Jonah Goldberg has posted this at NRO’s The Corner from Alykhan Velshi, whom he identifies as an “occasional NRO contributor.”
Mr Goldberg,
You’re right on one thing: the Pope hit a nerve. When Benedict quotes – approvingly, I might add – a Byzantine emperor from the 15th century who said, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman”, he’s not giving moderate Muslims any wiggle room in which to offer an internal-Islamic critique of the bin Ladenists.
Look – I suppose I’m what one would call a moderate Muslim, though for reasons I won’t get into I dislike the term (I also dislike being called a “compassionate conservative”, the adjective being redundant and somewhat offensive). I support the Bush doctrine, have a favorable disposition towards Israel, and supported the right to publish the Danish cartoons. Yet I cringed when reading Benedict’s speech, and not jut because of its laughable recounting of 15th century Christianity’s embrace of reason and tolerance.
The problem with Benedict’s speech, and it’s illustrated perfectly by the quotation I cited above, is that it gives moderate Muslims no option other than to renounce our faith. When Benedict approvingly cites a source who says that Islam is “evil and inhuman”, he’s not offering a bold challenge to moderate Muslims, he’s alienating them. There is a profound difference between, on the one hand, endorsing what Benedict said, and on the other, calling the enemy “militant Islamists”, “Islamofascists”, “Islamobolsheviks” (my personal favorite), or whatever. It’s the difference, I suppose, between Robert Spencer and National Review, JihadWatch and AEI.
Just because the Muslim street is, in all its hypersensitivity, reacting like a woman who’s just been told her pants make her look fat doesn’t mean that Benedict was correct to say what he said, certainly not from the perspective of history and theology, nor I believe from that of the best way to win the GWOT.
But, then again, it looks like Juan Cole agrees with me – which could mean I’m ipso facto wrong.
Yes it does, but not only because of Juan Cole.
Velshi contends that by quoting the words “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman,” Pope Benedict is “not giving moderate Muslims any wiggle room in which to offer an internal-Islamic critique of the bin Ladenists.” Velshi adds that he doesn’t even like the term “moderate Muslim,” suggesting that the adjective is “redundant and somewhat offensive” — in other words, to be a Muslim is to be moderate. But evidently Pope Benedict, Jihad Watch and I, as opposed to National Review and the AEI, do not offer “a bold challenge to moderate Muslims,” but instead we are “alienating them.”
Of course, Velshi has me wrong. The Jihad Watch FAQ has always spoken plainly about this: “Any Muslim who renounces violent jihad and dhimmitude is welcome to join in our anti-jihadist efforts.” Tashbih Sayyed, editor in chief of Muslim World Today, who speaks forthrightly about the need for Muslims to reject the elements of the Qur’an and Muhammad’s example that give rise to jihad violence and the Sharia imperative, has recently become a member of the Jihad Watch Board of Directors.
What I have asked again and again of Muslims who identify themselves as moderate is this: that they acknowledge to exist, and renounce definitively, the elements of Islamic theology that jihadists are using to wage war against non-Muslims around the world. Instead, most of those who are known as moderates simply deny that these elements of Islam exist at all. I’m sorry, but that is not reform. That is deception. In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformers didn’t say, “The Church has never taught Transubstantiation and anyone who says otherwise is a hatemonger.” They said, “The Church teaches Transubstantiation and it should stop doing so.” Why is something like that, mutatis mutandis, too much to ask from Muslim reformers today? Why is it too much to ask that they say, “Jihad violence and the subjugation of unbelievers has been a continuing part of Islam, and we now reject it,” instead of denying, in the teeth of the evidence, that these things are true at all?
Velshi’s contention that “Muslim” need not be modified by “moderate” because it is redundant amounts to an assertion that Islam itself is moderate, i.e., peaceful and tolerant. It is interesting to note that Mahathir Mohamad, the “Jews-control-the-world” former Prime Minister of Malaysia, has just made essentially the same assertion: “There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim,” he said. “We are fundamentalists in Malaysia. We follow the true teachings of the religion and the true teachings do not teach us to bomb and kill people without reason.”
I am so glad to hear that, but the fact remains, as I have pointed out ad infinitum here, that jihad terrorists worldwide are committing violence on a daily basis and justifying it on the basis of Islamic teachings that are rooted in the Qur’an, the example of Muhammad, and the schools of Islamic law. The fact remains that all those schools of law teach violent jihad and the subjugation of unbelievers — all of them, without exception. The existence of such laws make the phrase of another Jihad Watch Board member, Ibn Warraq, continually relevant: there are moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. “Moderate Muslims” in this usage refers to those who bear the name of Muslim but simply want to go about their business and live ordinary lives, without waging jihad against the kuffar. Obviously such people need also to acknowledge and reject the elements of Islam that give rise to fanaticism and violence, or their children or even they themselves will be susceptible to the jihadist appeal, based as it is on the plain words of the Qur’an and Sunnah.
And that makes it all the more crucial for people like Velshi to come to grips with these aspects of Islam that are evil and inhuman, yes, as the world saw when pious Qur’an-quoting Muslims brought down the Towers, and beheaded Nick Berg, and have committed thousands upon thousands of acts of violence around the world, justifying them all by Islam. These acts are evil and inhuman, and their perpetrators justify them by the Qur’an and Islam. I didn’t originate that fact. And Muslims like Velshi only do their own cause a disservice by criticizing those who dare to point it out.
The Pope is not giving, and I’m not giving, peaceful Muslims a chance to fight the “bin Ladenists” because we point out that that is happening? Just the opposite, Velshi. The Pope is showing the way, and since you mention me also I’ll say that in my small way I am also trying to show the way, to the only truly viable path to genuine Islamic reform. But only showing the way: of course, that reform can be accomplished only by Muslims, if it can be done at all. Do I think that reform is likely? I don’t, and for two reasons: 1. Because the texts to which I refer do actually exist, and jihadists can and do use them to paint any Muslim reformer as a heretic or apostate — thus putting his life in danger. And 2. Because of denial from moderates, such as I have been discussing: If you won’t even admit there is a problem, Velshi, you will never, ever, be able to fix it.