Chu is a third-year graduate student studying Eastern
religions.
By William Chu
It is understandable that Nadia Khan wanted to defend Islam and
to redress some of the discriminations traditionally pelted at her
faith, but it is quite another matter when she started making
facile claims about religions and politics (“True Islam not oppressive,
medieval faith,” Daily Bruin, Viewpoint, Oct. 29).
In Khan’s idealized vision of a utopian Islamic society,
the enactment of Islamic Law is “more tolerant and
humanitarian than any other political system.”
Part of her argument was based on her observation that Islamic
“tolerance for other faiths (was) unheard of in other
religious empires.” Such a statement was not only unabashedly
over-simplistic; it was simply wrong.
I don’t know if she has heard of the Buddhist Ashokan
Empire and the Hindu Mauryan Empire, just to cite a couple of
examples ““ both preceded any Muslim activities and both were
equally, if not more, tolerant and even more ecumenical than the
Islamic institutions. This is not to mention the secular empires
like the Roman Empire and many Chinese imperial dynasties, which
all boasted long traditions of cosmopolitan universalism long
before the birth of Muhammad the Prophet.
Islam (at least the kind perpetrated by historical Muslims) in
fact was very much responsible for the wholesale destruction of
many indigenous religions in regions it conquered.
Its followers conducted methodic extermination of non-believers
and sacred religious sites. They caused, for example, the demise of
Buddhism as an institution in India. They wreaked untold havoc to
Hinduism with bloody efficiency. They wiped out large populations
in the Middle East who refused to embrace the new faith. All these
actions were carried out according to the Koran’s injunction,
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah … (until) they are
in a state of subjection” (Koran 9:29).
Khan’s ideas that Islam was the most important contributor
to the European Renaissance and that Islam was entirely different
from Christianity because it was not guilty of persecuting its own
scientists and philosophers are a skewed simplification of complex
historical phenomena.
Does Khan believe that Islamic scholasticism and mysticism and
its technological, scientific and cultural accomplishments are
developed independently and without indebtedness to the European,
Indian and East Asian civilizations?
Our world is such a dynamically interrelated organism and to
attribute the scientific and cultural breakthroughs in the West as
simply a matter of being “inspired” by Islam, is
presumptuous and narrow. Hers was such a gross misreading of
history that I do not feel the need to delve into and spell out the
commonsensical historical facts here.
I don’t mean to suggest that Islam could not be practiced
to promote the cause of peace and tolerance. In fact, as Khan
suggested, Islam could contribute positively to social progress.
But for her to suggest that any particular religion as a political
institution could be the solution to the world’s problem is
beyond naïve and even potentially dangerous.
Khan’s suspicion of, and antagonism toward,
“secular” political systems are exactly the kind of
sentiments that fueled extremism in the Middle East in the first
place.
I don’t have personal grudges toward any religion, but
Khan’s implication that somehow Western and secular values
are to be blamed for the Middle East problems and that secular
politics should be subordinate to the all-glorious theocracies of
the Islamic Golden Age, was too much even for a submission clearly
aimed to be sold to the religious quixotic.
There may be certain passages in theistic texts that promulgate
tolerance and universalism but beneath all these, the undeniable
presence of an exclusivist attitude is powerfully and ubiquitously
felt, lurking and waiting to be adhered to literally. Just a simple
glimpse at the world’s holiest scriptures would give ample
clues.
The Koran reads “Surely those who disbelieve … Allah has
set a seal upon their hearts … and there is a great punishment
for them” (Koran 2:6-7).
The Bible reads “(When) the Lord Jesus shall be revealed
from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking
vengeance of them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord”(2 Thessalonians
1:7-9).
The many doctrinaire and intolerant undertones of these
faith-oriented traditions can so easily be manipulated and ossified
into inflexible dogmas. Instead of advocating the revival of
medieval codes of law, where the killing of former-Muslims who
renege on their faith is perfectly justified by God’s decree,
I’d say secular rationalism and modern democratic ideals
should be the most sensible and viable governing principles, not
the other way around.
Kahn asks us rhetorically, “Why blame the car for a
driver’s bad driving?”
Maybe it is more important for Khan to realize that the very
insistence of resurrecting medieval religious institutions could be
blamed for the stagnation and religious intolerance in so many
Islamic countries, rather than her pointing the finger at the U.S.
and the ideals it exports for everything botched up in the Middle
East.