Hamid knows something about the subject, revealing that as a young man in Egypt he was enthralled with the radical Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood and quickly joined the Jamaat Islamiyya movement founded by another medical doctor, Ayman Zawahiri, who of course later became the number 2 man of al-Qaeda under Osama bin Laden, and then its leader after bin Laden’s assassination. Within a few years, Hamid became disillusioned with the movement and began to speak out against what he now calls “the violent perversion of my faith.”
Based on his first-hand experience, Hamid asserts that the West is woefully ignorant of the Muslim militant mindset and so has failed completely to create and implement “…effective techniques to detect the jihadists and terrorists lurking among us.”
Likewise, we have failed to help Muslims eliminate the theological roots in their source materials out of which have grown the modern-day practices of jihadism. Hamid offers some suggestions as to how to get us on the right track.
Unfortunately, though what Hamid proposes looks impressive on paper, the devil is in the details, and once we look more deeply into his proposals we find them short on praxis and heavy on idealism.
For example, his first suggestion to make our country safe from terrorist attacks is: “Create and implement an impenetrable vetting process to detect terrorists….” Who could disagree with this? But the key word is “impenetrable”, and as Hamid himself notes, Muslim radicals embrace the practice of “taqiyya”, the use of lies and subterfuge for the protection and advancement of Islam in the world. Jihadists, he says, “…are as dedicated to lying as they are to dying.” While there is no doubt our immigrant vetting process needs stronger and more effective screening techniques, making it impenetrable is a pipedream. The bigger problem in this arena is not an effective process, but the will by our administration to employ it resolutely. The fear of being labelled “Islamophobic” squelches the smallest effort at detecting potential terrorists and forbidding them access to our shores. Until as a society we deal with the “Islamophobia” canard, even an “impenetrable vetting process” will prove useless since fearmongering will prevent its robust implementation.
Hamid’s second prescription is: “Initiate an education program for refugees to counter the root causes of Islamic radicalism, such as absolutism, judgmentalism and literalism.” He proposes utilizing various techniques of cognitive psychology supplant fundamental Muslim concepts and replace them with more moderate Western understandings. In essence, Hamid wants to “deprogram” Muslims from their orthodox beliefs so they are less likely to take the Qur’an, Hadiths and sunna so seriously. The Qur’an, however, is built upon a worldview of absolutism, judgmentalism and literalism. After all, Muslims are breastfed on the belief that the words of the Qur’an are the literal words of Allah – if this is no longer believed, then Islam’s raison d’etre comes into grave question, and Muhammad’s role as the perfect transmitter of Allah’s words is hates, and therefore for what the true Muslim is to love or hate. Worst of all human traits from Allah’s point of view is disbelief in him and his prophet. The Arabic root word in the Qur’an behind this concept of unbelief is kafara, from which the word kafir (disbeliever/infidel) and its plural kuffar derive. Kafara appears 525 times in fourteen derived forms throughout the Qur’an, a book slightly smaller than the New Testament. Such prominent usage underscores the judgment that those who refuse to believe in Islam are doomed to face the wrath of Allah and his followers. Indeed, Sura 98.6 declares, “Indeed, they who disbelieved [kafaru] among the People of the Scripture [Jews and Christians] and the polytheists will be in the fire of Hell, abiding eternally therein. Those are the worst of creatures.” The judgmentalism of the Qur’an against all who reject the message of Muhammad is impossible to erase from the hearts of those who enshrine it as the perfect and sublime words of Allah, impervious to change.
Perhaps Hamid’s reeducation idea would work with those Muslims less committed to the teachings of Islam. But for the fully-committed, hardened-in-their-faith radicals, such efforts prove fruitless, and indeed sometimes lead to even further radicalization. Back in 2004, the Saudi government began terrorist reeducation efforts, and in 2007 established the much-ballyhooed Mohammed bin Nayef Center for Counseling and Care (wryly labeled “the Betty Ford Center for Terrorists”), the kingdom’s vaunted extremist rehabilitation center. After years of efforts the government publicly acknowledges a 20% recidivism rate among “graduates”. Others, such as US intelligence agencies, put the failure rate much higher. In September 2014, for example, when Saudi police rounded up 88 suspected al-Qaeda operatives in the Kingdom, they discovered that 59 of them had completed their “rehabilitation” work at the bin Nayef center and been released back into society. Two months later, after an attack on Shi’ites in the village of al-Dalwah, authorities rounded up 77 members of the terrorist cell group behind the attack and discovered that 47 of them were alumni of the Saudi rehab center. The Obama administration, as well, released numerous Guantanamo terrorist detainees, after being reassured by countries willing to receive them that they would not return to battle, only to discover subsequently that such was not the case. Most recently, we saw that four of the five Afghan terrorists released to secure the freedom of US Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl have been chosen for senior positions in the new Taliban government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
This is not to say that all reeducation efforts are necessarily doomed to failure, only that they are not the panacea some wish to claim.
Hamid’s third recommendation is: “Support efforts already under way in the Middle East to fight radicalism.” This piggy-backs on the reeducation recommendation above, though expands that to include what religious moderates and secularists are doing through social media and internet sites to neuter mainstream Islamic teachings and make them harmless to non-believers. Though these efforts attract the attention of those who know little of the history of Islamic practice and theology, others who are much more familiar with the Qur’an and the life of Muhammad will not be persuaded by unorthodox approaches to sweeping reinterpretations of the message of Islam.
Lastly, Tawfik Hamid calls for a strategic plan to defeat radical Islam by “cutting out the religious underpinning of jihad,” (what he calls “Brainistan”), something I believe to be utterly impossible without neutering Islam into a completely different religion. Since a core tenet of Islam is that the Qur’an is inviolable and cannot be changed, the idea of excising the many commands to violence and subjugation will fall on deaf ears among Muslims, or even worse (as Hamid himself knows) will lead to Muslims considering him a heretic worthy of death. The Arabic root term (jahada) for the noun jihad occurs 41 times in the Qur’an, in five derived forms. Four times it appears as mujahideen (those who engage in jihad) and in each of these cases it refers to armed conflict against infidels (see 4.95 and 47.31). Though jihad itself has the generic meaning of “striving, effort”, when it is paired with the prepositional phrase fi sabil allah (“in the way of Allah”), it invariably refers to military attempts to conquer the enemy. Even more disconcerting is that fact that the concept of jihad is often paired in the Qur’an with the term qatala (“to fight with the intent of killing”). This term is found 170 times in the Muslim scriptures in eight derived forms. Both jahada and qatala appear as commands from Allah – Muhammad and his followers are to wage war and kill the infidel until there is no more opposition anywhere to the supremacy of Islam. Worst of all is the promise Allah makes to the faithful in the form of a bargain – if they will fight in the way of Allah, killing and being killed for his sake, he will guarantee them a place in paradise. This is what fills the minds and hearts of jihadis as they head off to do their mayhem – should they die as martyrs in the process of killing others they will expect their virgin sex dolls and pastoral delights and a cornucopia of comestibles.
In addition to this is the fact that the Hadith traditions and the early biographies of Muhammad are shot through with the celebrated savage exploits of the Arabian prophet and his cronies, which in turn inspired those Islamic jurisprudents who put together Shari’a (the perfect laws of Allah for human society) to include a major section on the subject of jihad. In the Shari’a manual known as Umdat al-Salik (“Reliance of the Traveller”) jihad is straightforwardly defined as “to war against non-Muslims…signifying warfare to establish Islam” and it is enjoined as an obligation for every Muslim.
For Hamid to excise “the underpinning of jihad” from Islam would mean a radical alteration of the “perfect” Qur’an, the rejection of massive amounts of the Hadith traditions as well as of the earliest Muslim biographies of their prophet, and the acknowledgement that the impeccable Shari’a of Allah is in fact flawed and needs to be corrected. In effect, to remove the underpinning of jihad from Islam leads to the destruction of Islam and its claims to be the perfect religion of Allah delivered by his angel flawlessly to his prophet, the excellent example given to mankind for emulation.
Read the rest here.
Wellington says
Might as well try to “humanize” and bring Nazism or Marxism into the mainstream of traditional Western thought. It is a fool’s errand because you cannot reform rot and all totalitarian ideologies, examples being Islam, Nazism, Marxism and man’s newest totalitarian ideology, Western Leftism, which is a kind of neo-Marxism that has its origins in the Frankfurt School, from their inception are rotten to the core and inimical to such wonderful things as true liberty, a real Golden Rule for all, and equality under the law.
Islam cannot be reformed. It must go. No wiggle room here. None at all.
roberta says
These ”reformers” give the ignorant that (something/hope) to hold on to.
In a sense they are like the 3rd party candidate that is put on the ballot in order to obfuscate the truth and pull votes from the better ”man”
Or.
Lets hold hands and reimagine islam like we reimagined the police. Expect similar success.
Is suicide the only cure for the prosperity of the west?
mortimer says
Agree with Roberta: the would-be reformers of Islam are trying to cherry-pick the parts of Islam they like while ignoring the parts they don’t. There is absolutely no scholarly or objective or scientific basis for doing that.
Reforming Islam is doomed to be entirely subjective.
gravenimage says
Spot on, Wellington.
mortimer says
Wellington has a good instinct for summary. Islam is a supremacist political system, as are Nazism and communism. All three have personality cults. All three do not allow rival systems or elections. All three are revelations from on high that are carved in stone.
To say Islam can be reformed is to admit that it is not ‘ETERNAL’, ‘PERFECT’ and ‘COMPLETE’.
If Islam is not divine and since 270 victims have been killed by jihad … one killed every twenty minutes … and if Islam only produces dictatorship, corruption, bribery, stagnation and backwardness … it is undeniable that Islam has no value for the modern world and is extremely harmful.
Since Islam has no redeeming qualities and is not of divine origin, Muslims may abandon Islam with confidence.
gravenimage says
Agreed about Wellington, Mortimer.
And yes–Jihad invasion has murdered an estimated 270 million victims–and that is just part of the body count of Islam, not to mention the victims of slavery and oppression. Just appalling.
Kepha says
Marxism is in the mainstream of Western thought. It dominates the academy, and has spawned a whole lot of lesser movements with everything from “racial” minorities to women and sexual minorities taking the place of the Proletariat. So much the worse for the West.
gravenimage says
Tilting at the Windmills of Jihad
Likewise, we have failed to help Muslims eliminate the theological roots in their source materials out of which have grown the modern-day practices of jihadism…
…………………………
How many Muslims want to change the source materials of Islam to remove Jihad? And how can those whom pious Muslims consider “filthy Infidels” help? The Qur’an and other canonical texts of Islam in fact warn against listening to Kuffar who don’t want to submit to Islam.
Good article from Mateen Elass.
mortimer says
Mateen Elass has hit another home run in this piece. He highlights the chief problem with the project of reforming Islam: namely, the texts of Islam cannot be reformed no matter how many parts of the texts are stupid, unscientific, contradictory or inaccurate. The tow main parts: the divine text and the divine traditions (sunna) cannot be re-written. Just can’t be.
Dr. Tawfik Hamd says,”…we have failed to help Muslims eliminate the theological roots in their source materials out of which have grown the modern-day practices of jihadism”.
Mateen Elass raises several important reasons why this dream is based in fantasy. Does Dr. Hamid even know all the sources of jihadism? It seems he believes 1300 years of Islamic jurisprudence about jihad can be removed from its supposedly ‘divine’ origins.
I do not think you can remove Islam from its divine decrees, because jihadism is the highest sacrament in Islam and the only thing that guarantees entry into Islamic paradise.
To remove jihad is to deconstruct Islam entirely.
No, the only way to convince Muslims to leave jihad is to convince Muslims that jihadism described in the Koran is not of divine origin. That is tantamout to admitting that most of the Koran is not divine, but man-made. As much as 60% of the Koran is about kafirs and jihad. Without the political side of Islam … jihadism and conquest and imposing Sharia law by force … Islam becomes a confused and confusing michemache of 7th-century tribal customs.
Political Islam … Jihadism and the kafir problem … takes up 51% of Bukhari, the Sira and the Koran, therefore it is impossible to remove it in order to reform Islam … that would actually undercut faith in Islam completely. And anyway, those who don’t want to reform Islam will continue as jihadists.
Reforming Islam is much harder than it looks, because there is no scholarly mechanism for doing so.
The only approach to ending JIHADISM is to convince the majority of Muslims that this is manmade cult based on a manmade book and a fabricated biography of a fictional Arab hero who may not have existed.
Once the Koran, Sira and hadiths are no longer considered reliable sources for Islam, Islam ceases to have any foundation.
D Cripps says
Of Tawfik’s comments, I guess it is a case of not letting perfection be the enemy of some improvement.
gravenimage says
D Cripps, Islam doesn’t allow for *any* reform. Your implication that Islam is being reformed, but just not quite as fast as the ‘filthy Infidels’ would like is not borne out.
In fact, more Muslims globally are embracing orthodox Islam all the time.
Jim says
The pope seems to think he can reform Catholicism by replacing key elements with Marxism, the green movement and secularism. But what is left, and how much good does his approach do. If we replaced all the parts of Nazism that need reform, there is not much left that we could call Nazism. And the same seems to be the case with Islam. I have found that in talking to people about the bad aspects of Obama and Biden and their plans to fundamentally change America, the true believers refuse to listen to criticism and cannot be persuaded. If these Western people cannot listen to simple criticism of Western leftism, how could people from the Muslim world be expected to listen to criticism of their dogmas? I wonder if this doctor is not simply trying to fool us into thinking we do not need to limit Muslim immigration. If Muslims can be de-radicalized by education, then we do not need to limit immigration. And of course he is putting all the blame on the West. Where are the reformers in Islam to take responsibility for changing their own religion? They are in the closet or in hiding.
OLD GUY says
Lots of things sound good on paper but when put to the living test they always fail. Examples are easy to find, Marxism, Socialism, Communism and islam as a religion of peace.
Michael says
Tawfik Hamid seems to be a decent person who recognises that his religion has a problem with violence and is trying to fix it.
His suggestions are decent but they will not entirely eliminate the problem. But they’re better than nothing. Perfection shouldn’t be the enemy of the good.
gravenimage says
Maybe–or this may mostly be whitewash for Islam. Many reformers try to give the impression that reform of Islam is widespread, when this is quite misleading.