Masood N. Khan M.D.
It is high time Muslims should confront the menace of religious extremism head on. If something is not done, Islam seems to be on a borrowed time before its reputation in the world is completely destroyed by the extremists. Their assault on Islam and the honor of Muslims is so lethal that it almost lures even a critical observer to believe in a well planned conspiracy to destroy the divine message for centuries to come. Muslims should realize that the biggest destructive challenge of the Islamic world today, more than anything else even perhaps that of a corrupt leadership, is religious extremism. It should be clear that extremism is neither a school of thought nor an emphatic form of conservatism as might have been misconceived, but a kind of cultish rowdyism in the name of Islam.
Being confused as to what constitutes religious extremism, Muslims have been impervious to the seriousness of the problem. They are unable to draw a line between benign conservatism and destructive extremism wearing religious cloak and understand the difference because there happens to be a subtle overlap between the two. They have treated extremists among them as a hard-headed stubborn child in the family with great deal of toleration, not realizing that they are in fact occult enemies of Islam. Centuries of such toleration has caused the disease of extremism to grow to potentially fatal dimensions.
Unfortunately the extremists are to be found in all schools of thought and across all social and eсоnomic strata of Muslims.Their ubiquity demands a bird’s-eye awareness of their characteristics.
While the following list is by no means perfect or complete, it will at least provide a baseline profile of the extremist mind.
1. Rigid in their views and intolerant of dissent.
2. Callous towards the spirit, the core and the essence of the message and focused on rules and regulations even silly and superficial, thinking that the harder the religion in practice the more acceptable it is to God.
3. Impressed by the external appearances of religiosity as measures of piety
4. False sense of self righteousness and a condescending attitude towards those who do not fit their standards of outward so called Islamic appearances.
5. Being easily provoked to violently offensive behavior towards those perceived as a threat whether an ideology, organization, an individual or a group.
6. Focused more on Hadith without due regard to its authenticity, context, correct interpretation and proper application and less on Quran because they are uncomfortable with broad directive principles and happy with rigid structures
7. Anti progress, anti change and anti ijtihad.
8. Hateful towards people of other faith with great deal of bigotry.
9. Oppressive towards women, obsessed with their behavior and dress as if Islam revolves around the conduct and costume of women.
10. Believing in capital punishment for blasphemy and apostasy.
Muslims have for justifiable reasons made a big fuss about western media very generously labeling “Islamic” to any atrocity committed by Muslims while refraining from such faith-based labels for Christians, Jews, Buddhists or people of any other faith. Yet it becomes no less a crime if we substitute any reference to Islam or Muslims with faithless attribution to an individual or a group. Whether reported Islamic or otherwise, the fact that these crimes are committed by Muslims is extremely shameful in itself.
The extent of damage the extremists have caused is unimaginable. Human beings will always differ in their interpretations of the scripture and understanding of the words and deeds attributed to the Prophet. This is quite a healthy phenomenon and no faith is too homogenous in understanding to have such differences. Unfortunately the Islamic extremists have turned these differences into atrocities and murders. Muslim world today, therefore, is devoid of respectful differences and rampant in atrocious divisions. These atrocities span from emotional and verbal abuse to outright physical assault and murder.
Muslims attempting to show Islam as a peaceful religion jump to point out a verse in Quran that says, as paraphrased, “If one kills a human being it is like killing the whole mankind and if one saves a human being it is like saving the whole mankind”. Yet they shamefully disregard this verse in their own conduct and behavior. It will be a research topic in itself to investigate how many innocent lives have been eliminated by Islamic extremists around the world. The answer is sure to be in tens of thousands by even a conservative estimate. And what about the ruining of families and the lasting painful effects they suffer for generations. If Muslims want to turn a blind eye to all this by calling these murderers and thugs simply zealots in religion, they deserve to be charged accomplices by passivity.
Beyond individuals and families the damage inflicted on the country as a whole, by these extremists is immense. Even though shameful lack of progress in research, education and technology in Muslim countries is multifactor the negative energy of being obsessed with the past, fighting over silly differences in religionthe known hallmarks of extremism – also has its share. Fifty seven Muslim majority countries have an average of ten universities each for a total of less than 600 universities for 1.4 billion people; a university for every 2 million Muslims. Israel has 25 universities for a total of 6.3 million Israelis; a university for every 250,000. The U.S. has 5,758. Of the 600 universities how many have produced a Nobel Laureate? Over the past 105 years, 1.4 billion Muslims have produced eight Nobel Laureates while a mere 14 million Jews have produced 167 Nobel Laureates. Of a world population of 1.4 billion, 800 million Muslims are illiterate. In Christendom, adult literacy rate stands at 78 percent. Consider, for instance, that Muslims constitute 22 percent of world population with a 1 percent share of Nobel Prizes. Jews constitute 0.23 percent of world population with a 22 percent share of Nobel Prizes.
The rights of a human being are God-given. They are not unlimited but are irrevocable by any human being. Extremists by their antiquated interpretation of religion, misapplication of Prophet’s words and resistance to Ijtihad have consistently deprived people of their rights. Examples of such criminal violation of human rights in Muslim world are many, the notable victims being the women, the dissenters and non-Muslims. How much passion for Hijab does it take to abduct 270 girls from their school and force them to wear Hijab? What strength of conviction to Sunni school of beliefs does it take to go and bomb a Shiite masjid and kill scores of human beings and what intensity of love for Islam one should have to be unable to tolerate non-Muslims, destroy their places of worship and kill them.
If we see the behavior of the present day extremists and compare with the conduct of the early Muslims at the time of Prophet, Muslims under his direct tutelage, eye-witness to his example, were more progressive, tolerant of dissent, compassionate towards each other and focused on the meaning and purpose of the divine message. Why then, over centuries beginning at some ugly point in the history Muslims became nonprogressive, intolerant and non contributors to society and humanity. The answer seems to lie in their delusive misunderstanding of their faith that grew upon them over centuries. A simple and beautiful message based upon fundamental truths about the Creation and the Creator, inviting constructive action from humanity has been converted into sick-minded silly debates which often turn violent, bringing no value to society except destruction and bloodshed. The dynamism of its simplicity has been replaced by stagnant complexity. This misunderstanding is often inflamed to a flare-up by the extremists among Muslims. They fail to realize that change is the law of nature and if Islam were to be a guidance for the humanity at all times, it should be able not only to survive change but surpass it with a vision for the future.
It is time Muslims should take the responsibility of understanding and applying their faith in their own hands. They should come out of a ‘psychology of dependence’ on mullahs and have the confidence to seek individualized solutions for their problems keeping Quran and Prophet in mind. Ijtehad should be the right of an individual not a scholar and Islam needs to be understood;
1. with an insight into the essence and purpose ofthe message.
2. with broad mindedness to accommodate the difference of interpretation.
3. with understanding that the rules of human conduct should be subservient to the meaning and purpose of the message and not the other way around.
4. With realization that change is the law of nature and Islam being a system of nature has to be dynamically compatible with change.
5. With a sense of responsibility and boldness, and with a spirit of Ijtihad by individual Muslims so as to defrock the so called scholars and remove their monopoly over the knowledge of Deen.
Today neither blasphemy nor apostasy is important whereas elimination of extremism is. It is the sacred duty of every sane-minded Muslim to give up all defensive arguments and excuses to shield extremism. It is time to bravely stand up to protect Islam from this cancer. In their private get togethers, social interactions and formal gatherings Muslims have to be watchful against the extremist mind and take a firm stand against it. The extremists should be told clearly that their understanding of Islam is indeed a misunderstanding of Islam and will have no support by fellow Muslims and their conduct is utterly condemnable. The assault of extremism on Islam has to be stopped at any cost because failure will be disastrously costlier for the whole mankind.