Mick Hartley

Should we blame Islam for terrorism, asks David Shariatmadari. The answer, unsurprisingly (this is the Guardian), is no:

Aspects of Islamic teaching do indeed justify some kinds of violence. Islam isn’t a pacifist religion. But again, it has this in common with Christianity, Judaism and other world faiths. Since that’s the case, and since we know that violence in the name of Islam has waxed and waned, it follows that we cannot look simply to theology to explain recent Islam-inspired terrorism….

What had changed? Not the religion. A political earthquake had occurred and religion was now being used by those in power as a vehicle for massive social reorganisation. But what this story captures is a tendency among non-Muslims to attribute magical, ahistorical qualities to Islam – to appeal to it as a black box when events are perplexing, or, as is sometimes the case, when their own wrongheaded policies are implicated.

It’s here that the question of politics – geopolitics – becomes inescapable. The Qur’an and the hadith, the sources of Islam, didn’t get rewritten in the last few decades. But they were taken up and used by certain political actors to justify horrific violence. Why?

The answer must lie among the political, economic, military and social changes in the Middle East in our times, and how they have ramified in the wider world. It’s only by looking beyond the texts that we can hope to understand why certain interpretations of them have gained currency among a tiny minority – but a minority willing to indiscriminately kill civilians.

This isn’t an excuse…. It’s unimpeachable logic. If you think that the causes of terrorism are embedded in the Qur’an and hadith, you’re proving yourself unable to deal with the complexities of a world in which politics – including military and non-military intervention by foreign powers – interacts with religion.

Saying “there’s something special about Islam” saves you from making the effort to learn more about this faith, the people who practise it and the conditions they live in.

It’s psychologically useful, granted. Islam can be a convenient focus for the rage we feel after hearing about acts of brutality. But don’t mistake something being seductive for it being accurate.

For some – and I suspect this includes Steve Bannon, Marine Le Pen and more than a few British pundits – the natural conclusion is that people should be convinced to abandon Islam, and if that doesn’t work, it should be driven out. This, of course, would be a grossly illiberal and violent programme – but one, I suppose, that sits in a rather long tradition of nationalism and supremacism in the west.

Unfortunately this is one of those Comment is Free pieces that doesn't, in fact, allow comments. Which is a shame, because it would be torn to pieces.

There was a time, maybe ten or fifteen years ago, round 9/11 or the 7/7 2005 London bombings, when the line that these terrorist attacks were blow back for Western imperialist outrages could get a good hearing on the left. "Blair's bombs", they said about 7/7. America "had it coming" for 9/11. The underdogs were fighting back at last.

But now? Not so much. It's down to a tiny minority on the hard left, if it's there at all. The barbarities committed in the name of Islam – Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram – have been so relentless, so appalling, that even the Guardian commentariat have had enough. It's now only the desperate – like Shariatmadari here – who try it on with this kind of apologetics. As soon as we heard about Westminster, we all knew. A "terrorist", they said. Islam wasn't even mentioned for some time, but it didn't need to be. We knew it wasn't a Hindu extremist, or a Sikh, or a Christian. 

Of course there's a problem with Islam. It's the fact that so many commentators like Shariatmadari here refuse to acknowledge it, offering instead this kind of pathetic insult to our intelligence, that politicians like Trump or Marine Le Pen get the support they do. 

As far as the history goes, we could perhaps point out that Islam was founded by a warlord, and that submission to the sword has been the Way of the Crescent since its inception. But historical comparisons can be contentious. Christianity, it has to be admitted, has been the cause of bloodshed aplenty. The problem, clearly, lies with Islam's relationship to the modern world. Christianity, by and large, has adapted. Indeed the modern western scientific liberal order has grown with, and as a reaction to, the Church and its teachings. Islam has been on the outside looking in, and as a result has been excluded. The modern world has passed it by. It's now regressing. 

There are modernisers – Muslim secularists, like Maajid Nawaz. These are the people we need to encourage. You'd think the left would support them – but you'd be wrong. The Guardian did a particularly nasty hatchet job on Nawaz back in 2015. By one David Shariatmadari.