Islam on the defensive: scholars contend criticism of Islam's links to terrorism oversimplify complex tradition - Special Report

National Catholic Reporter, Dec 14, 2001 by Margot Patterson

Similarly, the militancy some people ascribe to Islam is equally present in the other monotheistic religious traditions, where an emphasis on the primacy of one god and one truth leads to distinctions between believers and unbelievers. Intrinsic in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is the idea that you serve your God through charity and love and also through war, Voll said, noting that all three religions contain strains that make it possible to argue both for and against the concept of the just war.

People sometimes conveniently forget that while Jesus said, "Love your enemy," Jesus also said, "Do not think that I came to bring peace. I came to bring the sword," Voll said.

"In the same way, the Quran says fight against the unbeliever and the Quran also says God created us as diverse people so we could learn from each other and compete with each other in doing good."

Some scholars suggest that the focus on Islam after the terrorist attacks is misleading because it bypasses anti-Americanism as a staple of Arab politics, irrespective of religion.

"The United States has managed to alienate most of the rising social classes in the Arab and Muslim world," said Gerges, author of American and Political Islam: Clash of Interests or Clash of Cultures? "The Islamists do not differ from other social and political groups in anti-American sentiment."

Accumulated grievances

Mumtaz Ahmad, professor of political science at Hampton University, Hampton, Va., noted that a host of grievances have accumulated in the Middle East. They relate both to America's perceived blind support for Israel, despite Israel's violations of U.N. resolutions and international laws, and to U.S. support for dictatorial, oppressive regimes that serve the United States' own short-term strategic purposes.

With no way of legally changing the regimes they live under, people are driven to violent, underground activities. Often the mosque is the only place where people can freely meet and mingle.

"Islam has become an important variable in this whole drama only because the people who indulge in terrorism are doing it in the name of Islam," Ahmad said. "That's the only Islamic relevance to the events of Sept. 11. No less. No more."

Like others, Ahmad said Osama bin Laden's extremist viewpoints are unrepresentative of Islam. Ramazani calls bin Laden's views downright "un-Islamic" and a "fringe perspective within Islam."

Fringe perspective it may be, but theologian Fr. James Fredericks believes it's a mistake to dismiss the religious faith bin Laden and his followers subscribe to as un-Islamic, even if it is atypical. Fredericks, a professor who teaches comparative theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, draws an analogy with Christianity and its troubled and troubling history of anti-Semitism.

"The idea of justifying Christian anti-Semitism from the teaching of Jesus is just wrong," Fredericks said. "Therefore, there's the temptation to say that Christians who are anti-Semites are not true Christians. That kind of approach can excuse Christians from looking into their own tradition, and into some dark and ugly corners of the history of Christianity."