What is Islam Today

Few in the West can agree on ‘What is Islam’ today. Authors of books and websites and broadcasts throughout the West have puzzled since well before 2001 on whether ‘The West’ can understand a rising, resurgent Islam in its midst, let alone coexist with it?

Muslim commentators are firmer that coexistence can be achieved. The following is excerpt-and-conflation of one (Western) view against and a critical Muslim response. I thank them both. My aim is ‘The Middle Way’. Their viewpoints reflect the impasse and the unanswered, endless questions (about the Muslim millions in the West), such as: Is the moderate Muslim the real Muslim?

“What accounts for the almost psychotic aversion (in Western circles) to knowledge about Islam? (asks American Bill Warner, CSPI, 2007, interview, The Big Picture). We believe the thought pattern taught by Islam is so antithetical (opposite, direct contrast) to that taught by non-Islamic cultures that non-Muslims have great difficulty in even beginning to consider it. Islam rejects things which are inherently accepted in non-Islamic thought.

On Logic, the Koran is actually two books, the Koran of Mecca (early life of Mohammad) and the Koran of Medina (later). Insight into the “logic” of the Koran comes from studying the large number of contradictions in it. Islam on the surface “resolves” these contradictions by resorting to “abrogation”. This means a verse written later supersedes the earlier verse. But since the Koran is believed by Muslims to be the perfect word of Allah, both verses are “sacred and true”. The later verse is “better” but the earlier verse cannot be wrong, since Allah is perfect. Both sets of verses are “right”. This is the foundation of dualism. Both sides of the contradiction are true, in dualistic logic. The circumstances govern which verse is used.

Examples: Koran of Mecca 73.10: Listen to what unbelievers say with patience and leave them with dignity. Koran of Medina 8.12: Give strength to believers, I will send terror into the unbelievers’ hearts, cut off their heads and even the tips of their fingers.

All of Western logic is based upon the Law of contradiction – if two things contradict, then at least one of them is false. Islamic logic is dualistic: two things can contradict each other and both are true. All of Science is based on the law of contradiction. The West uses unitary scientific logic, Islam has dualistic logic. The Ethical basis of Western civilisation is that all of our ethics and politics are based on the unitary ethic found in the West’s Golden Rule: treat others as you would be treated (and what arises from this).

Yes, we “unbelievers” in the West frequently fail at applying the Golden Rule, we can be judged even condemned on its basis, we fall short – but it is our ideal.

All religions have some version of the Gold Rule except Islam. The term “human being” has no meaning inside of Islam. There is only the duality of the believer and the unbeliever. In the ethical statements found in the Hadith, a Muslim should not lie, cheat, steal from or kill other Muslims. But a Muslim may lie, deceive, harm or kill an unbeliever if it advances Islam. There is no such thing as a universal statement of ethics in Islam. The closest Islam comes to a universal statement of ethics is that the entire world must submit to Islam. Muslims are to be treated one way and unbelievers another way. This “dualistic ethic” is the basis for jihad. The dualism of Islam offers that the unbeliever can be treated nicely, but it also offers that the unbeliever can never be a “brother” or a “friend”. Fourteen verses of the Koran say so. A Muslim may be “friendly” but never an actual friend. The degree to which a Muslim is actually a true friend, is the degree to which he is not a true Muslim but a hypocrite. Westerners must look more deeply into Islam and uncover what it is, not what we wish it to be.

A (supportive) reader’s comment: To understand our fellow man we strive to begin with a common ethical foundation. When that is non-existent we struggle to find a new paradigm, or in the case of radical Islam any paradigm at all. Most of the leadership of the Christian world fails to vociferously confront the evil of radical Islam because Christians as a whole are still assuming common ground between the two religions. But it doesn’t exist. And we in the West are in danger.

A prominent Muslim (Anand Patwardhan, India, 2007) responds: Where will Mr. Warner hide when faced with the ignobility of logic deserting his beloved Christianity? What will he do when the devil of duality is discovered in his own sacred texts? The Bible had its condundrums too. The Old Testament is full of trials, tribulations, violence. If Jesus had succeeded in getting temporal authority during his lifetime, maybe he would have left a much different ministry behind. ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ was abandoned by the Crusader Christians. Isn’t Mr Warner’s punditry a foolery of pot calling the kettle black? (His) grandiose theories condemn 1,400 years of a sizable part of human civilisation, on a wafer-thin base. For Islamist scholars recognised dualism in the 10th century, contradictions are narrowed down when the chosen verses are set out in their context. In his lengthy rebuttal, Mr Patwardhan explores history, modern world government confrontations, and the influence of oil (Chowk, Artifice of Scholarship, Patwardhan). He includes excerpts found in ‘The Arabs in History’ (Bernard Lewis) which he believes correct the denigratory picture painted by Mr Warner of Muslims today as ‘dualistic, unreliable and blood-thirsty’. Many terrorist groups around the world are not Muslims. Yet a paradigm shift is needed by Muslims – for example, learning the language of the modern age, and making their personal law contemporary. ”
(It is emphasised that all the above is excerpt-and-conflation; thanks to Messrs Warner and Patwardhan; this website author)