Every religion has engaged in war and other forms of violence at some junctures of their history, with the notable exception of Jainism, a tradition that has consistently practiced nonviolence and has never had a war in its 2,500 year history. As a Christian, I am painfully aware of the bloody history of my tradition. And now the shockingly tragic events of September 11 invite, or perhaps require, us to reflect on the uses of religion, and the moral responsibility of the faithful, in the face of "Islamic" terrorism.
At the outset I wish to make clear a longstanding respect I have personally for Islam. It is one of the world’s great religions, and one I’ve come to know through study and through my involvement in the Parliament of the World’s Religions. By these associations, and through my travels abroad, I’ve developed friendships with a number of Muslims. I have in those contexts experienced Muslims as peaceful, insightful, and effective members of the larger world community.
For generations, at least some Christians, Muslims, and Jews have lived in peace and even friendship in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. In virtually every state where Islamic rule obtained, Jews and Christians were treated well by the dominant faith. With the rise of Israel as a state in 1948, that peace was shattered. Even in Egypt, a traditionally tolerant, broad-minded Islamic culture, the seventeen million Coptic Christians now live under duress, and tensions are mounting.
Perhaps that’s because many Muslims see their quranic values being eroded by the powerfully seductive, though spiritually superficial culture of America. They decry its emphasis on corporate greed, entertainment, and consumerism, backed up by military power to protect its sources of energy and other resources. Many Middle Easterners — Muslim or otherwise — are also dismayed by U.S. policies in favor of Israel, continued U.S. presence in the Persian Gulf, the impoverishment of Iraq through punitive sanctions, and America’s failure to support the Afghan Mujahedeen who were used to defeat the Soviets.
Of course the current crop of terrorists, who are essentially Pan-Islamic opportunists, are cynically exploiting these grievances in order to gather support for their drive toward power. They hope to take control of Islam so they can use it as a weapon against the rest of the world. Their aim, it appears, is to bring the entire planet under the hegemony of a global Islamic caliphate ruled by Osama bin Laden.
What Is to Be Done
It is important to realize that this is a significant and urgent moment of crisis and truth for Islam. And because of that, Islam has an absolute responsibility to the world and its own reputation to seize the initiative away from the terrorists, who are trying to entrap its soul in their insidious plans. What Al Qaeda and its Taliban confederates have done is thoroughly condemned by the Quran. They have been killing the innocent for years, which is strictly forbidden by Islam even in times of war. Dr. Malik S. Khan, the Permanent U.N. Representative of the World Muslim Congress, has explained: "According to the Quran, those who kill innocent people are doomed to eternal punishment (25: 68-69), and whosoever slays an innocent person...it is as if he had slain humankind altogether" (5:32).
And so, in this historical moment of crisis, the Islamic faithful need moral clarity from spiritual leaders. Those are the only figures in that tradition who have the authority to override and cancel out the horrendously calculated manipulations by the terrorist network. In the United States, Muslim leaders such as Dr. Irfan Khan, renowned quranic scholar and board member for the Parliament of the World’s Religions, and Kareem Irfan, a lawyer who is chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, are eloquent in their protest against the un-Islamic nature of the terrorists and their acts.
In the East, Muslims and the world at large would benefit from a highly symbolic world event, at a sacred site such as Mecca or Medina. Perhaps a document could proclaim for all time how Islam views violence and terrorism against the innocent. Islamic spiritual leaders should acknowledge that this phenomenon of Muslim terror, which has grown out of Islam itself, is a perverse form of the Islamic faith, one distorted by an arrogant drive for power by a few. It represents the shadow side of Islam, just as the Holocaust was the shadow side of Christianity.
It’s no good denying it, or maintaining that Osama bin Laden isn’t really a Muslim. He believes he is. He identifies totally, if inappropriately, with this faith and tries to justify his actions and those of his organization in terms of Islam. In fact, his justifications prove the need for moral clarity from Islamic spiritual leaders. The masses of faithful within Islam need to be guided by a person or group of people who have real credibility, a source of authority that can truly speak for Islam because of their transparent goodness.
Second, the U.N. must proceed with relative haste to offer a treaty on terrorism that all nations would be obliged to sign and adhere to. It should include consequences for violator states whom the international community would have the authority to pursue through every legal and moral means. Already there is movement at the U.N. in precisely this direction, and something concrete should happen fairly soon.
Third, as the U.S. completes its mission in Afghanistan, it should commit with the U.N. to nation building in Afghanistan and eventually in Iraq as well. We owe these two nations the fruit of our compassion. They are desperately needy nations and they have few friends who are both able and willing to help them in the ways they most require: rebuilding, education, medical assistance, food, shelter, clothing, and other resources. I think it’s equally necessary to assist Pakistan, especially in the economic sphere.
On the cultural level, and in tandem with its educational efforts vis-à-vis the Muslim world, America needs to communicate the deeper nature of this society, the spirit of our culture, and the values that animate us as Americans. We saw this spirit and those values incarnated in the extraordinary response of all those incredible New Yorkers. The interfaith movement, too, can be enormously helpful by building and maintaining bridges between faiths and making sure that Muslims in this country and throughout the world do not feel isolated from the rest of society. For Muslims are at least as varied as Christians and Jews. It should be unnecessary to remark that many are kind and many are wise.
I know this in my bones because of an experience I had while I was part of a small monastic community for some ten years in New Hampshire. In 1989, the State Department brought over to America a number of Mujahedeen from Afghanistan who had been wounded in the war against the Soviets. Five of them came to our monastery, and stayed for six months. They were all gentle souls and they participated in all our community activities, including our daily mass. They were reverent, kind, and sensitive, very likable. We were the first group of Christians they had ever met. We grew to love one another, and they returned to Afghanistan with a life-changing experience similar to ours: that of a people not so different from themselves.
The tragedy of 9/11 has presented us with an opportunity to change, grow, and realize the promise of American pluralism. The way in which American Muslims are being embraced in our society bodes well for that promise, for we are discovering bonds of connection between Muslims, Christians, and Jews throughout the nation. And Muslim Americans are becoming ambassadors for American culture abroad. We need more person-to-person encounters with Muslims all around the world. Such interactions help dispel misunderstanding, create lasting bonds, and transform our global society into a universal family. But already, a new moment has dawned. It is, perhaps, a turning point in our culture from the self-involved confidence of adolescence to the first stirrings of responsible, sometimes joyous adulthood.