Archive for November, 2009

UPDATE: Sorry for the misspellings in the first version.

Being able to see the obvious is a virtue much under valued. It appears that our political leaders and the media elite do not have this virtue. It is remarkable–indeed, fascinating–that a massacre at Ft. Hood, Texas where a Muslim psychiatrist and soldier killed 13 people shouting “God is greatest” cannot be named by the mainstream media and many politicians on the left for what it is–an act of jihadism by a devout Muslim believer.

People have not wanted to call it “terrorism.” And perhaps it was not technically a “terrorist act. It was, however, by all reasonable consideration of the evidence, a premeditated act fueled by his Islamic faith in which he saw himself as defending the faith and being faithful to Allah. In fact, it has just come to light that his professional business cards carried on them the insignia SoA (Soldier of Allah).

Why cannot the media and most of our political leaders speak the obvious? Some say they are just being thorough and do not want to “rush to judgment” or unnecessarily smear all adherents to Islam. All well and good. But, the truth is pretty simple, namely that there is very, very little danger of all Muslims being seen negatively by Americans or Christians. No matter how much some Muslims may fear the possibility of a negative backlash against themselves, the last eight years in the United States are a testimony to the great improbability of that. I think that the reason that so many persons in politics and media cannot see the plain reality is the superficiality of their own world views. They are not able to take ideas seriously, because their own ideas have crippled their intellects. Some people call it “political correctness.” Whatever it is, it has withered their critical thinking skills.

Consider the evaluation of Mayor Daley of Chicago when commenting on the reason that this jihad attack occurred. “Unfortunately, America loves Guns. We love guns to a point where that…uh…we see devastation on a daily basis. You don’t blame a group.” I assume by “group” he means Muslims. However, the Mayor himself implicated the entire nation of law abiding citizens in this heinous act when he contended that it happened because “America loves guns.” This is a silly liberal, knee jerk reaction, if ever there was one. Critical thinking anyone?

You can, as well, see the same kind of inability to think clearly in the statements of those commentators and “experts” who simply conclude that Hasan was “disturbed” or those who argue that the real problem was some kind of “post traumatic stress disorder” he suffered because he had to hear the horror stories of returning Muslims. Perhaps he is “disturbed,” but it exquisitely strains our credulity to try and accept that PTSD is a plausible explanation for his obviously premeditated actions. (He purchased weapons, sold all his furniture, impassioned and with forethought walked into a crowded room filled with soldiers and civilians, shouted “God is greatest,” and opened fire. But, the elites cannot see that he was motivated by a religious ideology.)

Amazingly, even Hasan’s psychiatric supervisors who oversaw him during his tenure at Walter Reed Hospital could not really “see” the obvious. NPR.org reports that from 2002 until he was transferred in 2009 to Fort Hood, Hasan was under significant scrutiny by officials at Walter Reed. Their concerns were over his poor performance as a psychiatrist AND the “extremist” views they thought that he held as a Muslim. But, when asked by NPR why these concerns were not dealt with a curious reason was offered by Walter Reed officials.

“[S]ome of Hasan’s supervisors and instructors had told colleagues that they repeatedly bent over backward to support and encourage him, because they didn’t have clear evidence that he was unstable, and they worried they might be “discriminating” against Hasan because of his seemingly extremist Islamic beliefs.”

No doubt he was disturbed. But, what far too many either cannot see or are afraid to see is the possibility that his frame of mind was produced by the kind of Islamic spirituality that he embraced. To be able to see this these secularists would have to take ideas and beliefs much more seriously. It would require them to be able to contemplate the truth that what one believes and the course of action one chooses as a result of those beliefs shape a person psychologically.

I think that far too many people in the world of the media, education, medicine, and politics think in the following way. Hasan may have had some rather strong religious views, they tell themselves, but after all, his “seemingly extremist Islamic beliefs” were “just” his beliefs. You cannot, after all, they believe, confront someone for his or her beliefs. All religious beliefs are private things. You might be discriminating against his right to hold those religious beliefs.

You see, in the minds of secularists — such as most of the media, etc — all religious beliefs are equal, not to be discussed seriously in polite company. Beliefs are thought of as the personal internal property of the one who holds them. However, ideas and beliefs have consequences. The question is whether or not private beliefs are good or evil.

President Obama doesn’t seem to get it either. In his speech at Fort Hood he said “These Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great state and the heart of this great American community. This is the fact that makes the tragedy even more painful, even more incomprehensible.” Either the President spoke in an extremely sloppy way or he also cannot criticize ideas (except partisan political ones). But this President in his public speeches is known for his precise rhetoric.

The actions of Hasan are entirely comprehensible when one takes the ideas that many Muslims seem to hold seriously. His frame of mind is equally understandable. He embraced jihad as a central component in his religious worldview and the rest is horror and history.

Jihadism is an Islamic idea that is shaping the views of far too many Muslims. Andrew Bostom, a scholar of jihadism, cites the following passage from “Reliance of the Traveler,” a widely distributed manual of Islamic law produced by al-Azhar University in Egypt, the most authoritative interpreters of theology and sharia jurisprudence in Sunni Islam, the dominant tradition among the world’s Muslims:

“Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and, is etymologically derived from the word, mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion [of Islam]…The scriptural basis for jihad is such Koranic verses as “Fighting is prescribed for you” (Koran 2:216); “Slay them wherever you find them” (Koran 4:89); “Fight the idolators utterly” (Koran 9:36); and such hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] as the one related by (Sahih) Bukhari and (Sahih) Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: “I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And the final reckoning is with Allah”; and the hadith by (Sahih) Muslim, “To go forth in the morning or evening to fight in the path of Allah is better than the whole world and everything in it.”

This kind of language could be interpreted by Muslims, and in fact is by some, as a spiritual fight. Yet, it cannot be denied that there are many who are interpreting this in the most literal sense. Once the idea has been embraced that all those whose beliefs and practices are not pure must be fought so that they will “testify” properly about Allah and Muhammad, then we should not be surprised that people’s actions become violent. If you believe that “To go forth in the morning or evening to fight in the path of Allah is better than the whole world and everything in it,” then everything and everybody in the world is expendable so long as the true testimony about Allah is made and those who deny Allah are defeated. Indeed, to “slay them wherever you find them,” becomes the greatest of virtuous acts.

I honestly have no idea how many adherents to Islam seriously think about jihad. My guess is that Islam has quite a lot of nominal Muslims, just like Christianity has plenty of in-name-only Christians. Even more, I trust my better informed friends who tell me that the vast majority of Muslims are not jihadists the likes of Hasan. That seems entirely right to me. However, unless and until we are willing to take ideas seriously and see that they have consequences, we can neither defend against them or pray for the souls of those who are imprisoned by virulent, death-dealing thoughts.

The recent murderous actions on a United States military base in Texas presents us, once again, with a disturbing question. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is the Army officer and devout Muslim who went on a homicidal shooting spree at Fort Hood on Thursday November 4. In the face of what many are calling the most violent and serious attack on a military base in the U. S., President Obama rightly cautioned the public: “We don’t know all the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.” Sage advice, but still there is the question of how we should think about Islam in the 21^st century.

Here’s what we do know. Hasan, on the day of his deadly attack, leapt upon a desk and shouted “Allahu Akbar!” — God is great! Then he began firing at his fellow soldiers, as well as the civilians who were gathered there. In all, twelve soldiers and one civilian were murdered in the outburst of violence and thirty others were wounded, a number quite seriously. Furthermore, according to a report in USA Today, Hasan had confided in his local imam in August of this year, confessing to him that that he was conflicted between his devotion to Islam and his allegiance to the U.S. military. The news report quotes Osman Danquah, co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, Texas, as saying that Hasan asked him, “If soldiers come to me and have problems fighting other Muslims, what do I tell them?”

Also, Danquah informed USA Today that “Hasan asked about soldiers changing their minds after joining the military and inquired about other members of the congregation.“ Danquah described the questions that Hasan asked as being “so disjointed that mosque officials suspected he [Hasan] might be a federal agent trying to infiltrate the mosque/” Because of the seeming incoherence in his questions, Danquah told USA Today that he told Hasan at that time, “There’s something wrong with you, and if you’re here to gather information, we’re not here to do anything against the government. We’re here to worship.”

Besides these facts, reports inform us that Hasan was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq, his first ever deployment to an active “war” front. This was a source of great consternation and even despair for him, because he saw it as placing him in a position to have to be at war with fellow Muslims. “His anger was noted by a classmate, who said Hasan ‘viewed the war against terror’ as a ‘war against Islam.’” The Associated Press reports that Hasan had been under investigation by law enforcement for an Internet posting in which a person by his name defended the practices of suicide bombers (although upon reading the posting does not endorse the practice, but is making a theological judgment on the morality of it.)

Nader Hasan, a cousin to the attacker, told The New York Times his work as a counselor to returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan theatres suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder, had introduced Hasan to the scars that wars leave. “He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,” Nader Hasan said. “He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there.”

Hasan’s actions do not, of course, necessarily reflect negatively upon the Islamic faith as a whole, but the fact that he shouted the slogan of jihad–Allahu Akbar–must not be ignored. Of course, his actions are his, not that of an entire religion or of all its adherents. The response of his Imam–“we are here to worship”–is an immediate example of a different kind of Islamic expression. We must keep this in mind as we ponder how Christians might think about Islam.

However, despite the fact that in contemporary America it is considered an egregious act of politically incorrect bigotry to raise any questions about Islam, ponder we must. For here is the uncomfortable truth of recent history: this first decade of the 21^st century has introduced Western Christians (at least) to one expression of Islamic spirituality that is very, very real, in fact, deadly real (in the literal sense). Thinking clearly and humbly and lovingly as Christians in the face of these facts is critical. Many people are quick to point out that “radical Islam” is not the same as “Islam” in its real form. I don’t question that. However, we do face a serious dilemma as Christians, one that is made all the more difficult if we do not take time to ask real and probing questions.

When someone says, for instance, that “extremists” or “jihadists” do not represent the Muslim faith, such a claim means nothing unless that person can describe what the Muslim faith actually teaches. Most Christians are uninformed about Islam, so when we are told that jihad–as it is envisioned in the Koran–is a spiritual concept and not the same thing as the violence that the jihadists carryout, that could well be. However, it behooves us to ask, then, what is this spiritual jihad. Furthermore, given that there seems to be a significant number of Muslims who embrace something other than a spiritual understanding of jihad, we are quite justified in asking how and where and by whom this false teaching about jihad is being addressed in the mosques, shrines, and Muslim schools of the world.

Over the next several days, I will be posting my theological-ethical reflections on how we can think about the encounter with Islam that we are presented with as Christians in the West (especially in America). In so doing, I hope to remind us of the complexities that we face in thinking about his. These complexities are: (1) Christians are to love Muslims and not to see ourselves as their enemies, even if (some) Muslims see themselves as such; (2) actions by Muslims such as we have seen in attacks on the U.S. are not attacks on Christianity; (3) the grievances of Muslim jihadists (I am not suggesting that Hasan was a jihadist) are political, economic and moral; 4) Christians in America are first Christians and then Americans, which must shape the way we think about our nation’s response to terrorism;  (5) the secular forces of political correctness that will not countenance any discomforting questions about religion must be ignored; and (6) Christians cannot simply shrug our shoulders and accept the notion that our faith is as violent as Islam seems to be, so we should just be quiet.

In the 21^st century we do not have the luxury of being non-thinking Christians. Faithfulness, now as perhaps never before, demands that we be people who not only work and pray, but think–so we will know how to work and pray.