Join Frans, Doug, and Penny as they discuss some of the very negative things we associate with Islam, like violence, terrorism, and "sharia,". Discover how to understand those things better with some facts, personal stories, and insights from history.
Transcript: Overcoming Fear of Islam
Penny: The negative stuff, I feel like that really gets all the news. And you're very kind of normal Muslim neighbor having a job and sending his kids to school and trying to mow his lawn and running out of gas…Like that doesn't make the news.
Doug: And most Americans don't really know very many Muslims. They haven't had an opportunity to engage with them very often. So these associations stick without a whole lot of context or personal relations to make them more complex.
Frans: Religions are not violent per se. Religions are also not non-violent per se. It's people who are either violent, or non-violent.
Intro: Welcome to the Diversity and Inclusion for All project, supported by Calvin University and the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship. Together, we'll listen to key prospective, build our knowledge, inform our thinking, and get a little better equipped to engage our world.
Penny: Welcome, everyone, to the diversity and inclusion for all Project of Calvin University. I'm Pennylyn Dykstra-Pruim and I'm here today with my friends and co-professors at Calvin University, Frans van Liere and Doug Howard. This is an episode in the mini-series focused on Muslim-Christian engagement. And we've been exploring some different topics to help us understand what interfaith engagement is and isn't, a little bit about Muslims and Islam, and how to engage across those lines of religious difference in good ways.
Today, we want to talk about some of the really negative things we hear about Islam, some stereotypes and associations that we might hear in social media feeds or different news outlets and that are associated with Muslims or Islam. We want to talk about those, kind of dispel some myths and confront head on those negative things that we hear about Islam and what we can do with that. So I'm wondering, first of all, one of the big things that Americans will associate sometimes with Islam is violence and terrorism. And, of course, this is linked to our history, to different events that have happened, not the least of which is 9/11 and Osama bin Laden and maybe the Iraq wars. And so some Americans or a lot of Americans might have these negative associations with Islam and with Muslims. And I'm wondering how we can discuss terrorism and violence that is related to Islam or linked to Islam in a way that helps us understand that with a little more nuance.
Doug: We're talking about this issue of violence in Islam, because, as you say, it's in the public discourse. You know, events over the last 50 years have happened that bring Muslim, wars with Muslims and Muslim violence, and Christian Muslim conflict into the public eye. And most Americans don't really know very many Muslims. They haven't had an opportunity to engage with them very often. So these associations stick without a whole lot of context or personal relations to make them more complex.
Penny: So what do we say to someone who says, oh, Islam is a violent religion?
Frans: My response to that is always religions are not violent per se. Religions are also not non-violent per se. It's people who are either violen or non-violent. And unfortunately, they can use religion for the purpose of violence. Most religions are open and they're scriptural traditions are open to many different interpretations. There's a lot that you can find in not only in Islam, but also in Christianity and even in Buddhism that could connect you to the conclusion that you you are called to to be violent. But there's also a lot in these religious traditions that that call for non-violence as well. So it's it's people who are violence and they can use or abuse religion for very often for the purposes that sometimes are self-serving. So I would say blanket statements like Islam is violent or Islam is a religion of peace. Those statements just won't do. There's always more nuance that you can bring in.
On the other hand, you don't need to deny reality either. There are people who abuse Islam to to incite to violence, and that is a reality. As I said, blanket statements won’t do. So, it's certainly not true for all Muslims or even even the majority of Muslims.
I agree with that. And I say that from my study of Islam and history. You can go back hundreds and hundreds of years. Empire builders use force and use violence to build empires. And resistance to empire also employs violence. So whether it's Arab or Turkish or Persian empires of the medieval period, those were built by armies who used violence or whether it's British or American or Soviet empires in modern times, those are empires that use warfare and violence. And in a lot of cases, all of those justified their empire building and their use of force with religious terms. But when you actually read the holy books, whether the Old and New Testament or the Qu’ran. They have passages, as Frans said, that can be said said to condone violence. All of them do. But these holy books are more about God and God's relationship with humanity than they are about that. And so it's the case that today too we have individuals who take those passages from the Old and New Testaments or from the Qu’ran and use them to justify their own actions, but normal Christians and Jews and Muslims for centuries have not read them that way.
Frans: I agree with that. And I think that's why it is so important also to to look at the context. You need to have some historical context to understand in what situation have people used their religious tradition to to resort to violence. And I think it's that historical context that very often helps you understand why that happens and what motivated these people. And that's important to realize. It relativizes these blanket statements that say all Muslims are violent or Islam is a violent religion. When you look at the context, you bring in a lot of nuance to statements like that.
Doug: In the Middle Ages, for instance, some crusaders compared themselves to the Israelites and justified their occupation of the Holy Land by those passages in Deuteronomy, Joshua, that advocated conquest. And today, some Muslims who resist empire, who resist the governments that that that they don't like, use passages in the Qu’ran to condone their actions in the same way. And another point to maybe point out is that today we often hear that Islam is inherently anti-Christian and that there are passages of the Qu’ran that advocate violence against Christians. I think it's important to note that in the Qu’ran, Christians and Jews are not infidels. Even that term infidel is inadequate. The Quranic term is Kafir. Someone who is Kafir is someone who obscures the truth, who denies the truth about God. In the Qu’ran. Christians and Jews are not that. Instead, Christians and Jews have received a revelation from God. They are, therefore, people of the book. So the Quranic conception of Christians and Jews is not that they are infidels, but that they are people of the book.
Penny: So I can understand that in the Qu’ran and for a lot of Muslims, there doesn't have to be war and battle, that Christians aren't the enemy. And that Muslims as a group are not violent, and that the religion is not necessarily violent. It’s people that are violent as Frans said. But what do I do with. So I hear things coming out of the Middle East and you hear maybe certain clerics, what they've said, maybe coming out of Iran or other places that really it's very anti-American. And they link it to their faith and they link it to Islam, or at least feels that way to me. How do we process that and how do we put that in context with what other things you're saying about how Islam is not a violent religion and it's not Christians versus Islam or Muslims inside of the Qu’ran
Doug: In modern times, it's unfortunately the case that the United States and Iran have become public enemies. The United States supported a coup against the Iranian democracy in the 1950s. And in the 1970s, Iranian revolutionaries overthrew the American-supported government of Iran. And so both Iran and the United States have things in their past that they need to acknowledge publicly. And as a result, Americans who are patriots and Iranians who are patriots often think of the other as their enemy and confuse that with Islam and justify it or confuse it with Christianity to justify it in those religious terms. But they had the origins of it are political in modern times.
Frans: You need some historical context to understand the kind of discourse and the kinds of rhetoric. There is in Islam, of course, the movement of fundamentalism that started already in the 18th century, with Wahhabism, which was kind of a revolt against the Ottoman Empire, where they saw the Ottoman Empire, as not really embodying the ideals of true Islam. So it called for a return to what they saw as true Islam. And they call it an arms against the Muslim empire. In the 19th century to have a similar call to return to what they saw as original Islam. And that's Salafism. They saw this original Islam as sort of Islam stripped of major interpretations and traditions. Of course, both in Islam and Christianity, this is kind of a fiction. The idea that you can go back to an original form that is completely stripped of later interpretations and traditions, very often it’s a fictional idea of what Islam is, what Christianity is. But we have this return to the fundamentals. We see that in Christianity. You'll see it also in in Islam. And very often these movements then claim that they are somehow the true version of that particular religion, a claim that you can see both in Christian and in Muslim fundamentalists.
These groups very often called for a resistance against empire, the empire of the Ottomans. Later, it also became a very important call of resistance against colonial influences. Salafism is an important inspiration to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Muslim Brotherhood is… this not only a fundamentalist Islamic movement, but it's also a deeply anti-colonialist movement in Islam.
Penny: So I think it's important for us to really make some distinctions between different very fundamentalist groups that have Islam as part of their identity and let's say the average Muslim in America or our fellow citizens who happen to identify as Muslims because they're completely, completely different. And just like there are certain Christian groups that would have certain beliefs that I would find just dreadful and would never want to be associated with, I think that's how some of our Muslim neighbors in America feel about some of these other groups with their very fundamentalist, very violent tendencies or preaching that they do. And I just think, you know, we need to just make that distinction and say it's not like there's one kind of Muslim. The negative stuff. I feel like that really gets all the news. And you're very kind of normal Muslim neighbor having a job and sending his kids to school and trying to mow his lawn and running out of gas like that doesn't make the news.
Frans: Absolutely. And I think that, you know, fundamentalists would say, well, my version of Islam is the true version of Islam. Well, I think there are lots of Muslims who would beg to disagree with, and they have good reasons to disagree with that. So I think that you are doing a great disservice to those Muslims if you agree with the fundamentalists and say, oh, yeah, that's actually the true version of Islam. And that's the sad thing that I see some Christians do that they say, well, that fundamentalism, that's really the true character of Islam. Islam is very diverse. And I think you have to look at at your Muslim neighbors, who very often are peace-loving and peaceful, to see what true Islam can be.
Doug: Right. And the friends that I know in in the mosque here in Grand Rapids, the couple of mosques that I'm familiar with, they run the gamut from those who voted for Donald Trump, to those who voted for Joe Biden. Some are pro-choice on abortion. Some are are pro-life, some are Democrats, some are Republicans. Some get involved in urban renewal. Some are very, very much uninvolved. So their political views or social views differ from from each other. Some are wealthy, some are poor, some are African-American, some are immigrants, some are whites and so on. So there's quite a diversity of political and social views among American Muslims as well.
Penny: But one thing I have seen in the statistics is that when they do surveys of Muslims in America, that overwhelmingly they are all basically saying violence, random violence and acts of violence is like …that is wrong.
Frans: And when you then say, well, actually, you know, the violent Islam, that is true Islam, that statement delegitimizes really the majority of Islam in a way that I think is very disrespectful too.
Doug: Many of these Muslims come to the United States seeking religious freedom as all as often is the case for immigrants to the United States, because they find their own open and liberal views of religion and of God in the way God works, and when they find those oppressed by their own conservative or fundamentalist Muslims at home. So they come here looking for freedom of expression and freedom of religion, freedom of worship.
Frans: That, of course, that does not make them less Muslim. In fact, you know, that they these people very often are are committed, committed Muslims, but they're still seek freedom to express their way of being a Muslim against more fundamentalist views and interpretations.
Penny: Yeah. And I think sometimes our immigrants from minorities and maybe especially from minorities, where there's some negative stereotypes that we have of them, I think sometimes they're like super citizens. Right. They're always trying to to to do good and be good and embrace and talk about how they are inspired by American values and some of the good things that we have in our country, because they want to show they want to be the ambassadors against the negative stereotypes.
Frans: Absolutely. When I did my citizenship oath, I became a citizen after living in this country for about 10 years. And it's a wonderful ceremony where we're asked to take the oath. And there were quite a few people from Iraq, from Syria, from Afghanistan. And I could see that these people were were inspired by the same desire to move in a free country as as I was. These were absolutely not religious extremists who came to this country.
Penny: Sharia law. That is something that I actually know very little about. Can you help us understand what Sharia law is and isn't, and what is maybe true or not true about what we might hear about Sharia law in in newsfeeds?
Doug: Yeah, that's a really good question. I think a lot of Muslims throughout history would be puzzled by the kind of discussion that goes on about it in the United States. So Sharia law is it's the distilled teachings of the Qu’ran, the Haddith, and hundreds of years of commentary and interpretation of those sacred texts. So it's not a set of rules. It's not a constitution. No Muslim country ever ran by Sharia alone. Sharia is more like what Jews mean when they say the Torah or what Christians mean when they say they would like to have God's will for their life. Sharia is the way of living for God in the world.
In modern times some Muslim anti-colonialist who is Muslim governments were overthrown, began to focus on on a very reductionist view of what Sharia entailed. And they were especially conservatives who were interested in keeping Muslim family law, Muslim marriage law, Muslim criminal law active. And they reduced this wide discussion of what it meant to be a Muslim, they reduced it to a few slogans like cutting off the hands of thieves and stoning women for adultery. And those anti-colonial activists have had a great influence on the discussion of Sharia in the 20th century and here in the United States. So, again, both Muslim extremists and Christian critics of Muslim extremists seem to have uncritically adopted this reductionist view of what Sharia is. When, in fact, it is just the way of living a godly life.
Penny: So when you hear these kind of crazy stories about some group of Muslims wanting to set up a community with Sharia law, and it sounds like this terrible, horrible thing, how do we interpret that? Like what's really going on there?
Doug: Well, I think that it's as Frans was saying earlier, it expresses a kind of very conservative view of fundamentalists who who at the bottom of things would like the world to be as God wants it to be, but their interpreting, interpretation of what God wants for the world is very narrow and restrictive. So I think that's what they're after. As for the life here in the United States, I think I read something like 18 of the states of the of the 50 United States have passed anti-Sharia legislation. To me, that's that's like a solution to a nonexistent problem. Most Muslims themselves would reject this kind of reductionist conservative interpretation of what Sharia means. And instead they would just say, I want to live God's will for my life.
Penny: The Muslim ban. So this is something that some people felt was a good thing because it helps protect the United States from extremists, from dangers, the perceived dangers from people immigrating or coming as refugees, who identify as Muslim and could be a threat to us. How can we think about this in a slightly more nuanced and helpful way?
Frans: Well, many of the refugees who come to the United States from certain Muslim countries are certainly not the fundamentalists and the extremists who are fleeing to the United States. Right. It's very often the lenient and the liberal people who are fleeing from fundamentalists and extremist governments. So, I think it's a rather shortsighted idea. This legislation, I think, is doing exactly the opposite of what it's what it should be doing. And it's it's really informed by easy blanket statements about Muslims, that don't really take into account the context of why do people flee from their country like for instance Afghanistan or Syria to the United States. It's certainly not as if they are fleeing liberal democracies in order to enable themselves to live in a Sharia state in the United States. I think that is complete nonsense.
Doug: Friends and relatives I know who supported that legislation about and ideas of a Muslim ban in the United States were, I think, uninformed or not very well informed about what Islam really is. And they allowed their misunderstandings to cloud their judgment in a kind of legitimate search for good public policy that protected American security, I just think they were they were badly informed about Islam.
Penny: I think that's a good spark or a good encouragement to all of us to keep learning. Right. To try to understand the history and the facts. What's politics and what's religion and kind of broaden our perspective so that we can just have a more nuanced understanding of any of these issues.
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