Only recently we in the western world have become acquainted with Islam. Unfortunately it is the beastly nature– majority of Muslims would agree– of the religion which has been etched into the collective consciousness of the western predominantly Christian world. This, of course, rightly so, as it is difficult to discern goodness in the persona of any religion which presents its ugly face to the outside world. It is not easy to downplay the trauma and repulsion created by the members of “radical Islam” motivated by a fundamentalist brand of movement within its ranks.
The pleadings of the majority of peace loving Muslims, protesting the tarring of the whole religion based on the current religious fundamentalist movement in Islam is bound to fall on deaf ears. Agreed that extremist Islamic groups being a minority should not define a religion, but then the evil fraught by these radical Isalmists is too hard to ignore. Go and tell Islam is not a monolith manifestation of evil to those few who might be interested in pursuing the study of the religion from a dispassionate perspective, but the public at large affected directly or indirectly by mayhem and feelings of shock and repulsion is in no mood to buy into such reasoning.
So when some members of the religion of Islam talk about Islamophobia as being an incorrect stance in judging the teachings of Islam, I would like to surmise that these apologists are downplaying the horrific actions of radical Isalmists who have, after all, been inspired by the teachings inherent in this religion.
Certainly, there is a lot of fodder in the Koran which lends itself to barbaric movements, let alone the dark elements of inhumanity and intolerance embedded in its history. Islam’s long years of history have been consistently dogged by turbulence. Different movements within the religion and ideological clashes and conflicts within Dar IL Islam have been many and diverse and mostly ugly.
Let us not forget Islam originated in a geographically hostile environment amidst unfriendly and warring tribes of violent people, extremely barbaric and savage. Only then can we fully appreciate the greatness of Muhammed in having led a movement which did enjoy its golden age of cultural ascendancy. He mitigated the dark side of the overly uncivilized and crude principles and boorish practices of his day through his teachings, but the rudimentary vile, vitriol and virulence of the tribes he educated could not be completely obliterated. And so, today as it has been for the last 1400 years or so, the struggle and turmoil in Islam continues unabated. Muhammed’s conception of jihad was a recognition of a legitimate need for a struggle within the religion and amongst its followers to aspire to make themselves and society progressively better. Yet, today the connotation of the word jihad is detestable, brought about by the evil acts of jihadists.
Holding America’s incursion of Iraq or its meddling in Afghanistan as responsible for the formation of radicalized Islam is just a feeble attempt by Islamists to justify radical Islam by imputing that it is a byproduct of misguided American foreign policy. While I am not applauding American foreign policy in Iraq I strongly believe it should not be the “fall guy” for the growth of fundamentalism and ignorance within the ranks of Islam. Granted it was American foreign policy which resulted in the radical and ignorant element of Islam to come out of its hiding; it was not responsible for its creation.
Sooner or later the ignorant and fundamentalist interpretations of Islam hatched at the madrassas and the educational system of Islamic governed countries under sharia laws were bound to raise their nasty head.
I would argue that the American policy toward Muslim countries while it did precipitate the situation by assisting to unleash the fundamentalist element of Islam from its cocoon, in the end turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it revealed the face of the enemy. However, it is wrong to assume that America was responsible in multiplying the numbers of these misdirected radical Islamists—it did not create radical Isalmists but simply made them visible. It was like disturbing a hornet’s nest—though hornets are far more benign than radical Isalmists—when the true nature of the poisonous ideology came out of hiding.
All this was something positive as prior to that, the incubation of ‘bad ass’ Muslims was going on unchecked under the tutelage of mullahs and arbitrators of sharia laws, and the longer the incubation period the greater the increase in the numbers of ignorant fanatics harboring sympathy for Daesh and similar groups. In addition, It was a blessing in disguise that the ‘stealth Isalmists” in our midst who were using the liberal and humane jurisdiction of our democratic laws of the west to perpetuate the cause of fundamentalist Islam, were brought under scrutiny.
The concerted effort of all civilized nations and public, now that they know who the enemy is, will focus in alleviating the undesirable trend of barbarism in Islam and its danger to liberal democracies.
Only after globalization of trade and close inter-connectedness of the world, brought about mainly by the internet, are we witnessing the atrocities in the religion of Islam affecting the western world. Prior to that, despite the Manichean doctrine in the religion, the Allah’s crusaders when they killed their own mothers and brethren, did not pose a credible threat to the western societies. We couldn’t care less when they defaced the archeological columns of Buddha in Afghanistan nor did we care about their indescribable atrocities under the guise of sharia. Those days the public enemy number one were the communist. Now that we find the violence of misdirected followers of Islam at our shores we have hurriedly woken up in self-defense
While you can’t legislate commonsense and destroy ignorance completely, at least a lot of ignorant representatives of Islam will be demolished now. By directly attacking the deviant groups, outlawing them and cutting resources for their funding, the infrastructure of evil will receive a body blow. By starving and taking to task, ignorant mullahs and their equally ignorant pupils, the number of misguided souls will certainly be brought in check.
As for the internal turmoil and tussle in the religion of Islam, it is bound to continue like Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poetic description of the eternal moving brook. “…For men may come and men may go, but I go on forever.” Although in which direction will it go has to be seen.