The True, Peaceful Face of Islam

Hands freeing a bird behind a barbed fence (photo: iStock by Getty Images).

Category: Americas, Featured, Life & Society Topics: Islam, Quran, Social Justice Values: Justice, Peace Views: 8011
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There are over 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, and Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion. If the evil carnage we witnessed on Sept. 11 were typical of the faith, and Islam truly inspired and justified such violence, its growth and the increasing presence of Muslims in both Europe and the U.S. would be a terrifying prospect. Fortunately, this is not the case.

The very word Islam, which means "surrender," is related to the Arabic salam, or peace. When the Prophet Muhammad brought the inspired scripture known as the Koran to the Arabs in the early 7th century A.D., a major part of his mission was devoted precisely to bringing an end to the kind of mass slaughter we witnessed in New York City and Washington. Pre-Islamic Arabia was caught up in a vicious cycle of warfare, in which tribe fought tribe in a pattern of vendetta and counter-vendetta. Muhammad himself survived several assassination attempts, and the early Muslim community narrowly escaped extermination by the powerful city of Mecca.

The Prophet had to fight a deadly war in order to survive, but as soon as he felt his people were probably safe, he devoted his attention to building up a peaceful coalition of tribes and achieved victory by an ingenious and inspiring campaign of nonviolence. When he died in 632, he had almost single-handedly brought peace to war-torn Arabia.

Because the Koran was revealed in the context of an all-out war, several passages deal with the conduct of armed struggle. Warfare was a desperate business on the Arabian Peninsula. A chieftain was not expected to spare survivors after a battle, and some of the Koranic injunctions seem to share this spirit. Muslims are ordered by God to "slay [enemies] wherever you find them!" (4:89). Extremists such as Osama bin Laden like to quote such verses but do so selectively. They do not include the exhortations to peace, which in almost every case follow these more ferocious passages: "Thus, if they let you be, and do not make war on you, and offer you peace, God does not allow you to harm them" (4:90).

In the Koran, therefore, the only permissible war is one of self-defense. Muslims may not begin hostilities (2:190). Warfare is always evil, but sometimes you have to fight in order to avoid the kind of persecution that Mecca inflicted on the Muslims (2:191; 2:217) or to preserve decent values (4:75; 22:40). The Koran quotes the Torah, the Jewish scriptures, which permits people to retaliate eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but like the Gospels, the Koran suggests that it is meritorious to forgo revenge in a spirit of charity (5:45). Hostilities must be brought to an end as quickly as possible and must cease the minute the enemy sues for peace (2:192-3).

Islam is not addicted to war, and jihad is not one of its "pillars," or essential practices. The primary meaning of the word jihad is not "holy war" but "struggle." It refers to the difficult effort that is needed to put God's will into practice at every level-personal and social as well as political. A very important and much quoted tradition has Muhammad telling his companions as they go home after a battle, "We are returning from the lesser jihad [the battle] to the greater jihad," the far more urgent and momentous task of extirpating wrongdoing from one's own society and one's own heart.

Islam did not impose itself by the sword. In a statement in which the Arabic is extremely emphatic, the Koran insists, "There must be no coercion in matters of faith!" (2: 256). Constantly Muslims are enjoined to respect Jews and Christians, the "People of the Book," who worship the same God (29:46). In words quoted by Muhammad in one of his last public sermons, God tells all human beings, "O people! We have formed you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another" (49:13) - not to conquer, convert, subjugate, revile or slaughter but to reach out toward others with intelligence and understanding.

So why the suicide bombing, the hijacking and the massacre of innocent civilians? Far from being endorsed by the Koran, this killing violates some of its most sacred precepts. But during the 20th century, the militant form of piety often known as fundamentalism erupted in every major religion as a rebellion against modernity. Every fundamentalist movement I have studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced that liberal, secular society is determined to wipe out religion. Fighting, as they imagine, a battle for survival, fundamentalists often feel justified in ignoring the more compassionate principles of their faith. But in amplifying the more aggressive passages that exist in all our scriptures, they distort the tradition.

It would be as grave a mistake to see Osama bin Laden as an authentic representative of Islam as to consider James Kopp, the alleged killer of an abortion provider in Buffalo, N.Y., a typical Christian or Baruch Goldstein, who shot 29 worshipers in the Hebron mosque in 1994 and died in the attack, a true martyr of Israel. The vast majority of Muslims, who are horrified by the atrocity of Sept. 11, must reclaim their faith from those who have so violently hijacked it.

Karen Armstrong has written many books on religion, including Islam: A Short History, published last year by Modern Library.  This article was originally published on June 17, 2008.

 


  Category: Americas, Featured, Life & Society
  Topics: Islam, Quran, Social Justice  Values: Justice, Peace
Views: 8011

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Older Comments:
MARYAM FROM USA said:
I'm glad Ms. Armstrong said that Jihad is not one of the pillars of Islam. She gives a good overall explanation of Islam as well. I think the five pillars - prayer, fasting, zakat, shahada, and Hajj support and allow us to achieve the Greater Jihad. Also, there is no nation in the world that doesn't go to war to preserve itself when it's threatened. This is what American presidents refer to as preserving "America's interests." Unfortunately, in America it is a knee-jerk reaction to all problems and never well thought out.
2010-09-23

ABDUL GHANI FROM USA said:
I agree to most of it.
I disagree with the statement: Islam is fastest growing religion.
The number of Muslims i the west is propably increasing because of migration.In many parts of the world the muslims proportion is relatively decreasing. For example

The percentage of Muslims in Africa is likely decreasing due to missionary work and in china more people convert to christianity than islam .
2010-09-13

PEACEFUL FROM CAD said:
Mr James Gordon,
You are right - especially when you note "third world countries".
But it is not spreading rather being 'financially' enforced upon many poverty sticken population of some countries as I wintnessed.
They are mostly 'rabbits following a carrot on a stick. For example I met an individual who became a Christian 'to feed my family'. He further said 'no I dont sincerely believe in it'!
You will find 'kiosks' at every corner selling the faith of Christ.
Even close to Masjids, yet on Fridays!

2010-09-12

ROGER SMITH FROM CANADA said:
Voice of reason. Ms Armstrong. The Koran says to Muslims among you believers are the closed is the group call them Christians and being a trained Christian Nun Ms. Armstrong shows that truth because the Bible says in Chapter John "know the truth and it will set you free". Islam is the religion for all the people of the world not just for Muslims and certainly Bin Laden is not included because of his hateful manner. Peace and may the God bless Ms. Armstrong.
2010-09-11

JOHN HOUSE FROM USA said:
Biblical Christianity does not care about being the most popular on earth all we care about is doing what God want's us to do. And that is to evangelize Biblical Christianity and let God take care of the rest.
2009-06-29

JOHN HOUSE FROM USA said:
BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY!
2009-06-29

A. WILTSHIRE FROM UK said:
I agree wholeheartedly with Ms. Armstrong, but with one caveat; given current knowledge regarding the depravity of the Bush administration and its utterly blatant and shameless lies to support the illegal invasion of Iraq and the cavalier attitude displayed by him and the Democrats and Republicans in the Congress in gleefully sending more and more US soldiers as cannon fodder to a true "idiot's war" financed with billions of borrowed dollars the whole framework of the belief that perhaps Osama Bin Laden, an ex-CIA operative, abandoned by his family and country, living in rags in some God forsaken cave with scorpions and spiders, in the middle of nowhere Afghanistan, would be somehow responsible for the intricate and well planned execution of 9-11 carried out with military precision, crumbles like an old biscuit and is resoundingly laughable- the point proven time and time again by US's vain attempt to somehow achieve acceptance or recognition of Osama's involvement by the frequent release of dramatic video footage of yet more tiresome Osama statements - from yet another Osama look-alike....who was, yet again, not all together a very good look alike after all. Maybe the US Department of Justice should consider re-enlisting the help of Steven Spielberg - after all, he was so helpful in coaching the very ape-like Bush to appear normal in his initial speeches.
2008-06-24

HAMZA MUFTAWU HAMMED FROM GHANA said:
Yes Islam is the faster religion in the world
2008-06-23

JAMES GORDON FROM USA said:
Biblical Christianity has 500 million to a billion adherents and growing, espcially in the thrid world. An there is nothing any human can do that weill stop it from growing.
2008-06-18

YOHAN DAHAL FROM BHUTAN said:
A very wonderful idea changing the whole course of religious rationalism. "The vast majority of Muslims, who are horrified by the atrocity of Sept. 11, must reclaim their faith from those who have so violently hijacked it" is very inspiring to non professing Muslims and challenging to those exposing Islam as religion of violence.
My Islam existed before the last prophet and therefore I have written about non professing Muslims in contrast to those who have hijacked the term from the true believers who worship God in Spirit and Truth as taught by the blessed Messiah. Violence can not defend the causes of good and therefore the militant form of piety is a great disservice from within to the great causes of good. Know evil by its deeds and the good by its creed and deeds together. One act is enough to prove evil. Two acts are necessary to prove the good as good.
2008-06-18