This morning at FrontPage Jamie Glazov interviews Shawn Steel, former California Republican Party Chairman. In the course of things, Mr. Steel brings me up and gets me all wrong, in ways that I think illuminate some common misapprehensions people have about Islam and moderate Muslims:
Steel: This controversy of whether there is such a thing as “moderate” Islam has two main schools of thought. Daniel Pipes often writes that the solution to radical Islam is moderate Islam. Giants such Tashbih Sayyed [recently deceased editor of Muslim World Today] is proof that a devout Muslim could both be pro-American and anti-Islamist. However, Robert Spencer implies that the core theory of Islam is inherently violent and anti-Western, therefore moderate Muslims are a minority. I want to be more optimistic. I believe Pipes is correct. In the long run the present day fanatics will “die off” eventually burning out for at least one or two hundreds years, before they reappear.
FP: One second, my friend, just for the record, Robert Spencer has never argued that there cannot be moderate Muslims. He has identified elements of Islamic theology and law that mandate warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. However, he has explicitly and consistently assumed the existence of moderate Muslims, and repeatedly called upon peaceful Muslims to confront and reform these aspects of Islamic teaching. The idea that Pipes and Spencer hold opposing views on this has actually been refuted by Pipes himself, who has said: “Robert Spencer and I have discussed the perceived differences in our view of Islam. He and I concluded that, although we have different emphases – he deals more with scriptures, I more with history – we have no disagreements.” And Tashbih Sayyed was a member of the Board of Directors of Spencer’s Jihad Watch.
Steel: You are probably correct. Pipes is a gentleman. And Spencer is a brilliant historian. Both do seem to have different views as to the potential of a moderate Muslim Renaissance. If there is a moderate Muslim philosophy we need to support it.
FP: Well, let’s just say that they are both gentlemen and both brilliant, and both very courageous people.
I appreciate Jamie Glazov’s kind words, but whether I am a gentleman or not, this exchange is useful to go through in detail.
“This controversy of whether there is such a thing as ‘moderate’ Islam has two main schools of thought. Daniel Pipes often writes that the solution to radical Islam is moderate Islam. Giants such Tashbih Sayyed [recently deceased editor of Muslim World Today] is proof that a devout Muslim could both be pro-American and anti-Islamist.
Actually, the question of whether or not “there is such a thing as ‘moderate’ Islam” ought to be able to be solved simply by pointing to a mainstream Muslim sect or group or school of thought that does not teach warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. There are some groups that don’t teach these things — the Ahmadiyya, at least in terms of violent struggle, and arguably some others, but the Ahmadis are considered unorthodox by mainstream Islamic authorities for precisely this reason (and some others), and so since the Ahmadiyya seems unlikely to gain mainstream acceptance, it is an unlikely candidate for the mantle of “moderate Islam” on which the world is to place its hope for peace.
The main problem Steel has, however, is a conceptual confusion: Tashbih Sayyed was my friend, and he was a serious Islamic reformer and a courageous man. But he was in no way proof of the existence of a “moderate Islam,” since he did not represent any orthodoxy. He was an imaginative and innovative thinker, and he fashioned his own way. His thought did not reflect the positions of an established sect — and that is just one reason why he was not “proof that a devout Muslim could both be pro-American and anti-Islamist.” Another is that he forthrightly acknowledged, as he told me here, that “anybody who thinks that there’s nothing wrong with [Islamic] theology is either a blind person or an apologist. There are many things in Muslim Scripture that need to be reshaped and reframed and reinterpreted, so that they cannot be used by terrorists to justify homicide bombings and honor killings.”
I am all for that, insofar as the effort to do it is undertaken seriously and honestly. But it undercuts Steel’s assumption that Tashbih Sayyed somehow proved that “a devout Muslim could both be pro-American and anti-Islamist” — at least if by “devout” Steel means representing a mainstream, orthodox position. All that said, however, I believe that it is possible for a devout Muslim could both be pro-American and anti-Islamist, if he is unaware of or ignores or denies the jihad imperative.
It is entirely possible for a Muslim to be unaware of it or to ignore it, or even to believe that it is Islamically illegitimate, given that in various areas of the Islamic world that imperative had been deemphasized and even forgotten for centuries until the contemporary Salafist movement has revived it. A Muslim can pray five times a day and even recite the Qur’an without ever confronting the necessity to make war against and subjugate the infidels — particularly if Arabic is not his first language. And for the less devout, this is even easier.
However, Robert Spencer implies that the core theory of Islam is inherently violent and anti-Western, therefore moderate Muslims are a minority.
Of course, I’ve never said — much less implied — anything remotely like this. I had a cordial lunch with Shawn Steel once a few years ago, and I expect we discussed these things, although I don’t remember the exact details of our conversation. In any case, possibly he got the idea that I think that “moderate Muslims are a minority” from my observation that as many as half of the world’s Muslims don’t have any objection to today’s jihad (although that doesn’t mean that all or even most of them are actively engaged in furthering it) — an assertion that has been amply borne out by several recent polls. Or maybe it was from my telling him that all the orthodox sects of Islam and schools of Islamic jurisprudence teach the necessity of warring against and subjugating infidels.
That would constitute a “core theory of Islam” that is “inherently violent and anti-Western,” but it doesn’t follow from that that “moderate Muslims are a minority.” Defined strictly as people who identify themselves as Muslims but will never participate in jihad warfare against the West, and who live peaceful lives, moderate Muslims are an overwhelming majority. But the jihadists are making recruits from among these peaceful Muslims by portraying themselves as the real thing, the true Muslims, and appealing to the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah, as well as to Islamic law, to buttress their position. The peaceful Muslims have no theologically mainstream and orthodox comeback they can make to the core Salafist contention that Muslims must make war against unbelievers, although they can and do differ on whether it is appropriate or justified today, whether jihad can be called without state authority, etc.
And so, while peaceful Muslims are a huge majority, the number of actual since Islamic reformers who want to confront and change the doctrines that the jihadists use to justify their actions is in fact very small. Tashbih Sayyed was one of them. But that doesn’t mean that “moderate Muslims are a minority” — not precisely.
Back to Steel:
I want to be more optimistic. I believe Pipes is correct. In the long run the present day fanatics will “die off” eventually burning out for at least one or two hundreds years, before they reappear.
That could be. Islamic history is marked by periods of resurgent jihad, and periods of quiescence. But this has historically always been a matter of means: when jihadists had the strength to wage jihad, they did. When they didn’t, they were peaceful. If we show the jihadists overwhelming force, they may indeed die out or at least quiet down for awhile. But unless Islamic authorities worldwide discard the Islamic doctrines of jihad, which is not likely at all, they will one day be back.
Then, after Jamie Glazov points out some of the ways in which Steel has gotten me all wrong, and imagined a disagreement between Daniel Pipes and me that Pipes himself has denied, and failed to notice my association with Tashbih Sayyed, Steel responds:
Steel: You are probably correct. Pipes is a gentleman. And Spencer is a brilliant historian. Both do seem to have different views as to the potential of a moderate Muslim Renaissance. If there is a moderate Muslim philosophy we need to support it.
Pipes is indeed a gentleman, but this suggests to me, in light of Steel’s continued insistence that he and I have different views on this, that Steel thinks he is just being generous and gentlemanly in saying he agrees with me. I doubt that, but in any case, Steel is ultimately right: “If there is a moderate Muslim philosophy we need to support it.” If there is one, we do need to support it, and I have, and I do. But such a “philosophy” is never going to emerge or prevail by pretending that the content of existing Islamic theology is other than what it is — as so many people today are so eager to do.