Arabs regard Islam an Arabic religion. The Prophet Muhammad was an Arab. The Qur’an was revealed in Arabic. The Qur’an describes the Arab peoples as the best of humankind. Islam’s holiest cites are in Arab lands. Quranic Verses inspire three types of orthodoxy.
Islam is an Arabic Religion
The word Islam means submission to the will of the one and only God. The word Muslim means the person who submits to the will of God. The Qur’an asserts that Islam is the perfect religion and the ideal way of life for all peoples and time:
Qur’an 6:38: Nothing have we omitted from the Book.
Qur’an 16:89: We have sent down to thee the Book explaining all things.
Four factors make Muslim Arabs feel like God’s supreme race and the guardians over the purity of Islam.
The first factor is the Prophet’s Arabic background from the Meccan tribe of Quraish. Also, the companions who reported His words and actions, as well as the founders of the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence that survive today (Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, Shafi’i) were Arab, though, Abu Hanifa was the grandson of a Persian slave. [[1]] The fifty-five caliphs since the death of the Prophet in 632 and the end of the Abbasid Empire in 1258 at the hands of the Mongols were Arab from the Quraish tribe.
The second is that the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet in Arabic. There are many verses to this effect. Here are two:
Qur’an 12:2: We have sent it down as an Arabic Qur’an so that you may learn wisdom.
Qur’an 41:3: A book, whereof the verses are explained in detail; a Qur’an in Arabic, for people who understand.
Further, he Sunna [Prophetic actions (Sira) plus Prophetic words/ sayings (Hadith)], and the writings of the early jurists are in Arabic. Knowledge of Arabic determines the extent to which a person understands Islam. Non-Arab ulama must speak, read, and write Arabic. Capturing the precise meaning of the Qur’an in translation is challenging, often leading to differing conclusions on the same matter.
The third factor is Verse 3:110, which describes the Arab peoples as:
the best evolved to mankind.
The fourth factor is that Islam’s holiest shrines are in Arab lands: Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem.
According to a survey by the Pew Research Center published in April 2013, 74% of Muslims in seven countries in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) want Islamic law (Shari’a) to be the official law of the land: Iraq (91%), Palestinian Territories (89%), Morocco (83%), Egypt (74%), Jordan (71%), Tunisia (56%), and Lebanon (29%).[[2]] The Lebanon reaction reflects the country’s large Christian community.
Since the dawn of Arab conquests following the death of the Prophet in 632, non-Arab Muslims rebelled against their new masters.Ethnicities and old wars among Arabs, Persians, and Byzantines created lasting tensions. As early as 685, Al-Mukhtar led a revolt in Kufa, central Iraq, against the Umayyad caliph in Damascus, claiming that he was acting in the interest of the ‘weak’ and the Mawali (early non-Arab Muslims). [[3]]
Three Readings of the Islamic Creed: Notwithstanding the difficulties in categorization, three levels of orthodoxy may be recognized: moderate, Islamist, and jihadist, with shades within each category.
The Moderate
Moderates are tolerant of other religions and ways of life. They represent most Arabs. They find inspiration in the peaceful and the tolerant Qur’anic Verses like:
Qur’an 2:62: Those who believe, and those who follow the Jewish [scriptures], and the Christians and the Sabians … shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.
Qur’an 2:136: We believe in God, and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Isma’il, Isaac, Jacob and their progeny, and that which was given to Moses and Jesus, and to all the prophets by their Lord. We make no distinction among them and we submit to God in Islam.
Qur’an 2:256: Let there be no compulsion in religion.
Qur’an 18:29:The truth is from your Lord, so let anyone who wishes to, believe, and anyone who wishes to, disbelieve.
Qur’an 29:46: Do not argue with the People of the Book [[4]] unless in a fair way, apart from those who act wrongly, and say to them: we believe in the revelation which has come down to us and in that which came down to you; our God and your God is one; and it is to him we bow.
Qur’an 109:6:Unto you, your religion, and unto me, mine.
The moderates focus on the part in Verse 5:82 that praises Christians and their priests:
You will find . . . nearest . . . in love to the believers are the people who say: ‘we are Christians’ because amongst them there are priests and monks and they are not arrogant.
Indeed, Islam recognizes and reveres Christian and Jewish prophets and messengers. The Qur’an dedicates an entire chapter, Surah number 14, which contains fifty-two verses to Abraham, and Chapter 12 with 111 verses to Joseph. To Mary, the mother of Jesus, the Qur’an dedicates Chapter 19 with its 98 verses. In 2:135, Islam is described as the Religion of Abraham.
The Islamist
Islamists choose to concentrate on the intolerant verses, like for example, the remaining segment of Verse 5:82, which condemns Jews:
You will find the Jews and the idolaters strongest in enmity to the believers.
Islamists concentrate also on those Verses that condemn Christians and Jews, along with their priests and rabbis. For example:
Qur’an 2:65: You are well aware of those among you who profaned the Sabbath, and to whom We said, ‘Be as apes despicable’.
Qur’an 5:51: Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: they are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them is of them.
The moderate and the Islamist would relate to the intolerant Verses differently. While an Islamist justifies hostility to the Christians and Jews of the present day, a moderate sees the intolerance as directed not against today’s Christians and Jews, but against those who had conspired against the Prophet and his followers fourteen centuries ago.
The Jihadist
Jihadists are extreme Wahhabis. Only a tiny minority of Wahhabis are Jihadists. Fanatical, Jihadists welcome martyrdom to inherit paradise. They regard non-Muslims, even Muslims who do not follow their ways, as kuffar (heretics) deserving death; thus, the name takfiris. The so-called Islamic State jihadists who so brutally beheaded and terrorized the inhabitants of parts of Iraq and Syria around 2010 -2015 are takfiris. Other jihadi groups include al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Shabab, Taliban. They are guided by the intolerant Verses. For example:
Qur’an 8:60: Against them make ready your strength to the utmost, that you may strike terror into the enemies of God and your enemies.
Qur’an 9:29: Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which has been forbidden by God and his Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of truth, even if they are of the People of the Book, until they pay the protective tax [jizya] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
Qur’an 9:73 and 66:9: Oh Prophet engage the non-believers and the hypocrites in a jihad, and deal with them most ruthlessly, for their abode is in hell and to hell with them.
It should be noted that the Qur’an is not the only holy book that contains violent passages. The Bible’s Old Testament contains scary, vicious, and ungodly violence. [[5]]
The great delights that await the faithful in paradise make a jihadist career worthwhile. Dozens of verses tantalizingly describe the eternal bliss that awaits the martyrs in paradise. For example:
Qur’an 18:31: For them will be gardens of Eden; beneath them rivers will flow; they will be adorned with bracelets of gold, and they will wear green garments of fine silk and heavy brocade, they will recline on raised thrones.
Qur’an 44:52-54: In the midst of gardens and springs . . . dressed in fine silk and in rich brocade . . . we shall join them to companions with beautiful, big, and lustrous eyes.
Qur’an 47:17: And rivers of wine delightful to those who drink it.
The Weaponization of Jihad
Politicians dressed-up in garbs of piety, from Muhammad bin Abdulwahhab (Al-Saud’s partner) to Osama bin Laden (Qaeda), and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (ISIS) have been invoking jihad injunctions, predestination dogma, and the promise of delights in paradise to manufacture walking bombs.
Jihad injunctions + predestination dogma + paradise’s delights = Walking bombs.
For the bomb to explode, the formula needs a trigger, a spark. The spark may be any one or a combination of domestic and/or foreign triggers. The domestic may be poverty, unemployment, injustice, oppression, sexual frustration, human rights abuses, and hopelessness, etc. The foreign may be anger over wars in Arab lands and/or Israel’s humiliation of Palestinians. The bomb without a spark is harmless. The spark without a bomb is also harmless. It’s the combination of the bomb and the spark that explode.
The above formula introduced a new and effective motivational element into the readiness of soldiers in battle. Within ten years after the death of the Prophet in 632, Muslim forces defeated Persia to the East, Syria and Iraq to the North, and Egypt to the West. Aside from the twenty-six-year Byzantine–Sasanian War (602–628), which explains the exhaustion of the two Empires, the promise of the eternal delights of Paradise for the Muslim soldier who gets martyred in battle must have played a major role in energizing Muslim fighters.
Footnotes
[1] Albert Hourani, “History of the Arab Peoples”, (Faber and Faber, London, 1991). P. 397.
[2] Pew Research Center, “The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society,” (April 30, 2013).
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/
[3] Hugh Kennedy, “The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, the Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century”, (Longman, London and New York: 1996), PP. 95-96.
[4] The “People of the Book” are the Christians and the Jews.
[5] “Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished” (Isaiah 13:15-16, 704). “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves” (Numbers 31:17-18, 188). “And utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain” (Deuteronomy 2:34, 199). “And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods and destroy the names of them out of that place” (Deuteronomy 12:3, 211). “And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword” (Joshua 6:21, 244). “The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked” (Psalms 58:10, 608). “I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers,” (Judges 8:7, 277). “The Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter” (I Samuel 6:19, 307) (Holy Bible, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode Limited, 1979).