November 16, 2006

The "Moderate" Majority of Muslims Are a Threat

Where are moderate Muslims in the Middle East and do they not make up the vast majority? As I've been saying, well, forever, it all depends on your definition of the word moderate.

Allah has a good discussion about the Glenn Beck program last night in which he links a new report released yesterday by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, “The Militant Ideology Atlas”. In it, the authors recognize that the Salafi are now either a majority or near to it in the Middle East today.

Salaafism is not the same as Wahhabism, it is a much broader movement. Salaafis generally believe in the rule of Islamic law and the restoration of the Caliphate. While Wahhabs also believe this, they are a subset of the Salaafis.

So, according to this report, Salaafis now make up a significant number of those in the Middle East. Can Salaafists ever be moderate?

Again, it depends on your definition of 'moderate'. Something I've been at odds with Dean Esmay over for quite some time. From the report:

Finally, a word about “moderate” Muslims. The measure of moderation depends on what type of standard you use. If by “moderate” one means the renouncement of violence in the achievement of political goals, then the majority of Salafis are moderate. But if by “moderate” one means an acceptance of secularism, capitalism, democracy, gender equality, and a commitment to religious pluralism, then Salafis would be extremists on all counts. Then again, there are not many Muslim religious leaders in the Middle East that would qualify as moderates according to the second definition.

Let me point out, also, that I would slightly disagree with the chart in the report, reproduced by Allah. I've produced my own chart to show what I believe is a more accurate description of where the jihadi ideology falls in the larger scheme of things.

The broadest category is that of Muslims. Islamists are those who believe in a political form of Islam. Since Islam, unlike Christianity, was political from its beginning, it is not difficult to see why it is part of mainstream and historical Islam. Also, why it permeates both major sects of Islam--Sunni and Shia. After all, Christianity didn't find its first warrior king until after nearly 200 years of being completely apolitical. Mohammed himself was a warrior king.

There are liberal reformers in the Muslim world who consider themselves Islamists. But they are not so numerous as we would hope.

The vast majority of Islamists are peaceful--that is, they reject violence as a means to an end--but they also support sharia. What seperates the Salaafi from other Sunni Islamists is their vision of the return of the Caliphate.

The Shia, though, have their own brand of Islamists. While not all Shia Islamists are followers of the former leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Khomeinists are to Shia Islamists as Salaafists are to Sunni Islamists.

By comparison to most Salaafi, Khomeinists are quite moderate. They believe in Islamic law, but they also have no problem with democracy. Democracy within limits, that is. Think of a kind of Constitutionalism which limits democracy, but replace the Constitution with Islamic law.

Most, but not all, Salaafi reject democracy out of hand. The participation of Salafi groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt should be seen in much the same way the the Nazis participated in German politics under the Weimar Republic--it is a means to an end.

Jihadis may be either subsets of Salafism or of Khomeinism. Al Qaeda is a Salafist jihad organization. Hizbollah are Khomeinists.

Which brings up a broader point about the roots of two very different problems that we face, and which are often mixed up.

a) The threat of violence from jihadis.
b) The threat of oppression from Islamists.

When we speak of a threat from Muslim quarters of the world, we are usually referring to the threat of violence by jihadis. The authors of this paper seem to suggest that this violence is inspired by Salaafism. But if Salaafism is the inspiration, how does one explain radical Shia jihadis who would reject Qutb (the philisophical founder of modern Saalafism)?

Lest we forget, it was the Khomeinist jihadis of Hezbollah that killed 220 American Marines, 18 sailors, and 3 soldiers in 1983.

Since both major branches of Islam have both Islamists and jihadis, then the inspiration must lie in Islam itself. At least, in Islam as it has been traditionally interpretted.

In fact, the authors even have this to say in defense of their use of the word jihadis:

We recognize that the use of "Jihadi" to designate Salafis of a militant stripe is controversial. Some analysts feel that it cedes too much to militant Salafis to ratify their use of the term—they call their movement al-haraka al-jihadiyya ("the Jihadi Movement")—since jihad has positive connotations in Islam.

And if it is the case that Islam is the root of the problem, then the problem is much bigger than most are willing to admit. Because even if one rejects violence as the means to the end of Sharia law, isn't the end the real problem?

The Nazis came to power only after they rejected the failed policy of a violent revolution. Most Islamists now have done the same. But in the end, for those who were forced to live under the fascist rule of Nazis in the past or of Islamists today, it really did not matter that violence was rejected as a way to come to power. It is what you do with power once you get it that is the true test.

And if the Taliban or the Iranian Mullahs are any example, then we have much to fear from all of political Islam, and not just the most radical aspects of it.

Related: Watch Robert Spencer's latest at Hot Air.

Listen to Salaafists from the Islamic Thinker's Society of New York on the Glenn Beck program yesterday.

See also Douglas Farah at the CT Blog and at his own space here.

For more, just read Jihad Watch every day.