Who Speaks for Islam?
The Pope certainly has his detractors, including lots of Roman Catholics, but at least it is agreed he speaks the official line for his organization. But who puts out the official word out for Islam? The answer seems to be “no one”, or perhaps more accurately, “everyone who wants to”. Here is an interesting article on this question, written a couple months after 9/11 by Charles Kurzman, a sociologist at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Non-Muslims did not care much about whether Islam had an agreed upon spokesman before 9/11. Since then, every time some perpetrator commits a terrorist act supposedly approved or required by the Koran, we long for an Islamic pontificate to condemn the atrocity as contrary to Islamic Law. What we get instead is some trickle of clerics, or Imans or Mullahs or whoever else we don’t recognize making statements in varying degrees of rejection of the act as against some precept or another that is unfamiliar to us, while at the same time some of these men [apparently Catholics don’t have a monopoly in believing men should be in charge of religious interpretation] make further statements that sound to our sensitive ears like criticisms of non-Muslims.
What prompted this post was the Judge today sentencing the terrorist killer of Theo Van Gogh to life in prison, the maximum allowed under Dutch law. In particular the details of the brutality of this crime, claimed by the killer to have been done in the name of Islam, made me wish for a “Head Muslim” who would appear in Court and tell the perpetrator that his actions were totally contrary to Islamic Law and Allah will render appropriate punishment of his own [I expect Muslims presume Allah is a male, just as most Christians do].
If you believe in capital punishment as a deserved retribution, then you likely wish the Van Gogh killer could be executed. There is not much reason to believe the existence of capital punishment would have prevented the killing. These terrorists seem to have a suicidal mentality even when they don’t have a bomb strapped to them. If you want capital punishment for Islamic terrorists, you might also consider joining me in my above wish for a “Head Muslim”, and then go me a step further by making him the executioner.
Non-Muslims did not care much about whether Islam had an agreed upon spokesman before 9/11. Since then, every time some perpetrator commits a terrorist act supposedly approved or required by the Koran, we long for an Islamic pontificate to condemn the atrocity as contrary to Islamic Law. What we get instead is some trickle of clerics, or Imans or Mullahs or whoever else we don’t recognize making statements in varying degrees of rejection of the act as against some precept or another that is unfamiliar to us, while at the same time some of these men [apparently Catholics don’t have a monopoly in believing men should be in charge of religious interpretation] make further statements that sound to our sensitive ears like criticisms of non-Muslims.
What prompted this post was the Judge today sentencing the terrorist killer of Theo Van Gogh to life in prison, the maximum allowed under Dutch law. In particular the details of the brutality of this crime, claimed by the killer to have been done in the name of Islam, made me wish for a “Head Muslim” who would appear in Court and tell the perpetrator that his actions were totally contrary to Islamic Law and Allah will render appropriate punishment of his own [I expect Muslims presume Allah is a male, just as most Christians do].
If you believe in capital punishment as a deserved retribution, then you likely wish the Van Gogh killer could be executed. There is not much reason to believe the existence of capital punishment would have prevented the killing. These terrorists seem to have a suicidal mentality even when they don’t have a bomb strapped to them. If you want capital punishment for Islamic terrorists, you might also consider joining me in my above wish for a “Head Muslim”, and then go me a step further by making him the executioner.
posted by Tom Blake | 3:13 PM
3 Comments:
Tom,
Like you I wish for a head Muslim who would speak against the terrorist activities of the Muslims. I also wish for a Pope who would speak out against the sexual atrocities committed by his clergy. And a pope who would reform the Church by allowing women clergy. But we are not going to get either in our lifetime.
The fact is the Islamic religion does have its spokesMEN. The Ayatollah Khomeini was one. The Ayatollah Khamenei is another. Osama bin Laden speaks loudly and clearly. And now we hear from many younger MEN who speak for Islam from their hearts, and their message is hatred.
We in this country keep searching for the true Islamic message. But we have our eyes closed and our ears closed.
Yes there are Muslim who try to send a message of peace and love. See the July 25th issue of Time Magazine. Irshad Manji, a Muslim writer, calls for an honest assessment by Muslims of Islamic militarism. He does not have much hope for a change any time soon.
I don't like to agree with George Bush on any topic. But I think that Muslims are enemies of the US and other western countries. I think George made matters worse with his invasion of Iraq, but I don't think he is responsible for the Islamic militarism. It's been there and is festering and if Gore or Kerry were president we would be in the same predicament.
John from Phoenix
I’m not sure that using the pope as an example quite fits here. As much as it would be nice to have one head Muslim we could turn to for an explanation or clarification, it really isn’t the norm for most religions to have a top person.
After all, the pope only speaks for Catholics – he certainly doesn’t speak for all Christians. I think that’s one of the reasons there was a break in the church way back when – people didn’t want one guy speaking for everyone.
So who speaks for all Christians? Who will interpret Bush’s 21st century crusade? Who is the spokesman? Billy Graham, the pope, Jerry Falwell? Who knows, because there isn’t one.
And Judaism? Who speaks for the Jews? And, if there is one, where is his interpretation and explanation of the current Israeli/Palestine crisis? Where is his view on who is right, the settlers or the Israeli governemnt?
What about Buddhists? Who is the spokesperson on Sri Lanka, Tibet or Southern Thailand? The Dalai Lama I hear you say. Sorry, there are far to many different types of Buddhism for him to be considered an “authority.” Thai Buddhists certainly don’t look to him for clarification.
As you see, with any religion, there are far too many sects and factions to have any one person serve as spokesman for all worshippers.
Expecting or wishing Islam to have one seems to be a bit of a double standard.
Chris in Bangkok
Chris, you have quite effectively pointed out how "Catholic-centered" my thinking is when I look for a Muslim pontiff. John, you also point out there will be no one person speaking for all Muslims.
The Time article calling for Muslims to recognize the Islamic aspect of much of the terrorism is interesting. Farred Zakaria had an excellent Newsweek piece in the July 18 issue, mentioning tha King Abdullah hosted an Islamic conference to produce a unified voice against the terrorists and also pointing out how the US concept of the war on terror is so simple minded.
Polling Muslims for their attitude toward the West is tricky since there is such a diversity of Muslim and Western countries, cultures and subcultures. But in general, there does seem to be extensive mutual feelings of dislike, exacerbated for the West by the terrorists and for the Muslims by the invasion of Iraq.
I don't agree with you, John, that we would be in the same predicament with a Democrat in the White House, because it is extremely unlikely a Democratic President would have ignored and distorted the facts and trumped up this phoney invasion of Iraq. Without the invasion, there would still be terrorist acts, but American troops would not be ducks in an Iraqi shooting gallery and the deaths and damage to Iraqis at the hands of Americans would not have occurred and further fueled the fire of terrorism.
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