Ignorance: Misconceptions about Islam and Terrorism

Religious extremism has been a factor in many of the world’s most atrocious crimes, like the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, the Iran-Iraq War, and much more. Today there is nothing different. We now have Islamic fundamentalism and it is the new form of religious terrorism. Although religious extremism is usually a small group of individuals, as in the case of Al Qaeda, there are people who assume that the whole religion is extreme based on the actions of a few. In the case of Islam, there are many misunderstandings in the American public about the link between it and terrorism. The misconceptions of the American public about Islam are driven by the actions of two things: the terrorist group Al Qaeda and the fear mongering of some outside groups within the United States. Islamic extremists and groups that spread fear about Islam share one common trait that makes them very dangerous: ignorance.

                Without a doubt Al Qaeda is at the tip of the spear with regards to the religious sect of terrorism. Al Qaeda has been one of the top terrorist organizations in the world for the past few decades. Their ideology of the Islamic faith is one of radicalism. Their interpretation of the Quran and the Hadith (both Muslim holy books) can be seen as radical because it reflects the views of two men, Osama Bin Laden and Sayyid Qutb. These two men changed the world’s perspective of Islam. They both express a hatred for the western powers and want Islam to be the ruling authority throughout the world. Like any other religion, Islam has always had its extremists, like Saudi Arabia and its implementation of Sharia law and Iran with the Ayatollah, but Al Qaeda’s formation is one of the first times in which a strictly Islamic form of terrorism was formed. Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, and Qutb have formed an ideology of their own because Islam’s laws are subject to interpretation just as many other religion’s laws are.

A Muslim’s interpretation of the Quran and Hadith can vary greatly within the different sects of Islam just as a Christian’s interpretation of the Bible has forced the separation between Protestants, Orthodox, and Catholics. This interpretation, or “Tafsir” as Dr. Godlas says, of the Quran and Hadith is where we get the different sects or beliefs of Islam. Al Qaeda’s interpretation of the Hadith and Quran is simply more fundamentalist in nature. There are different levels of church and state within the Muslim countries. In Turkey there is a separation of church and state while in Iran and Saudi Arabia government and religion are basically one in the same. Instead of a state controlling the religion like in Iran and Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda is a group that found sanctuary in Afghanistan and continues to put forth their doctrine.

The basic beliefs within Al Qaeda are the establishment of Sharia Law and the jihad against foreign non-believers or non-Muslim countries. Within the majority of the Muslim world Al Qaeda is seen as a radical group that interprets the Quran and Hadith based on certain verses. Dr. Hussein Ibish (2008) says in his article, “Radical interpretation of selected verses from Quran” that Al Qaeda shares common ground with the most extreme interpretations of Islamic scriptures and practices. He says that Al Qaeda shares their interpretations with some Christian and Jewish groups’ interpretation of the Quran. The meaning of the shared interpretation is that the ignorant views that some people have about Islam are the same views Al Qaeda has in its doctrine. This has caused people that are outside of the Islamic faith to stereotype the Islamic faith as an inherently violent religion.

The interpretation of the Quran by the extremists in the West is almost as bad for Islam as the actions of Al Qaeda. It has spread the fear of Muslims throughout the American population. The western extremists have created, as Dr. Ibish says, an Islamophobia. No such incident explains this better than the “International Burn a Quran Day” started by Terry Jones and the Dove World Outreach Center.  This was an event scheduled for the ninth anniversary of September 11^th. They wanted to expose Islam for its violent and extremist nature and punish Muslims by burning the Quran. The irony in all of this is that they themselves were being extremist in nature. Their actions were seen to many in the Christian community as wrong.

The type of fear mongering that Terry Jones and his church have spread is  directly related to their views on Islam, whereas the violence and terrorism that Al Qaeda has done is in direct response to their views on the west and non-believers.  Terry Jones and his followers are displaying the same type of rhetoric as Al Qaeda just in a non-violent way. The fear of Islam is based on their inability to cope with the fact that Islam has become a dominant religion in the world. The type of fear mongering that is expressed here has been done in the past by many other religious figures in America. Peter Skerry, of Boston College says that some Protestant leaders have feared many other religions coming into the United States, like the Catholics immigrants coming from Europe. He notes that there has always been fear over new religions and there will always be ways to overcome this intolerance too.

I think that Peter Skerry is absolutely correct in his assessment of the American public. There is a part of the religious circle in the United States that always fears religious outsiders. When there is fear it clouds up peoples judgments and we get uninformed fear. What these ignorant people probably don’t know is that Islam is a religion of peace that closely resembles the Christian and Jewish faiths. The God of Christianity and the Allah of Islam are one in the same. The uninformed also need to know that most religions are going to have some sects within their religion who have their extremist/supremacy views.

Logical reasoning without ethnocentric views will help combat ignorance. I understand that we will never have the perfect society with no fear of others, but if one hopes to achieve order or tolerance, there must be some form of logic. A logical population starts with a well-informed public. Therefore people must step outside their comfort zones and learn about other religions. I have always said that ignorance is the enemy of logic so if we are ever going to  have a population without people like Osama Bin Laden, Sayyid Qutb, or Terry Jones we must be open to hear other religions’ philosophies and analyze those philosophies without prejudice.

I was once one of the ignorant people I refer to because I used to think that my religion was right and everyone else was wrong. I was 15 when 9/11 happened and I stereotyped Muslims to be terrorists. I saw them cheering and burning American flags in the hours after the towers fell. Once I had more world experience I realized that the people who carried out those acts were only a small sect of a larger group. I opened up my mind to the possibility that I was wrong about Muslims. I’ve learned that all religions have their good sides and bad. We should not put the blinders on and ignore all other views.

References

Godlas, A. 2003. The Qur'an and Qur'anic Interpretation  http://www.uga.edu/islam/quran.html

Ibish, Hussein. 2008.Radical interpretation of selected verses from Quran http://www.muslimbridges.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=534:radical-interpretation-of-selected-verses-from-the-quran&catid=83:radical-interpretation-of-quran&Itemid=110

Skerry, Peter. 2010. Do Americans Fear Muslims. http://hpronline.org/united-states/do-americans-ear-muslims/

Was the American Revolution an act of Terrorism?

              Perspective is important when trying to decipher history. It is very important that we view the events of yesterday in a sense that leaves our biases out of the equation. There are many events in history that are clouded by the predispositions we have. The events are either too close to our hearts for us to be impartial, too far away to understand, or have our prejudices forced upon them. One such event that can be misinterpreted because it holds a special place in every American’s heart is the American Revolution. The American Revolution is taught in American schools as the thirteen colonies uniting and defeating a tyrannical king, but were the actions of the colonist’s terrorism by nature? To answer that question we must look at a different perspective on the American Revolution.

The first thing we must look at when determining if the colonists were terrorists is the British definition of terrorism. It is important to look at the British definition of terrorism in the 18^th century because we want to see if the actions of the colonists were considered terrorism in the eyes of the British and not our own eyes. The British did not have a definition of terrorism like ours today, but had a specific “code of conduct” to follow for civil and military affairs. Even though Britain didn’t have a definition of what a terrorist is there are parallels between what we do with terrorists nowadays and what the British did with deviant behavior during the American Revolution.

Deviance is defined by Robert Keel of the Sociology department of the University of Missouri as, “a negotiated order. Deviance violates some groups assumptions about reality (social order). It violates expectations” (Keel, 2007). There are many examples in which the British dismissed the actions of the American government as deviant. They viewed the acts as something that didn’t conform to the norms of society. Society’s norms are usually defined by the most influential people; in this case it’s Britain because it was the most dominant/powerful nation in the world. The question is: Do these acts of deviance constitute terrorism in the eyes of the British? There are two acts of deviance that were predominant in the American Revolution that are closely related to the terrorism that we are facing today: the privateering of vessels to act as the American Navy and the tactic of Asymmetrical warfare.

                 The act of privateering American vessels to fight the war was seen to the British as a violation of the norms of combat. As Jesse Lemisch of George Mason’s University says, “it compensated for that weakness at sea by engaging in a very effective form of legalized piracy called privateering. Privateers were denounced by the British in ways that resonate with the denunciation of terrorists that we hear these days” (Lemisch, 2002). Privateers were sanctioned pirates that were given authority by the Continental Congress. They would attack a British ship and steal its goods and split it amongst themselves as a way to deplete British supply lines.

This was America’s way to counter the British and their powerful Navy. The parallel situation that America faces today, and calls terrorism, is the Somali pirates that have attacked ships near Africa. Although different in practice because American privateers attacked British ships and not civilians, the same theory of deviance applies because of the nature of the atypical behavior. Americans also used another tactic which the British thought was deviant: Asymmetrical warfare.

                Asymmetrical warfare is a type of fight in which one side, usually the weaker side, uses an unconventional type of warfare. An example of unconventional warfare is the Viet Cong’s use of hit, run, and blend into the community.  The American Revolution was the first war in the modern era in which this style was used. This style was very different than the normal line formation that standard militaries used at the time. America used a combination of guerilla warfare and line warfare and was very effective. The hit and run of guerilla warfare was very demoralizing to the British Regulars.

Francis Marion aka The Swamp Fox

 Francis Marion was the figure head of this type of warfare. If you have ever seen the movie The Patriot, he was the basis for the character Mel Gibson portrayed. According to Amy Crawford of the Smithsonian Magazine, “Though often outnumbered, Marion's militia would continue to use guerilla tactics to surprise enemy regiments, with great success…Marion and his followers played the role of David to the British Goliath." Line formations were still the normal way of combat until WWI, so it is safe to say that Francis Marion was thinking outside the box. The guerrilla type warfare was labeled by the British as unconventional and they tried very hard to capture Marion. This is similar to the war in Iraq where American soldiers are attacked by Iraqi militias with unconventional means and are labeled as terrorists.

We cannot define the American Revolutionaries actions as terrorism but a deviant act. The connection between the American Revolutionaries and terrorism is not the acts themselves but the nature in which the British saw those acts. American Revolutionaries did not attack innocent British civilians; they attacked British combatants/supplies in a way that was contrary to the normal type of warfare for the period. Although there are parallels between the current terrorism situation and the American Revolution it would be unfair to judge the past based on our perception. 

References

Crawford, Amy. The Smithsonian Magazine (2007) The Swamp Fox. Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/biography/fox.html

Keel, Robert. University of Missouri (2007) Introduction to the Sociology of Deviance. Retrieved from http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/200/intrdev.html

Lemisch, Jesse. George Mason’s University- History News Network (2002). Privateering, the American Revolution, and the Rules of War: The United States Was Born in "Terrorism" and Piracy. Retrieved from http://hnn.us/articles/915.html