim conquerors, caused his own Hindu (or Jain, or Buddhist) ancestors to convert to Islam in order to avoid either killing, or the conditions of semi-slavery in which non-Muslims existed under Muslim rule in India. He cannot be truthful, even to himself, about his own history, or the history of India.
Extraordinary, or perhaps not. Perhaps altogether very ordinary, for there are many millions just like Ali Eteraz, who cannot begin to deal with the ideology of Islam. One wonders if, on his trips from America back to Pakistan, he ever starts to analyze the reasons for the crazed conspiracy theories, and for the political despotism and local lords of misrule, and the economic statis, and the intellectual paralysis, and the cruel mistreatment of women, and the murderous attacks on Christians and Hindus, and relates, even allows himself to begin to think of relating, all of this to elements of Islam, beginning with its role as a Total Belief-System taht encourages believers to be "slaves of Allah," and discourages them from free and skeptical inquiry, for they must be mentally submissive to this system, must never question it, and in not questioning Islam, they are taught the habit, more generally, of mental submission.
Perhaps some day Ali Eteraz will begin to allow himself to ponder such matters. But it's a difficult thing for him to ask of himself. He's not yet ready, and defensiveness is now his chosen mode. Ainsi soit-il.
Responsibility is not un-Islamic; that is, un-Islamic for Muslims only. Collective responsibility is reserved for the filthy infidels--they are responsible for the Crusades, for square dances, for cartoons, for not paying enough jiyza, and for insulting Muslims by expecting them to be...responsible.
Correction: First sentence should read
"Responsibility is un-Islamic ..."
Good post, Hugh. I think the root of the problem in coming to the conclusion that Islam can't be reformed, only discarded, is that it is a religion and a religion, after all, can't be bad, now can it? There's also the cultural/family element. I have a student this year who, while himself a Roman Catholic, has a gradmother who is a Muslim in Indoneseia. When I diplomatically mentioned to him that Islam has many disturbing tenets in it and named a few like death for apostasy or the treatment of non-Muslims as the equivalent of human waste, he shrugged his shoulders and said he knew about those things but Islam is really good with keeping family together and places such importance on family cohesion. I pressed him a bit and said well, that may all be true (I didn't bother bringing up what Islam has in store for women in the family unit), but what about these elements of Islam I mentioned (I also related a few unsavory facts about Mohammed)? He replied something to the effect that, yeah, guess they are problems, but, hey, every religion has stuff like that. By then, it was time for my next class. Lotta' work to do yet, no?
Ali Eteraz has correctly identified the principal obstacle to Islamic reform -- the impossibility of self-criticism or even criticism of shared beliefs. The Reliance of the Traveler says it is an act of apostasy, punishable by death, to revile Allah or His messenger, to revile the religion of Islam, or to say that a Muslim is an unbeliever. (Section o8.7)
Christianity, on the other hand, emphasizes community action to discipline misbehaving Christians. "But you, brothers, must not become tired of doing good. It may be that someone there will not obey the message we send you in this letter. If so, take note of him and have nothing to do with him. But do not treat him as an enemy; instead, warn him as a brother. (2 Thessalonians 3:13-15)
"There is no need for one Muslim to condemn the crimes of another. Collective responsibility cannot, and should not, be accepted. Where one accepts collective responsibility one opens the door to collective punishment." Ali Eteraz is confusing condemnation with the acceptance of responsibility. Condemnation and acceptance of responsibility are two entirely separate things. (Perhaps he is doing this intentionally in the hope that Muslims will not think it through.) If one condemns the crimes of one Muslim, that does NOT mean that one accepts the responsibility for it. How can it possibly? This is just another denial of reality.
The above quote is directly followed by: "Are Muslims individuals? Or are they one singular marionette that pirouettes each time its string is pulled?" The implication here is that if a Muslim does indeed condemn a terrorist act, then (so Eteraz says) he is a puppet whose every act is controlled by the 'Western Puppet Master', when in fact it is Ali Eteraz who is pulling their strings. This deliberate psychological manipulation is nothing less than evil in its purest form.
"There is no need for one Muslim to condemn the crimes of another. Collective responsibility cannot, and should not, be accepted. Where one accepts collective responsibility one opens the door to collective punishment." Ali Eteraz is confusing condemnation with the acceptance of responsibility. Condemnation and acceptance of responsibility are two entirely separate things. (Perhaps he is doing this intentionally in the hope that Muslims will not think it through.) If one condemns the crimes of one Muslim, that does NOT mean that one accepts the responsibility for it. How can it possibly? This is just another denial of reality.
The above quote is directly followed by: "Are Muslims individuals? Or are they one singular marionette that pirouettes each time its string is pulled?" The implication here is that if a Muslim does indeed condemn a terrorist act, then (so Eteraz says) he is a puppet whose every act is controlled by the 'Western Puppet Master', when in fact it is Ali Eteraz who is pulling their strings. This deliberate psychological manipulation is nothing less than evil in its purest form.
Omar Sina, I too sometimes feel exactly the same way! I also live in Canada. You and I are only two people, not an army, however in our own small way we can stand up and fight for what is right. And believe me when opportunity presents itself and the time is right, I will not be afraid to fight!
"To blame all Muslims for the actions of jihadists would be asinine."
Only if one, in the name of trying to fit the square peg of Islam into the round hole of Western models of society and the individual, fails to appreciate the unique sociological and psychological tribalism (or super-tribalism) of Islam, would one think that collective responsibility and blame of Muslims is asinine.
"But to take note of how those jihadists use Islam -- its texts and core teachings -- to justify violence and supremacism and warfare against unbelievers -- and to ask peaceful Muslims what they're doing to combat such teachings within the Muslim community is not asinine at all."
Asking peaceful Muslims what they're doing to "combat such teachings" is, however, asinine, if we have no way of knowing which Muslims are sincerely peaceful or indeed if any really peaceful Muslims exist at all.
Omar Sina,
I long ago asked Robert Spencer something similar.
I suggest you consider checking out the website of Act for America (maybe they have a Canadian branch?), Brigitte Gabriel's organization. Act for America is coming from a perspective akin to Robert's, but is set up legally as an advocacy and political activist organization. Perhaps if you actively participate in their organization and its successes -- and they have done a great deal to build up the resistance to jihad and sharia -- you could feel better about all this. Good luck.
Eteraz's central claim is that because Muslims are individuals, they ought not be expected to condemn the bad actions of other Muslims. However, he then condemns, as bad actions of some of his fellow Muslims, their (apparently infuriating) tendency to condemn very bad actions of other Muslims. It would seem that Eteraz is violating the principle he seems to advocate. With what he advocates to other Muslims, he is not just an individual separate from the group, as he seems to suggest. If he was just an individual with no feeling of collective responsibility to Islam and his fellow Muslims, then why would he, in this article, presume to tell other Muslims what they ought to do? In fact, he is recommending not only that Muslims should not condemn terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims, but he is recommending that Muslims give an angry, aggressive, and provocative response (raising the middle finger--literally or figuratively) when they are merely asked if they condemn such terrorist attacks.
Logical contradictions aside, the latter suggestion (raising the middle finger) seems to me to be a new approach to Islamic public relations for Eteraz. Eteraz used to take a more apologetic approach, but as he suggests in this article, he seems to have tired of that. His raise-the-middle-finger approach may be lower-grade, but it is, perhaps, a more honest reflection of what Eteraz really thinks of infidels (i.e., all non-Muslims and those who are perceived to be not Muslim enough). This much is at least an improvement on his past approach. Unfortunately, I don't think he's going to raise his middle finger to anyone in or connected to the mainstream media, as Eteraz has probably enough sense to realize that that would be bad for Islam, bad for Muslims' collective project of of spreading and establishing Islamic rule.
I agree with Cate's point above: Condemning a terrorist attack does not mean that one is responsible for it. This is another major problem with Eteraz's argument. There are, in fact, multiple reasons why one might condemn a terrorist attack, not the least of which is to reassure--genuinely or not--one's fellow citizens.
Non-Muslims generally, if asked or not, have no problem condemning terrorist attacks. Why is this such a special problem for Muslims? Why is it that only a small percentage of Muslims condemn terrorist attacks that are carried out by Muslims in the name of Islam? Instead, we see outright denials, deflections, conspiracy theories, blame-the-victim tactics, and, among significant percentages of Muslims, frank approval of such attacks. Given that such significant percentages either approve of such attacks or engage in various kinds of diversions and obfuscations, it is entirely reasonable for anyone who cares about the opinions of the person sitting next to them on the plane to ask questions about condemnation of terrorist attacks. Non-Muslims ask other non-Muslims their views on these questions and generally do not receive, by way of responses, "the finger."
Eteraz's recommendation to his fellow Muslims to give concerned non-Muslims "the finger" is hardly original. The madrassa-educated Eteraz is simply expressing the views he has imbibed all his life from the Quran and most of his fellow Muslims, i.e., that it is not Islamic terrorists that are to be condemned, but rather it is all non-Muslims who are to be condemned. For the non-Muslims have, in Eteraz's view, committed the worst crime imaginable, namely, disbelieving in Islam. For this, according to the Quran, non-Muslims must be burned and tortured for eternity. In reference to this alleged fate, the Quran and Hadith instruct Muslims to curse the unbelievers, give them "tidings of a painful doom," chastise them, insult them, or in Eteraz's modern reformist version, give them the finger.
I'll end on a lighter note, which shouldn't be difficult. Here is a snippet from an Amazon blurb for Eteraz's book:
"...Eteraz, whose given name is Abir ul Islam (which translates as Perfume of Islam)..."
1. Eteraz says that Muslims should not condemn other Muslims who commit terrorist attacks in the name of Islam.
2. Eteraz does, however, find worthy of condemnation the few Muslims who condemn other Muslims who carry out terrorist attacks in the name of Islam. (Eteraz's also condemns those who even ask for such condemnations of terrorist attacks).
(I just wanted to post both of those observations together).
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The Quran, Hadith, and Islamic fiqh do call upon Muslims to actively "command the right and forbid the wrong." It is interesting, in light of this, what Eteraz chooses to take the time to forbid, and to not forbid.
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Eteraz wrote: "During the salat, or prayer, Muslims raise their index finger to bear witness to the oneness of God."
He then goes on to imply that Muslims would be signifying something substantially different than this were they to raise "the other finger," i.e., the middle finger. I think this alleged distinction is misleading. A devout Quran-believing Muslim, who takes seriously such verses as 60:4, by raising his index finger during prayer, is signifying many things, not the least of which is an expression of enmity toward the infidels. Given what the raising of the index finger means to so many Muslims, it would be redundant for them to also raise the middle finger. Personally, I find the raising of the index finger by a Muslim much more concerning than the raising of the middle one.
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Regarding Eteraz's suggestion that Muslims should not be treated as a collective, I have some partial agreement with this, at least in theory. However, Eteraz should not need to be reminded, though perhaps it should be pointed out, that Islam critics did not invent terms like "umma," and "deen," and "dar ul Islam."
Kinana
excellent analyses, in both of your postings immediately above. Thank you!
"To blame all Muslims for the actions of jihadists would be asinine."
Collectivists when they need to be, individualists when they don't. Especially when it comes to answering Elephant-in-the-room questions from the kuffar.
Watch out when there is another case of cartoon rage or a torn Koran. A billion mad Muslims will be coming to get you.
All of them individuals....