The Crisis of Islam

I seem to be getting on the subject of Islam and here is another item of that genre.

Bernard Lewis, “The Crisis of Islam (Holy War and Unholy Terror)”, Modern Library (2003), 165 Pgs
The Crisis of Islam while discussing parts of the thirteen centuries of Islamic history, concentrates mostly on the key events of the twentieth century leading up to the violent confrontations of today: the creation of the state of Israel, the Cold War, the Iranian Revolution the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, the Gulf War, and the September 11 attacks on the U.S. While hostility toward the West has a long history in the lands of Islam, its current concentration on the U.S. is new as is the cult of the suicide bomber. (Also, probably a good idea to read Lewis’ book “What Went Wrong?” which examines the roots of the resentments that dominate the Islamic world today). I have this book on order.

Bernard Lewis is a Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emeritus at Princeton University. He has written twenty other books dealing with Islam before writing this book. Again I have found a good summary of this book written by someone else which I will quote below. I have edited out items I felt unnecessary & placed my own notes following the summary.

Reviewed by Captain Timothy E. Wolfe, US Army
In The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, Bernard Lewis explores a wide array of causal factors for the current conflict involving Islamic fundamentalists against Western democracies. While he does not offer any conclusive practical solution to this quandary, Lewis does an outstanding job of cataloguing a great deal of information into a relatively short book. In so doing, he manages to educate readers without risking the loss of their attention.
In spite of his Jewish heritage, Bernard Lewis does not demonstrate any noticeable favoritism in this or any of his other works. He is a genuine historian, and his intent in The Crisis of Islam is to focus on placing epochal events into perspective in order to elucidate their relevance to the evolution of the religious struggle into its modern form. Perhaps the most laudable characteristic of this book is that it addresses the major issues of the topic with just enough detail to arouse curiosity but not so much as to overwhelm the reader with excessive factual fodder; all the while retaining the crucial impartiality necessary to avoid skewing the opinion of his readership.
In The Crisis of Islam, Lewis highlights the social disparity between Western and Islamic societies. He explains that Muslims see themselves as affiliated with a religion separated into nations instead of as members of a nation separated into religions, which is the common affiliation Westerners associate with themselves. Whereas Western societies are generally secular, Islam is woven into the very fabric of a Muslim society, from politics to law to everyday living. This “religion versus nationalism” is reflected in the modern Arab's recognition of religious or tribal boundaries as compared to the Westerner's recognition of nation-state borders.
Lewis goes on to postulate that the widespread feeling of humiliation among the Muslims of the Middle East is a sine qua non for the fomentation of anti-Western hostilities which exist throughout the region. This humiliation is the result of confusion and rage. These are the products of a once-proud empire that attributed its unprecedented expansion through conquest to a pious dedication to Allah and now wonders why its ostensibly “superior” civilization has been far surpassed in so many respects by people they view as inferior infidels. The Iranian Revolution of 1979, Lewis explains, was largely the result of this humiliation exacerbated by contempt for the materialism espoused by Western civilization.
Lewis concludes that Islam is not harmless. Presumably, the author means by this that Islam can be practiced, as it is by millions of Americans, peacefully within a democratic society, yet like nearly any philosophy, extremists can manipulate it into a tool of violence. What Lewis fails to mention, however, is that those who practice Islam “peacefully” appear to ignore or disobey certain verses of the Koran that unequivocally incite believers into violence against non-Muslims. Nor does the Koran contain any Surah that directs its followers to “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's” that could be interpreted as permission to submit to the laws of a secular government in lieu of those of Shariah law.
In his explanation of jihad, the author clarifies this commonly misunderstood phenomenon. He elaborates on the concepts of “greater” and “lesser” jihad and makes note of the seemingly contradictory messages of those Surahs revealed to the Prophet in Mecca in contrast to those revealed in Medina. Lewis also expounds on a detailed comparison of the Crusades to jihad. Here, the reader learns that scriptural support for endeavors such as the Crusades cannot be found in the Bible but that Jihad is encouraged with some frequency in the Koran. Additionally, Lewis challenges the Muslim claim that the Crusaders were “conquerors” by arguing that they were sent to “liberate” previously held Christian lands that had fallen to jihad conquerors.
Another important point brought to light in The Crisis of Islam is the comparison between the ancient “Hashashin” cult of Shiite assassins and the modern-day homicide bomber. Here, Lewis differentiates between the assassin, who used a dagger or other melee weapon to kill a targeted victim and was often killed in the process by the victim's security apparatus, and todays homicide bomber, who uses explosives to kill both intentional and unintentional victims and, in the process, brings about his own death at his own hand. While the former dies a martyr's death at the hands of his enemy, the latter commits suicide, the penalty for which is clearly outlined in the Koran as repetition of the deadly act in hell for eternity. Additionally, Lewis states that the wanton murder of innocents cannot be justified by Koranic verse.
Just when the ambiance of the book starts to sway slightly towards condemnation of the Muslims, the author brings it back into moderation by explaining that the second-class dhimmitude afforded Jews and Christians living in Muslim lands was significantly better than the treatment that Christians gave Jews and Muslims living in their lands. Dhimmitude was the condition of living that infidels experienced under Islamic rulers whereby non-Muslims, or Dhimmis, were obligated to pay a tax for the right to live and continue to practice their religion under Muslim rule. Additionally, dress codes, noise statutes, architectural limitations, and legal disparities were imposed on Dhimmis. In spite of these strict rules, Dhimmis in Islamic lands fared far better than their Muslim and Jewish counterparts under Christian rule, who, the author explains, received neither religious tolerance nor, at times, even the right to live.
The author goes on to explain the different systems of alliances the Muslims involved themselves in to resist what they saw in the West as a hollow, cultureless society that worshipped only wealth and repeatedly demonstrated their apathy towards the plight of Muslims by supporting like-minded despotic quislings. A “them against us” victimization attitude emerged in the Muslim world, fueled by the rhetoric of charismatic leaders such as Sayyid Qutb, Ayatollah Khomeini, and Usama Bin Laden.
A final point that Lewis makes is a comparison between the economic and academic productivity of three of the most successful Islamic countries — Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan — to that of the tiny, resource-devoid nation of Israel. The GDP of Israel in 2005 was significantly more than that of these three Islamic countries combined, and Israel published and translated significantly more books than the entirety of the Arab Muslim world. These factors, according to Lewis, seem to serve as a solemn harbinger of continued hardship for the Arab Muslim world and, hence, continued violent struggle.

My notes:
Pg. xx: In the Western world, the basic unit of human organization is the nation, virtually synonymous with country. This is then subdivided in various ways, one which is by religion. Muslims, however, tend to see not a nation subdivided into religious groups but a religion subdivided into nations. This is no doubt partly because most of the nation-states that make up the modern Middle East are relatively new (imposed in 1918 settlements after WWI) following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire.

Pg. 6: The Founder of Christianity bade his followers “render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things which are God’s” and for centuries Christianity grew and developed as a religion of the downtrodden, until with the conversion to Christianity of the emperor Constantine, Caesar himself became Christian and inaugurated a series of changes by which the new faith captured the Roman Empire and transformed its civilization. The Founder of Islam was his own Constantine, and founded his own state and empire. He did not therefore create—or need to create—a church. The separation of church and state has no equivalent in Islam. During Muhammad’s lifetime, the Muslims became at once a political and a religious community, with the Prophet as head of state.

Pg. 8: The Qur’an, for Muslims, is a single book promulgated at one time by one man, the Prophet Muhammad. After a lively debate in the first centuries of Islam, (the 600’s CE) the doctrine was adopted that the Qur’an itself is uncreated and eternal, divine and immutable. This has become a central tenet of the faith.

Pg. 21: Unlike revolutionary France and Russia, revolutionary Iran lacks the means, the resources, and the skills to become a major world power and threat. The threat that it does offer is primarily, and overwhelmingly, to Muslims and to Islam itself. (Lewis makes no mention of Iran's nuclear ambitions!!).

The revolutionary wave in Islam has three components: humiliation, frustration, and the resurgence of economic power after the 1973 oil crisis. The humiliation of those who are the sole custodians of God’s truth to be dominated by others and the frustration that the various remedies (most imported from the West) failed one after the other (especially both Capitalism and Communism). After humiliation and frustration came a third component, necessary for the resurgence—a new confidence and sense of power. These arose from the 1973 oil crisis as well as the defeat of Russia in Afghanistan.

Pg. 40: The rules for war against apostates are stricter than those for war against unbelievers. The apostate in Muslim eyes is far worse than the unbeliever. The unbeliever has not seen the light, and there is always hope that he may eventually see it. But for the apostate, this offense has no human forgiveness and the apostate must be put to death, if male. Females may get flogging and imprisonment. Most if not all of the Muslim rulers whom we in the West are pleased to regard as our friends and allies are regarded as traitors and apostates by many if not most of their own people.

Pg. 55: Imperialism is a particularly important theme in the Middle Eastern Islamic case against the West. For Muslims it was perfectly legitimate for them to conquer and rule Europe and Europeans and thus enable them—but not compel them—to embrace the true faith. However, it was a sin for Europeans to conquer and rule Muslims and, still worse, to try to lead them astray by conversion to Christianity. In the Muslim perception, conversion to Islam is a benefit to the convert and a merit in those who convert him. In Islamic law, conversion away from Islam is apostasy—a capital offense for both the one who is misled and the one who misleads him. If a Muslim renounces Islam, even a new convert to Islam who returns to his previous faith, the penalty is death. Nowadays, it is not unusual in extremist circles to decree that some policy, action, or even utterance by a professing Muslim is tantamount to apostasy. This was the principle invoked in the fatwa against Rushdie, the murder of Sadat and of many others.

Pg. 83: It is now apparent that the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis occurred not because relations between Iran and the U.S. were deteriorating but because they were improving. In the fall of 1979 American national security advisor Brzezinski met with the relatively moderate Iranian prime minister, Mehdi Bazargn and were reported to have been photographed shaking hands. The radicals saw a real danger that there might be some accommodation between the two countries.

Pg. 100: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the American policy in the Middle East has been to prevent a regional hegemony of a single regional power that could dominate the area and thus establish monopolistic control of Middle Eastern oil.

Pg. 103: Increasingly the most serious grievance Middle Easterners have against American policy is the American complicity with the corrupt tyrants who rule over them. For obvious reasons, this particular complaint does not often appear in public discourse.

Pg. 111: For Islamists, democracy, expressing the will of the people, is the road to power, but it is a one-way road, on which there is no return, no rejection of the sovereignty of God, as exercised through His chosen representatives. Their electoral policy has been classically summarized as “One man (men only), one vote, once.”

Pg. 120: The rejection of modernity in favor of a return to the sacred past has a varied and ramified history in the region and has given rise to a number of movements. The most important in undoubtedly that known after it founder as Wahhabism. Muhammad ibn “Abd al-Wahhab (1703- 1792) was a theologian from the Najd area of Arabia, ruled by local sheikhs of the House of Saud. His declared aim was to return to the pure and authentic Islam of the Founder, removing and where necessary destroying all the later accretions and distortions. The Wahhabi cause was embraced by the Saudi rulers of Najd and to this day is still financed by the Saudi rulers. To grasp the scale of financing available it may be seen in the figures for oil extracted in Arabia, in millions of barrels: 1945, 21.3; 1955, 356.6; 1965, 804.8; 1975, 2,582.5. Wahhabism is now the official, state-enforced doctrine of one of the most influential governments in all Islam—the custodian of the two holiest places of Islam, the host of the annual pilgrimage, which brings millions of Muslims from every part of the world to share in its rites and rituals. Even in Western countries in Europe and America, Wahhabi indoctrination centers may be the only form of Islamic education available to new converts and to Muslim parents who wish to give their children some grounding in their own inherited religious and cultural tradition.

Pg. 136: Most Muslims are not fundamentalists, and most fundamentalists are not terrorists, but most present-day terrorists are Muslims and proudly identify themselves as such. (Estimates are that 6% to 8% support the militants; this from sources other than this book).

Pg. 147: Thanks to the rapid development of the media, and especially of television, the more recent forms of terrorism are aimed not at specific and limited enemy objectives but at world opinion. Their primary purpose is not to defeat or even to weaken the enemy militarily but to gain publicity and to inspire fear—a psychological victory.

Pg. 157: A 2002 letter attributed to Usama bin Ladin enumerates in some detail various offenses committed not just by the government of the U.S. by by its people and sets forth, under seven headings, what we are calling you to do, and what we want from you.” The first is to embrace Islam; the second, “to stop your oppressions, lies, immorality, and debauchery”, the third, to discover and admit that America is “a nation without principles or manners”; the fourth to stop supporting Israel in Palestine, the Indians in Kashmir, the Russians against the Chechens, and the Manila government against the Muslims in the southern Philippines; the fifth, “to pack your luggage and get out of our lands.” This is offered as advice for America’s own good, “so do not force us to send you back as cargo in coffins.” The sixth, “to end your support of the corrupt leaders in our countries. Do not interfere in our politics and method of education. Leave us alone, or else expect us in New York and Washington; seventh, to deal and inter-act with the Muslims on the basis of mutual interests and benefits, rather than the policies of subjugation theft, and occupation.” If Americans reject this advice, they will be defeated like all the previous Crusaders, and “their fate will be that of the Soviets who fled from Afghanistan to deal with their military defeat, political breakup, ideological downfall, and economic bankruptcy.”

Pg. 160: Today the world of Christian unbelievers (i.e., not Muslim) is seen as the only serious force rivaling and obstructing the divinely ordained spread of Islam, resisting and delaying but not preventing its final, inevitable, universal triumph. In 1991, the same year that the Soviet Union ceased to exist, bin Ladin created Al-Qa’ida. Radical Muslims no longer had a enemy of the West to turn to and now set out to do it themselves.