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One nation, under Islam

News/Current Events News
Source: MSNBC
Published: 9/28/2001 Author: Ira Rifkin
Posted on 09/27/2001 21:11:17 PDT by Utah Girl

How Osama bin Laden exploits Muslim solidarity

Washington?s ignorance of Islamic culture produced a flat-footed response to the 1979 Iranian revolution and ensuing hostage crisis. Similar shortsightedness prompted American backing for the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahedin, forerunners of today?s Taliban. Now, the White House risks even greater disaster if it fails to understand Islam?s emphasis on what amounts to religious nationhood.

MUSLIM GOVERNMENTS, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, are engaging in realpolitik when they denounce Taliban policies and Osama bin-Laden. Currying favor with the Washington behemoth is the order of the day. But don?t expect Saudi monarchs or Pakistani generals to cooperate with the United States beyond the degree they feel they must to retain Washington?s military or economic largess, despite threats to their own power from radicals who wrap themselves in the Islamic banner.

And certainly don?t expect the Muslim street, which stretches from Africa to Southeast Asia (and increasingly the West), to support U.S.-led efforts to retaliate against the mass murderers who struck at the World Trade Center and Pentagon, no matter how much George W. Bush and company insist they are fighting terrorists not Islam, no matter how finely calibrated the response.

ONE NATION, UNDER ISLAM

To understand why, look toward the Islamic concept of ummah , an Arabic word signifying the belief that all Muslims are members of a single nation that transcends tribal, ethnic, racial and national divisions. Embedded in the Koran, the Muslim scripture so important to understanding the Islamic mind, the concept of ummah goes beyond mere loyalty to group identity.

Think of it as being akin to the traditionalist Jewish belief in a Chosen People, or Christian dogma upholding Jesus? uniqueness on the path toward salvation. Think of it as well as the reason why when threatened by non-Muslims, the Muslim instinct is to circle the wagons, even if it sometimes means also protecting those with whom the majority may disagree.

?The ummah is of tremendous importance to Muslims everywhere,? noted Yvonne Haddad, a scholar of Islam at Georgetown University. ?The Muslim community, like the Christian community, was born in a crucible of pain and suffering, which prompted deep bonding. Anything born of persecution prompts such bonding to facilitate group survival. World history is littered with dead religions. If not for this bonding Islam would be one of them.?

TRANSCENDING BOUNDARIES

The notion of ummah is what allows Arab Muslims to feel welcome in Southeast Asian mosques. Attachment to the ummah is what prompts Nigerian Muslims to identify with Palestinian Muslims, Egyptian Muslims with Afghan Muslims, African-American Muslims with foreign-born Muslim Americans. It is, in short, the link that enabled Islam to move beyond its tribal Arab origins, and to replicate itself with a sense of unity across space and time.

The importance of the ummah comes from the Koran, the collected writings that Muslim tradition says were revealed by Allah ?God ? to the Prophet Muhammad in seventh-century Arabia. For believing Muslims, the Koran is far more than a book written by divinely inspired humans, as orthodox Christians and Jews claim for the Bible. Rather, it is the literal word of God in God?s own voice. There is no room for error or academic historical revisionism. You either accept the Koran on its face or you don?t. If you do, all it says becomes religious obligation. Chapter two, verse 143 of the Koran makes clear that the ummah is God?s holy plan so ?that ye might be witnesses over the nations??

The ummah, then, is a theological concept. But it is also something else. It?s a cornerstone of Muslim cultural identity. Just as superficial idea of cultural Christianity influences the decisions even of those who avoid church on Christmas, cultural Muslims remain tied to a sense of ummah that is as life-sustaining as mother?s milk. If anything, cultural religion has an even greater hold in the Islamic world than it does in the West, where secular rationalism is the prevailing norm. Deep ties to the ummah is ?an unspoken article of faith for anyone raised in a Muslim setting,? said Ingrid Mattson, a Hartford Seminary professor and the vice president of the Islamic Society of North America, the first woman to attain the post.

HIJACKING THE KORAN

The ummah has certainly not kept Muslims from oppressing and killing each other. For starters, witness Iraq and Kuwait, Iraq and Iran, Turkey and the Kurds, and civil wars in Algeria, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan. Politics and economic greed often trump the ummah. But the current conflict pits, in the main, a Christian America against Muslims, and bin Laden, master manipulator that he is, is banking on the pull of the ummah to help him gain aid and sympathy from ordinary Muslims, if not their governments. ?He?s trying to invoke the ummah when he talks of an American ?crusade? against Islam, when he links Jews and Christians together as the enemy,? says Mattson.

There is great anger in the Muslim world over U.S. backing of governments, such as those in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, that many, including bin Laden, view as being corrupt and oppressive. U.S. support for Israel, U.S. economic dominance, and the pervasive presence of American popular culture further feed the hate. Undergird that with the religious imperative of the ummah, and you have a problem of enormous cultural complexity.

President Bush?s recent mosque visit and calls for tolerance toward innocent Muslim Americans is, of course, needed. What?s also needed is a convincing argument as to why bin Laden and his ilk have through their wanton violence ? toward Muslims as well as non-Muslims ? placed themselves beyond the pale of the ummah. It needs to come from the White House, but more importantly, from Muslim religious leaders worldwide. Otherwise, a global community of 1 billion Muslims will find itself pulled by emotions not easily shed into a cultural clash that no amount of ostrich behavior will be able to obscure.

ping

Oh, I've heard them denounce the bombings.

What I'm waiting to hear is a denunciation of the BOMBERS.

When, oh when will I hear news of a credible Fatwa placed on Osama bin Laden?

True. In fact, I don't think I've heard any denounce the bombers. Yikes.

If they think, Osama is giving their religion a bad name, why don't they go out and get him? Have they placed any price on his head?

Oh, I've heard them denounce the bombings.

What I'm waiting to hear is a denunciation of the BOMBERS.

When, oh when will I hear news of a credible Fatwa placed on Osama bin Laden?

Your failure to listen isn't their fault.

Oh, I'm listening and reading and watching, a lot.

Either moderate Muslims fear retribution from the extremists and won't speak out forcefully OR they are cheering the entire effort.

I personally believe this will end up being a war between the west and Islam before it's all over. The west doesn't want that but the Islamic zealots do. If one side attacks, it doesn't matter what the other side believes.

If most of Islam found the behavior of these barbarians reprehensible, they could isolate the murderers and cast them out. That's why I think the support for this is widespread in the Islamic world. Islam also teaches deception and has used it quite successfully. Most appear to be moderate but are not. If the moderate Muslim must choose between a murdering zealot and a Christian or Jew, where do you think his loyalties lie?

Either moderate (American)  Muslims fear retribution from the extremists and won't speak out forcefully 

You better believe it. The extremists in Algeria have been conducting a Jihad for 10 years there. 50,000 have died in this Muslim on Muslim violence. Muslim crazies have taken over Iran and Afganistan.

OR they are cheering the entire effort.

Many US Muslims are. Or they are quietly smiling inside about this humbling of the Great Satan on 9/11/2001. The story goes that 80% of  US Mosques are headed up by extremist Mullahs/Imams who I believe are more extreme that the mass of US Muslims

My guess is only 30% of US Muslims were really disgusted and appalled by the 911 attack

Was the Islam of 1979 the same as the Islam of 2001? Is this article placing Monday morning blame? I've seen quite a few articles focusing on the theme, "events that should have served as a warning". In this case 22 years ago.

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