What do we learn from Turkey about building democracy in a Muslim society? When an unworthy movie mocking Prophet Mohammed provoked deadly protests in many Muslim nations, only peaceful protests occurred in Turkey. What makes it different?
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Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken credit on behalf of his moderate Islamist AKP, which helped to calm many Islamists. It is also true that a major chapter in the relative success story of Turkish democracy and modernisation has been the moderation of political Islamism during the 1990s from an ideological and state-orientated brand into the AKP’s pragmatic and business-orientated brand.
However, without telling the remaining chapters, this would be a misleading story from which to learn. Turkey’s model became a relative success because it managed to build relatively secular, relatively democratic, and rule-based social and political institutions. And it failed when these institutions were flawed, or were not improved upon through cooperation between religious and secular actors.
Turkey didn’t succeed because of moderate Islamists; moderate Islamists succeeded because of Turkey’s partially working secular and democratic institutions.
In recent years, the AKP has capitalised on the flaws in Turkey’s secular democracy instead of fixing them. Paradoxically, the democratic winds of the Arab Spring have accelerated this trend.
Modern Turkey was founded in the 1920s by top-down, radical secularisation. The downside was a deeply complicated historical-cultural legacy, and the resentment of Islamist elites who were oppressed. On the upside were three crucial achievements: building an overarching national identity; limiting antipathy towards westernisation and de-linking socioeconomic modernisation and Islamic orthodoxy; and generating relatively robust secular and impersonal institutions.
Nevertheless, this would not have distinguished Turkey from authoritarian secular republics of the Arab world, if Turkey’s secular elites had not moderated and allowed real multiparty elections after 1950. Additionally, Turkey built more inclusive and competitive economic institutions through liberalisation after 1980, and more accountable ones through IMF-guided reforms after its 2000-2001 financial crises.
The AKP is a product of these accomplishments. Although secularist institutions had severely sanctioned political Islamists, free and fair elections gave them a chance to moderate and come to power. Relatively liberal economic institutions gave the AKP the tools to run the economy and foster a Muslim-conservative middle class.
But Turkey’s secular-democratic institutions were flawed. Although secularists allowed the rotation of government through real elections, they left the ultimate power in the hands of the military and colossal state apparatus. While Turkey developed a strong national identity and relatively impartial institutions, there was discrimination against minorities, most notably Kurds. Under the disguise of separating state and religion, supposedly secular institutions controlled religion, promoted Sunni Islam, discriminated against Alevis, and violated both secular and religious freedoms. Governments retained tremendous powers to restrict economic freedoms and discriminate among business actors for political purposes.
Supporters hoped the AKP would fix these flaws. The party did a lot. Most importantly, it tamed military praetorianism. Last week, a civilian court unprecedentedly sentenced three former top generals to 20 years in jail for planning a 2003 coup. In its first two terms, the AKP pursued a highly reformist agenda guided by EU criteria.
Recently, however, the AKP has taken a religious-conservative, nationalist and authoritarian turn. Rather than making the political system more accountable, Mr Erdogan has centralised decision-making and wants a presidential system. Abandoning a “Kurdish opening”, Ankara has returned to military-based policies. Political, religious and opportunistic favouritism is rampant in government recruitments, promotions and tenders.
Paradoxically, the region’s post-Arab Spring troubles exacerbate these trends. The policy of “zero problems with neighbours” has given way to tensions with Syria, Iran, Iraq and Israel. Foreign policy troubles have compelled the government to move closer to Sunni political forces in the region, and made it less tolerant of criticism.
The mainstream discourse is becoming increasingly religious, sectarian and anti-western. There were no violent rallies against the recent Islamophobic film trailer, but “experts” with academic titles popped up saying things such as: “Westerners always need ‘hateful others’ to build their own identity”; “‘We easterners’ are different, we don’t need that and are tolerant of ethnic and religious others.”
The AKP cannot be blamed for all of this. Turkey is still an electoral democracy and the AKP would be compelled to reform itself if there were a viable alternative. But the pro-secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) has yet to offer feasible alternative policies to resolve the Kurdish conflict, reform secularism, run the economy and provide services.
Turkey can still be a positive example. Its comparative advantages were based on partially working secular and democratic institutions. The present, multiparty process drafting a new constitution can help to make these institutions truly secular and democratic.
For this to happen, however, Turkey’s elites should not repeat the mistakes of the past. All stakeholders should have a say, including Turks and Kurds, men and women, haves and have-nots, and religious and secular actors.
The main lesson from the Turkish experience is not how the AKP won elections, or moderated its Islamist ideology and discourse. The party may change again. Nor is the lesson to ignore ethnicity and religion. The challenge is to try to build ethnically and religiously neutral, impersonal and inclusive democratic institutions through cooperation and compromise.
Murat Somer is an associate professor at Koç University in Istanbul
By Bridget Kendall Diplomatic correspondent, Istanbul
Turkish diplomats dismiss talk of neo-Ottomanism
The dome next to Istanbul’s ancient walls is one of the city’s newest tourist attractions. The 360 degree panorama, complete with sound effects of cannon fire and fighting, depicts the moment in 1453 when the Byzantine city of Constantinople was seized by the Turkish Sultan.
On the painted walls, Ottoman troops are poised for the final assault. Across the sky, flaming firebombs leave smoking trails. Close up the battle is already raging. The city’s walls are crumbling. Soon Constantinople will fall and the era of the Ottoman Empire will begin.
The dome is crammed with excited Turkish children on school trips, all visibly impressed by this vista of a glorious past.
“It’s a significant moment, the salvation of Istanbul,” says 15-year-old Jansu. “There’s nothing bigger… It really gives you a great feeling.”
‘Diplomatic bridge’
Turkey today is booming. And with its growing economic clout has come a new assertiveness that has led some to wonder if it harbours neo-Ottoman ambitions to resurrect its role as a dominant power in the Middle East.
Turkish diplomats dismiss talk of neo-Ottomanism. They point out that Turkey is a loyal member of the Nato alliance, an important EU trading partner, and that it remains firmly committed to reforms to make it eligible for EU membership, should that moment ever come.
It is, they emphasise, a diplomatic bridge between East and West, not a power with imperial designs.
Yet in recent years, Turkey has not always acted in concert with the West. It forged separate and closer ties with Iran. Differences over Gaza plunged its relations with Israel into a deep freeze. Autocratic Arab leaders including Colonel Gaddafi of Libya and President Assad of Syria were courted as part of a new policy of ‘zero problems with neighbours’.
Islam and modernity
That policy was swiftly reversed when parts of the Arab world descended into turmoil this year. But Turkey has not taken a back seat. Now it presents itself to the new governments of the Arab Spring as a model, a useful example to show that Islam and modernity can go together.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was greeted by cheering crowds on a triumphant tour of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt recently.
Once an ally of President Assad, he has turned into one of the Syrian regime’s most strident critics, threatening sanctions and deliberately offering sanctuary to Syrian opposition groups.
In Istanbul you will find members of the Syrian opposition demonstrating outside the Syrian Consulate after Friday prayers. A small clutch of protesters huddles, waving flags and calling for President Assad to go. The opposition members in exile are grateful for Turkey’s willingness to give them a home but fearful of what may happen next.
“There is a very dangerous situation in Syria,” says Omar Shawad of the Syrian National Council. “President Assad has no friends anymore, except perhaps Iran. So he has no exit and that means he’ll fight to the end.”
He added that if the outside world, with support from the Arab League and at the United Nations, did decide to take action, then it would be Turkey in the north and Jordan on Syria’s southern border, who would be the key players:
“If there is an intervention in Syria,” he said, “It would need to have a base, and that base can only be here, so Turkey is very important.”
And Turkey has much at stake in the outcome. If somehow the Assad regime were to survive, there would surely be no way back to neighbourly relations. But getting drawn in to any kind of intervention that might mean Turkish troops on Syrian and therefore Arab soil might also be risky.
‘Soft power’
We want to be a big and powerful country again. You can feel it when you talk to people in Turkey today”
Yagmur Taylan Soap opera director
But it is not just Turkey’s political rhetoric and its potential for military action that enhance its projection of power. There is also ‘soft power’, cultural exports which are strengthening links with neighbours in other ways.
On a film lot in the Istanbul suburbs, a set has been meticulously crafted to replicate interiors of the Ottoman Sultan’s palace.
The film crew is hurriedly adjusting the lighting; make-up artists are giving a final check to the cast. Concubines to the emperor shiver slightly in their satin gowns and filmy veils, waiting for the signal to start.
Suleiman the Magnificent is Turkey’s latest wildly successful soap opera. Set during the 16th century, when the Ottoman Empire held sway over much of the Middle East, it is a rags to riches story, redolent with seething passions and secret politics.
The co-directors are two brothers, Yagmur and Durul Taylan. They believe that the appeal of the series lies in nostalgia, a harking back to a golden age.
“Everyone wants to get power. In Turkey we all want to feel like Suleiman,” says Durul.
“Because we want to be a big and powerful country again,” adds Yagmur. “You can feel it when you talk to people in Turkey today.”
Modern Muslim democracy
But Turkey’s soap operas are also sending another message that has proved an unexpected tool of foreign policy further afield.
On a pleasure boat along the Bosphorus, a tour group of young Arab couples on honeymoon watch the shoreline from the deck. As the boat passes an elegant sultan’s palace and they all rush to take a photo.
They know the palace well, it’s an exterior used in another Turkish soap opera which has taken the Middle East by storm. Since these television dramas captured audiences of millions in the region, the numbers of Arab tourists flocking to Turkey has, according to the distributors, gone up 10-fold in six years.
Hamza and Raja are on honeymoon from Jordan. He is in jeans and a jacket. She is wearing a face veil.
Turkey, they explain, is an exotic but safe option. Like its soap operas, it is familiar but exciting, offering an aspiration of what they would like their country to be: a Muslim country, but modern and European as well.
So coming to Istanbul is a chance to experience a Western-style country without the risks of venturing too far into the unknown.
But for some Turkish intellectuals in Istanbul that aspiration is paradoxical: contemporary Turkey may have been demilitarized, but not everyone thinks that Turkey has yet won the right to put itself forward as a model of a modern Muslim democracy.
At the Istanbul International Book Fair, there is a crush at one bookstall. Crowds of supporters have gathered in support of a well known publisher and columnist, Ragip Zarakolu, whose posters are plastered on the walls.
He was recently detained and is being held without charge, one of dozens arrested as part of a vast operation against presumed sympathisers of outlawed Kurdish groups.
According to the International Press Institute, Turkey has more journalists in prison than either China or Iran. Many have not been charged.
The problem is the government encourages any public reaction against anyone who is critical of government policy”
Nuray Mert Political scientist and commentator
The government argues that its wide ranging anti-terrorist laws are necessary to get on top of a destructive Kurdish insurgency which has this autumn once again become a major problem.
But critics say the Erdogan government has also started to use the laws to intimidate journalists and academics who dare to speak out, and is in danger of succumbing to the authoritarian tendencies which many in Turkey had hoped were a thing of the past.
Nuray Mert is a political scientist at Istanbul University and a commentator for the daily newspaper Milliyet. She also used to have a TV show, but that was cancelled after the prime minister lashed out at her in public, more or less accusing her of treason.
This autumn a transcript of a private phone conversation between herself and a friend who is now in prison was leaked to a pro-government newspaper, alongside commentaries accusing her of expressing sympathy for Kurdish separatists. The public condemnation has unnerved her. She says she is now worried about her personal safety.
“The real tension began two years ago,” she said, “with my criticism of politics getting more and more authoritarian, rather than more and more democratic. Turkey’s people are very nationalistic and the problem is the government encourages any public reaction against anyone who is critical of government policy.”
There is an irony here: a governing party which wins landslide elections through genuine popularity but which rejects criticism as unpatriotic. And it leaves a question mark.
How can Turkey position itself as a major power with real influence in the region, unless it addresses flaws at home, and first and foremost troubling limits on media freedom?
The only thing Israel really needs to be concerned about is the US’s continued insistence that Turkey is a model ally in the Islamic world.
To the naked eye, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems to be moving from strength to strength.
Erdogan was welcomed as a hero on his recent trip to Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. The Arabs embraced him as the new face of the war against Israel.
The Obama administration celebrates Turkey as a paragon of Islamic democracy.
The Obama administration cannot thank Erdogan enough for his recent decision to permit NATO to station the US X-Band missile shield on its territory.
The US is following Turkey’s lead in contending with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s massacre of his people.
And according to Erdogan, the Obama administration is looking into ways to leave its Predator and Reaper UAVs with the Turkish military when US forces depart Iraq in the coming months.
Turkey requires the drones to facilitate its war against the Kurds in Iraq and eastern Anatolia. The Obama administration also just agreed to provide Turkey with three Super Cobra attack helicopters.
Despite its apparent abandonment of Iran’s Syrian client Assad, Turkey’s onslaught against the Kurds has enabled it to maintain its strategic alliance with Iran. Last month Erdogan announced that the Turkish and Iranian militaries are cooperating in intelligence sharing and gearing up to escalate their joint operations against the Kurds in Iraq.
Erdogan is probably the only world leader that conducted prolonged friendly meetings with both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and US President Barak Obama at the UN last month.
Then there are the Balkans. After winning his third national election in June, Erdogan dispatched his Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to Kosovo, Bosnia and Romania to conduct what the Turks referred to as “mosque diplomacy.”
Erdogan’s government has been lavishing aid on Bosnia for several years and is promoting itself as a neo-Ottoman guardian of the former Ottoman possessions.
EVEN ERDOGAN’S threats of war seem to be paying off. His attacks on Israel have won him respect and admiration throughout the Arab world. His threats against Cyprus’s exploration of offshore natural gas fields caused Cypriot President Demetris Christofias to announce at the UN that Cyprus will share the revenues generated by its natural gas with Turkish occupied northern Cyprus.
Christofias said Cyprus would do so even in the absence of a unification agreement with its illegally occupied Turkish north. Moreover, due to Turkish pressure, Cyprus has agreed to intensify reunification talks with the Turkish puppet government in the northern half of the island. Those talks were set to begin in Nicosia last Tuesday.
Then there is the Turkish economy.
On the face of it, it seems that Turkey’s assertive foreign policy is facilitated by its impressive economic growth.
According to Turkey’s statistics agency, the Turkish economy grew by 8.8 percent in the second quarter of the year – far outperforming expectations. Last year the Turkish economy grew by 9 percent. With this impressive data, Erdogan is able to make a seemingly credible case to the likes of Egypt that it can expect to be enriched by a strategic partnership with Turkey.
For Israelis, these achievements are a cause for uneasiness. With Turkey building itself into a regional powerhouse largely on the back of its outspoken belligerency towards Israel, many observers argue Israel must do everything it can to mend fences with Turkey. Israel simply cannot afford to have Turkey angry at it, they claim.
If Turkey’s position was as strong as the conventional wisdom claims, then maybe these commentators and politicians would have a point. But Turkey’s actual situation is very different from its surface image.
Turkey’s aggressive, peripatetic foreign policy is earning Ankara few friends.
Erdogan’s threat to freeze Turkish-EU relations if the EU goes ahead as planned and transfers its rotating presidency to Cyprus next July has backfired.
European leaders wasted no time in angrily dismissing and rejecting Erdogan’s threat. So too, Germany and France have been loudly critical of Turkey’s belligerence towards Israel.
Then there is Cyprus. Turkey’s ever escalating threats to attack Cyprus’s natural gas project have angered both the EU and Russia. The EU is angry because as an EU member state, Cypriot gas will eventually benefit consumers throughout the EU, who are currently beholden to Russian suppliers and Turkish pipelines.
Russia itself has announced it will defend Cyprus against Turkish threats.
Russia is annoyed by Turkish courtship of the Balkan states. It sees no reason to allow Turkey to throw its weight around in Cyprus. Doing so successfully will only strengthen Ankara’s appeal in the Balkans and among the Turkic minorities in Russia.
THIS BRINGS us to the Muslim world. Despite Erdogan’s professions of friendship with Iran, it is far from clear that their alliance is as smooth as he presents it. The Iranians are concerned about Turkish ascendance in the Middle East and angry at Turkey for threatening Syria.
In truth if Assad is able to ride out the current storm and remain in power, he will owe his survival in no small measure to Turkey. Since the riots broke out in the spring, Turkey has restrained Washington from taking any concerted steps to overthrow the Syrian dictator.
Had it not been for Erdogan’s success in containing the US, it is possible the US and Europe might have acted swiftly to support the opposition.
But whether he stays in power or is overthrown, it is doubtful that Assad will feel any gratitude towards Erdogan.
Rather, Assad will likely blame Erdogan for betraying him. And if Assad is toppled, the Kurds of Syria could easily forge alliances with their brethren in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, to Turkey’s strategic detriment.
Since former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February, Turkey has been making a concerted effort to build an alliance with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
Ankara has reportedly transferred millions of dollars in aid to the Islamic group, and of course continues to support Hamas as well as Hizbullah.
Yet for all of his efforts on the Muslim Brotherhood’s behalf, the Brotherhood issued a sharp rebuke of Erdogan during his visit to Egypt. Brotherhood leader Essam el-Arian rejected Erdogan’s call for Egypt to adopt the Turkish model of Islamic democracy as too secular for Egypt.
As for the Turkish economy, a closer analysis of its financial data indicates that Turkey’s expansive growth is the result of a credit bubble that is about to burst. According to a Citicorp analyst quoted in The Wall Street Journal, domestic demand accounts for all of Turkey’s economic growth.
This domestic demand in turn owes to essentially free loans the government showered on the public in the lead-up to the June elections. The loans are financed by government borrowing abroad.
Turkey’s current accounts deficit stands at nearly 9 percent of GDP.
Greece is engulfed in a debt crisis with a current accounts deficit of 10 percent.
Analysts project that Turkey’s deficit will eclipse Greece’s within the year. And whereas the EU may end up bailing Greece out of its debt crisis, Turkey has no one to bail it out of its own debt crisis.
Consequently, Turkey’s entire economic house of cards is likely to come crashing down very rapidly.
It is hard to understand why Erdogan is acting as he is given the poor hand he is holding. It is possible that he is crazy.
It is possible that he is so insulated from criticism that he is unaware of Turkey’s economic realities or of the consequences of his aggressive behavior. And it is possible that he is hoping to combine a foreign policy crisis with Turkey’s oncoming economic crisis in order to blame the latter on the former. And it is possible that he believes that US backing gives him immunity to the consequences of his actions.
No matter what stands behind Turkey’s actions, it is clear Ankara has overplayed its hand. Its threats against Israel and Cyprus are hollow. Its hopes to be a regional power are faltering.
The only thing Israel really needs to be concerned about is the US’s continued insistence that Turkey is a model ally in the Islamic world. More than anything else, it is US support for Turkey that makes Erdogan a threat to the Jewish state and to the region.
The Ottoman-era Sultan Ahmed or Blue Mosque in Istanbul.
The controversy over a proposed mosque in lower Manhattan has spurred a wider debate about the nature of Islam. We asked six leading thinkers—Anwar Ibrahim, Bernard Lewis, Ed Husain, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Tawfik Hamid and Akbar Ahmed—to weigh in.
Editor’s Note: The controversy over a proposed mosque in lower Manhattan has spurred a wider debate about the nature of Islam. We asked six leading thinkers to answer the question: What is moderate Islam?
•Anwar Ibrahim: The Ball Is in Our Court
•Bernard Lewis: A History of Tolerance
•Ed Husain: Don’t Call Me Moderate, Call Me Normal
•Reuel Marc Gerecht: Putting Up With Infidels Like Me
•Tawfik Hamid: Don’t Gloss Over The Violent Texts
•Akbar Ahmed: Mystics, Modernists and Literalists
The Ball Is in Our Court
By Anwar Ibrahim
Skeptics and cynics alike have said that the quest for the moderate Muslim in the 21st century is akin to the search for the Holy Grail. It’s not hard to understand why. Terrorist attacks, suicide bombings and the jihadist call for Muslims “to rise up against the oppression of the West” are widespread.
The radical fringe carrying out such actions has sought to dominate the discourse between Islam and the West. In order to do so, they’ve set out to foment anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. They’ve also advocated indiscriminate violence as a political strategy. To cap their victory, this abysmal lot uses the cataclysm of 9/11 as a lesson for the so-called enemies of Islam.
These dastardly acts have not only been tragedies of untold proportions for those who have suffered or perished. They have also delivered a calamitous blow to followers of the Muslim faith.
These are the Muslims who go about their lives like ordinary people—earning their livings, raising their families, celebrating reunions and praying for security and peace. These are the Muslims who have never carried a pocketknife, let alone explosives intended to destroy buildings. These Muslims are there for us to see, if only we can lift the veil cast on them by the shadowy figures in bomb-laden jackets hell-bent on destruction.
These are mainstream Muslims—no different from the moderate Christians, Jews and those of other faiths—whose identities have been drowned by events beyond their control. The upshot is a composite picture of Muslims as inherently intolerant, antidemocratic, inward-looking and simply unable to coexist with other communities in the modern world. Some say there is only one solution: Discard your beliefs and your tradition, and embrace pluralism and modernity.
This prescription is deeply flawed. The vast majority of Muslims already see themselves as part of a civilization that is heir to a noble tradition of science, philosophy and spirituality that places paramount importance on the sanctity of human life. Holding fast to the principles of democracy, freedom and human rights, these hundreds of millions of Muslims fervently reject fanaticism in all its varied guises.
Yet Muslims must do more than just talk about their great intellectual and cultural heritage. We must be at the forefront of those who reject violence and terrorism. And our activism must not end there. The tyrants and oppressive regimes that have been the real impediment to peace and progress in the Muslim world must hear our unanimous condemnation. The ball is in our court.
Mr. Ibrahim is Malaysia’s opposition leader.
A History of Tolerance
By Bernard Lewis
A form of moderation has been a central part of Islam from the very beginning. True, Muslims are nowhere commanded to love their neighbors, as in the Old Testament, still less their enemies, as in the New Testament. But they are commanded to accept diversity, and this commandment was usually obeyed. The Prophet Muhammad’s statement that “difference within my community is part of God’s mercy” expressed one of Islam’s central ideas, and it is enshrined both in law and usage from the earliest times.
This principle created a level of tolerance among Muslims and coexistence between Muslims and others that was unknown in Christendom until after the triumph of secularism. Diversity was legitimate and accepted. Different juristic schools coexisted, often with significant divergences.
Sectarian differences arose, and sometimes led to conflicts, but these were minor compared with the ferocious wars and persecutions of Christendom. Some events that were commonplace in medieval Europe— like the massacre and expulsion of Jews—were almost unknown in the Muslim world. That is, until modern times.
Occasionally more radical, more violent versions of Islam arose, but their impact was mostly limited. They did not become really important until the modern period when, thanks to a combination of circumstances, such versions of Islamic teachings obtained a massive following among both governments and peoples.
From the start, Muslims have always had a strong sense of their identity and history. Thanks to modern communication, they have become painfully aware of their present state. Some speak of defeat, some of failure. It is the latter who offer the best hope for change.
For the moment, there does not seem to be much prospect of a moderate Islam in the Muslim world. This is partly because in the prevailing atmosphere the expression of moderate ideas can be dangerous—even life-threatening. Radical groups like al Qaeda and the Taliban, the likes of which in earlier times were at most minor and marginal, have acquired a powerful and even a dominant position.
But for Muslims who seek it, the roots are there, both in the theory and practice of their faith and in their early sacred history.
Mr. Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, is the author of “From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East” (Oxford University Press, 2004).
Don’t Call Me Moderate, Call Me Normal
By Ed Husain
I am a moderate Muslim, yet I don’t like being termed a “moderate”—it somehow implies that I am less of a Muslim.
We use the designation “moderate Islam” to differentiate it from “radical Islam.” But in so doing, we insinuate that while Islam in moderation is tolerable, real Islam—often perceived as radical Islam—is intolerable. This simplistic, flawed thinking hands our extremist enemies a propaganda victory: They are genuine Muslims. In this rubric, the majority, non-radical Muslim populace has somehow compromised Islam to become moderate.
What is moderate Christianity? Or moderate Judaism? Is Pastor Terry Jones’s commitment to burning the Quran authentic Christianity, by virtue of the fanaticism of his action? Or, is Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual head of the Shas Party in Israel, more Jewish because he calls on Jews to rain missiles on the Arabs and “annihilate them”?
The pastor and the rabbi can, no doubt, find abstruse scriptural justifications for their angry actions. And so it is with Islam’s fringe: Our radicals find religious excuses for their political anger. But Muslim fanatics cannot be allowed to define Islam.
The Prophet Muhammad warned us against ghuluw, or extremism, in religion. The Quran reinforces the need for qist, or balance. For me, Islam at its essence is the middle way in all matters. This is normative Islam, adhered to by a billion normal Muslims across the globe.
Normative Islam is inherently pluralist. It is supported by 1,000 years of Muslim history in which religious freedom was cherished. The claim, made today by the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia, that they represent God’s will expressed through their version of oppressive Shariah law is a modern innovation.
The classical thinking within Islam was to let a thousand flowers bloom. Ours is not a centralized tradition, and Islam’s rich diversity is a legacy of our pluralist past.
Normative Islam, from its early history to the present, is defined by its commitment to protecting religion, life, progeny, wealth and the human mind. In the religious language of Muslim scholars, this is known as maqasid, or aims. This is the heart of Islam.
I am fully Muslim and fully Western. Don’t call me moderate—call me a normal Muslim.
Mr. Husain is author of “The Islamist” (Penguin, 2007) and co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation, a counterextremist think tank.
Putting Up With Infidels Like Me
By Reuel Marc Gerecht
Moderate Islam is the faith practiced by the parents of my Pakistani British roommate at the University of Edinburgh—and, no doubt, by the great majority of Muslim immigrants to Europe and the United States.
Khalid’s mother and father were devout Muslims. His dad prayed five times a day and his mom, who hadn’t yet learned decent English after almost 20 years in the industrial towns of West Yorkshire, gladly gave me the impression that the only book she’d ever read was the Quran.
I was always welcome in their home. Khalid’s mother regularly stuffed me with curry, peppering me with questions about how a non-Muslim who’d crossed the Atlantic to study Islam could resist the pull of the one true faith.
Determined to keep their children Muslim in a sea of aggressive, alcohol-laden, sex-soaked disbelief, they happily practiced and preached peaceful coexistence—even with an infidel who was obviously leading their son down an unrighteous path.
That is the essence of moderation in any faith: the willingness to exist peacefully, if not exuberantly, alongside nonbelievers who hold repellant views on many sacred subjects.
It is a dispensation that comes fairly easily to ordinary Muslims who have left their homelands to live among nonbelievers in Western democracies. It is harder for Muslims surrounded by their own kind, unaccustomed by politics and culture to giving up too much ground.
Tolerance among traditional Muslims is defined as Christian Europe first defined the idea: A superior creed agrees not to harass an inferior creed, so long as the practitioners of the latter don’t become too uppity. Tolerance emphatically does not mean equality of belief, as it now does in the West.
Even in Turkey, where authoritarian secularism has changed the Muslim identity more profoundly than anywhere else in the Old World, a totally secularized Muslim would never call a non-Muslim citizen of the state a Turk. There is a certain pride of place that cannot be shared with a nonbeliever. Wounded pride also does the Devil’s work on ecumenicalism. Adjusting to modernity, with its intellectually open borders and inevitable moral chaos, is brutally hard for monotheisms, especially for those accustomed to rule. But it happens.
When I told Khalid’s father that his children—especially his daughters—would not worship the faith as he and his wife had done, he told me: “They are living a better life than we have lived. That is enough.”
Mr. Gerecht, a former CIA operative, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Don’t Gloss Over The Violent Texts
By Tawfik Hamid
In regards to Islam, the words “moderate’” and “radical” are relative terms. Without defining them it is virtually impossible to defeat the latter or support the former.
Radical Islam is not limited to the act of terrorism; it also includes the embrace of teachings within the religion that promote hatred and ultimately breed terrorism. Those who limit the definition of radical Islam to terrorism are ignoring—and indirectly approving of—the Shariah teachings that permit killing apostates, violence against women and gays, and anti-Semitism.
Moderate Islam should be defined as a form of Islam that rejects these violent and discriminatory edicts. Furthermore, it must provide a strong theological refutation for the mainstream Islamic teaching that the Muslim umma (nation) must declare wars against non-Muslim nations, spreading the religion and giving non-Muslims the following options: convert, pay a humiliating tax, or be killed. This violent concept fuels jihadists, who take the teaching literally and accept responsibility for applying it to the modern world.
Moderate Islam must not be passive. It needs to actively reinterpret the violent parts of the religious text rather than simply cherry-picking the peaceful ones. Ignoring, rather than confronting or contextualizing, the violent texts leaves young Muslims vulnerable to such teachings at a later stage in their lives.
Finally, moderate Islam must powerfully reject the barbaric practices of jihadists. Ideally, this would mean Muslims demonstrating en masse all over the world against the violence carried out in the name of their religion.
Moderate Islam must be honest enough to admit that Islam has been used in a violent manner at several stages in history to seek domination over others. Insisting that all acts in Islamic history and all current Shariah teachings are peaceful is a form of deception that makes things worse by failing to acknowledge the existence of the problem.
Mr. Hamid, a former member of the Islamic radical group Jamma Islamiya, is an Islamic reformer and a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.
Mystics, Modernists and Literalists
By Akbar Ahmed
In the intense discussion about Muslims today, non-Muslims often say to me: “You are a moderate, but are there others like you?”
Clearly, the use of the term moderate here is meant as a compliment. But the application of the term creates more problems than it solves. The term is heavy with value judgment, smacking of “good guy” versus “bad guy” categories. And it implies that while a minority of Muslims are moderate, the rest are not.
Having studied the practices of Muslims around the world today, I’ve come up with three broad categories: mystic, modernist and literalist. Of course, I must add the caveat that these are analytic models and aren’t watertight.
Muslims in the mystic category reflect universal humanism, believing in “peace with all.” The 13th-century Sufi poet Rumi exemplifies this category. In his verses, he glorifies worshipping the same God in the synagogue, the church and the mosque.
The second category is the modernist Muslim who believes in trying to balance tradition and modernity. The modernist is proud of Islam and yet able to live comfortably in, and contribute to, Western society.
Most Muslim leaders who led nationalist movements in the first half of the 20th century were modernists—from Sultan Mohammed V, the first king of independent Morocco, to M.A. Jinnah, who founded Pakistan in 1947. But as modernists failed over time, becoming increasingly incompetent and corrupt, the literalists stepped into the breach.
The literalists believe that Muslim behavior must approximate that of the Prophet in seventh-century Arabia. Their belief that Islam is under attack forces many of them to adopt a defensive posture. And while not all literalists advocate violence, many do. Movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Taliban belong to this category.
In the Muslim world the divisions between the three categories I have delineated are real. The outcome of their struggle will define Islam’s fate.
The West can help by understanding Muslim society in a more nuanced and sophisticated way in order to interact with it wisely and for mutual benefit. The first step is to categorize Muslims accurately.
Mr. Ahmed, the former Pakistani ambassador to Britain, is the chair of Islamic studies at American University and author of “Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam” (Brookings, 2010).
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703369704575461503431290986, SEPTEMBER 1, 2010
