Military

DATE=10/25/2001

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-01006

TITLE=ON THE LINE: WHOSE ISLAM IS IT

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY -- 619-0037

CONTENT=

THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Anncr: On the Line -- a discussion of United States policy and contemporary issues. This week, "Whose Islam Is It?" Here is your host, David Aikman.

Host: Hello and welcome to On the Line. Osama bin Laden has cited Islamic law and tradition to justify his terrorist attacks against the United States. But Islamic scholars say that bin Laden's violence cannot be justified by the doctrine of jihad, or holy war. Islam forbids both suicide and the killing of innocents, which is what terrorist attacks like those on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are all about. Although much has been said about Osama bin Laden's life and his terrorist network, Al-Qaida, less attention has been paid to the roots of the Islamic extremism he champions.

Joining me today to discuss "Whose Islam Is it?" are two experts. Douglas Streusand is a professor of history at the American Military University, and Sulayman Nyang is a professor of African and Islamic Studies at Howard University. Welcome to the program.

Professor Nyang, do you think that it's only a minority of the Islamic world that shares a great deal of the belief in holy war and so forth that Osama bin Laden appears to profess?

Nyang: Yes, I think most of the Muslims would certainly condemn the terrorism associated with Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida network. What is most important for us to recognize is the fact that in Islam, the kind of terrorism that we now see perpetrated by the Osama bin Laden network is unacceptable, because it does not really go in accordance with traditional and classical Islamic understanding of jihad. They throw the word around, jihad, but the jihad concept is certainly not what we are now seeing. This in my view really is anarcho-fascist behavior.

Host: Anarcho-fascist behavior.

Nyang: Yes, because you see the point is, the manner in which these people organize themselves is certainly not Islamic. And secondly, the manner in which they try to use weapons in secrecy -- because in Islam you fight in the open; you don't hide.

Host: Yes, but how do you account for the fact that all over the Middle East, people are said to be naming their children Osama; something like twenty-six percent of Palestinians within the Palestinian Authority area are saying that they support the terrorist acts, and about twenty-four percent in Pakistan. There does seem to be a huge resonance in at least some parts of the Islamic world.

Nyang: What you have to recognize, really, is that in most of the Muslim world, and more specifically in the Middle East, they do have grievances, popular grievances, against their own governments. And many of these societies are autocracies: they are either monarchical autocracies or military dictatorships, that are now projecting themselves as civilian rulers -- whether it is in Egypt, in Syria, in Libya, in Algeria, in Tunisia, etc. So this creates a problem for legitimacy. And what you really see are people who are desperadoes, who now find themselves identifying with whosoever lashes out against either their own regime or those they perceive to be backing their regime. This is what is happening. Many Arabs name their kids after Saddam Hussein.

Host: Right.

Nyang: And many other Muslims elsewhere, outside of the Arab world, did the same.

Host: Douglas Streusand, you have written and studied extensively the concept of jihad. Could you explain in simple terms what the different understandings of jihad are.

Streusand: The word jihad means "striving"; it means "making an effort." And as a religious concept that word is tied to the expression fi-sabilu'llah: "in the way of God" or "in the path of God." And for the majority of Muslims, jihad is an aspect of everyday life, something that they do every day. I have seen my colleague Professor Nyang carrying out jihad in his own way. We met for an extensive discussion some years ago at a restaurant during Ramadan, and I saw him exerting himself in the path of God by not eating while I was eating. So I have seen Professor Nyang as a mujahid, a person who carries out jihad.

Host: That's in a moral sense.

Streusand: In a moral sense. But that is what jihad means in the everyday life of the majority of Muslims. In the canonical connections of Hadith, which is one of the major sources of Islamic law. . .

Host: The Hadith are the sayings.

Streusand: The sayings and actions, descriptions of the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad. The vast majority of references to jihad refer to jihad as warfare, for the expansion of the political control of the Islamic authorities. The goal of jihad, even when it is jihad as warfare, is never forced conversion. It is always the extension of political authority, political power. And in fact if you look at all of the restrictions on jihad, which essentially subsumes the Western concepts of both just war and justice in war, you find that it is very difficult to meet those standards. One reference which certainly would disqualify the actions of September Eleventh is that jihad must be preceded, an expedition must be preceded by a call on the enemy either to surrender politically or to accept Islam religiously.

Host: Professor Sulayman Nyang, do you agree with that, that most Muslims would accept that understanding of jihad?

Nyang: Yes, I think if you go back and you look at the historical record -- except for instances of political opportunism, when some element or some individual, out of political opportunism, wanted to create a kingdom of his own -- it's exactly what he just said, that what he laid out is precisely the classical understanding of what jihad is.

Host: But why is it -- and many observers would say that not many people in the Middle East, not many Islamic scholars, seem to have spoken up very forcefully -- that the definition of what Osama bin Laden did in New York and Washington really shouldn't be considered legitimate jihad?

Nyang: I think what has happened really is that most of the statements that come out of Muslim organizational leadership are not widely disseminated in the media. Many hours after the September Eleventh tragedy in New York and at the Pentagon, the national organization, Muslim organizations in America came out with a joint statement against that.

Host: Condemning the attack.

Nyang: Condemning the attack. And then you had people, so many people who signed off on that, scholars themselves -- Doctor Muzamil Siddiqi, who was with the President at the National Cathedral, he's a jurist, he's a faqih himself; he has a Ph.D. from Harvard, where he is also a student of Islamic law -- and he condemns this. So I mean from an American point of view we had Muslim scholars, like Taha Jaber and others, who came out against this. But the point is, those people are not usually covered by the media. One thing that is very interesting as a result of developments now, is that many of the leaders of the American Muslims are beginning to receive attention from the media, and attention which was not forthcoming in the past. But Sheikh [Yusuf] Qaradawi and many other leaders from Saudi Arabia and other places came out strongly against. Now of course Qaradawi is in Qatar. And his statement -- he is one of the leading Muslim jurists. I mean, the tragedy in the Islamic world is that you don't have a central body like the Catholics, where you can issue a statement that goes out. But despite this limitation in the Muslim world, we do have in the Muslim world international organizations, such as the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which came out very strongly against. Now of course Osama bin Laden will just dismiss them, that these are flunkies of America. But they came out against the September Eleventh attack.

Host: How much resonance do you think the ideas of Osama bin Laden have? Obviously not necessarily meaning how much support is there for crashing airlines into buildings, but the overall concept of a war of civilizations, a war against the Jews and the Crusaders, as Osama bin Laden says.

Streusand: Well, resonance is a difficult thing to measure. There was just an item in the Washington Post about the strength of the image of the Crusades in the Islamic world as a memory of victimization. So, resonance? -- there is a great deal. But resonance is an odd thing. If we think back to the Islamic Revolution or what became the Islamic Revolution in Iran, [Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini's ideas had enormous resonance because he was the symbol of resistance to Muhammad-Reza Pahlavi.

Host: To the Shah.

Streusand: To the Shah. He was seen almost as the anti-Shah, the exact opposite. He had enormous support from people who had no interest in or knowledge of his political theories. And I think that much of the resonance that Osama bin Laden has had is that he appears to be doing something, and responding to many grievances that exist.

Host: I want to come back and ask Professor Sulayman Nyang about that. But first let me remind our audience that this is On the Line and I'm David Aikman. Today we are discussing "Whose Islam Is It?" with Douglas Streusand and Sulayman Nyang.

Sulayman Nyang, do you think there's a continuity between the sort of extreme anti-Americanism of the Khomeinist revolt in Iran and what Osama bin Laden is trying to propagate?

Nyang: If there is any element of continuity, it is the similarity or identity of grievances. But I don't think there is any kind of continuity institutionally between the Khomeini movement and the Taleban and Osama bin Laden. The Khomeini movement grew out of a peculiar Iranian situation. Here you had in Iran a monarchy that was restored to power in the fifties, in a clash with [Muhammad] Mussadegh, by the United States. And since the restoration, the Shah of Iran was increasingly perceived, even by some elements in the upper classes and middle classes of Iran, as too authoritarian and autocratic. And of course the embrace of the Shah by Western corporations and Western governments did not endear him to the masses of his people, even though he came over the White Revolution, which was designed to give land to the poor people. . .

Host: Modernization.

Nyang: And modernize society. So I don't see any kind of institutional continuity or organizational continuity between the Iranian Revolution and what we now observe in Afghanistan. What we have to recognize is that the Iranian Revolution grew out of peculiar Iranian realities, a Shiite tradition, and what is happening with the Taleban and with the al-Qaida is a peculiar Sunni phenomenon that is the result of America's involvement in Afghanistan against the Soviets. And what we are now seeing really is these are the bad children of the Cold War.

Host: So this is really, in some ways -- would you agree with this, Douglas Streusand -- part of the fallout from the end of the Cold War?

Streusand: Well, it's difficult to find anything in the world that isn't to a certain extent, because even if events have nothing to do with the Cold War they come to the surface because of the absence of the Cold War. And I would also hasten to say, and to say emphatically, that even if the events of September Eleventh were a direct consequence of the U.S. support for the resistance to the Soviets in Afghanistan, that doesn't mean that that support was a mistake.

Host: Right.

Streusand: But I think that certainly the Taleban phenomenon is very peculiarly Afghan and Pashtun. But I think that we also have to recognize that the sense of grievance, the sense of a thousand years of victimization in the Middle East and the Islamic world is -- although very powerful and not to be changed -- I would say that in many cases it's also erroneous.

Host: Professor Sulayman Nyang, you are of course of Muslim background yourself, and President Bush and many other American officials have made it clear that the United States is not at war with Islam, but as a Muslim what would you do to encourage people, moderate Muslims, to say that the brand of Islam being put forward by Osama bin Laden is neither mainstream nor healthy for the religion of Islam as a whole?

Nyang: I think many of us who are actively involved in the Muslim community and in the academy have put out the statement, through writing and through speeches and through interviews like this, that Islam clearly is not being done a service by elements resorting to terrorism, because terrorism historically has not been the most effective way of bringing about the resolution of human problems and the addressing of grievances. I think what is fundamental about the Middle East and the Muslim world is the absence of democratic rule in most of these societies, because people will be able to reason out their differences and they will then create the institutional structures to address their bread and butter issues. I think unless and until American leadership is willing to support pro-democracy movements and push for that -- that's one reason why even though I'm American, I live here, I am very much now actively involved in promoting democracy in Africa. I mean, we have an organization which I serve as the chief adviser -- they are the only ones doing it -- called Alliance for Democracy in Africa, to make sure that in all the African states, Muslim and non-Muslim, the democratic seeds are planted, and that you have U.S. support for this institution-building effort. The same thing must be done in the Middle East. During the Cold War, authoritarian regimes were supported either by the West or by the East. Now that the Cold War is over, the seeds of democracy must be planted.

Host: Would you agree with that, Douglas Streusand?

Streusand: Well, I would agree with it, but I would also tend to be very cautious.

Host: Cautious about what?

Streusand: Well, the expectations that people in the Middle East have for democracy are extraordinarily high -- and so high in fact that even democracy, which Winston Churchill first called the worst form of government except for all the others, has difficulty meeting them. In particular, representative institutions are in many ways a precondition for economic growth, but they do not guarantee economic growth and they do not make it immediate. And when Sulayman spoke of bread and butter issues, in many of the countries of the Middle East it is in fact very much bread and butter that really matters. And that's not something that's easy to deliver.

Host: Professor Sulayman Nyang, some people have said that if you implemented democracy throughout much of the Arab world, particularly where you have rather autocratic regimes now ruling, that you would in fact bring to power sort of theocratic tyrannies that might even be worse that the authoritarian monarchies and other systems that currently rule over there. Do you agree with that?

Nyang: No, I don't think so. I think, I agree with my friend here, saying that you have to be careful, because you see one of the big problems in the Middle East and in many [countries] of the Muslim world is that the bread and butter issues -- what I call, elsewhere, the politics of the belly and the politics of the head -- in the Muslim world, the primary politics is the politics of the belly. Now democratic regimes historically have been able to reduce violence, in terms of getting the politics of the belly going -- because economic development tends to be reinforced by the democratic process. But democratic governments of poor people are not likely to be very effective, because your point is that people may be very impatient. And I think that's one of the words of caution we have to give to anyone who is promoting democracy in the Muslim world, or anywhere else. The last point I want to make on this issue is the fact that if one is really interested in creating a democratic society in the Middle East, it has to be done piecemeal. You don't have to stampede the ruling classes, because you could easily fall into the hands of the only opposition in existence right now. See, the democratic forces, pro-democracy groups in the Middle East and in the Arab world have been, to some extent, marginalized. And people find in Islam the only tool, the only symbol, the only slogan you can employ to rally the masses. That's the sad thing. So you link the bread and butter issues with Islam.

Host: In just a very few seconds that we have left, Douglas Streusand, do you think that Islam is capable of bringing forth the kind of democratic governments that would solve many of these problems?

Streusand: At length, yes. Immediately, only with very great difficulty. But though this would surprise many people, I regard the history of Islam in the long run as a history of political adaptation and compromise.

Host: Well, thank you very much for that thought. I'm afraid that's all the time we have for this week. I would like to thank our guests -- Douglas Streusand from the American Military University and Professor Sulayman Nyang from Howard University -- for joining me in a discussion of "Whose Islam Is it?" This is David Aikman for On the Line.