Caliphate and Jihad: Myths and Realities concerning Muslim Terminology
Okay everyone, it's spring break! And I took a pay cut to enter academia so that stuff like this meant something once again. So I am offline after this post, until next Sunday or perhaps Monday. Then we'll resume full speed ahead for some time.
My friend David E. Guinn (who is a writing a book on religion and violence entitled "Constantine's Standard" that you should all pick up when it comes out) put me on Omer Muzaffar's recent laudable post on caliphates and jihad. Though I think he is a careful scholar, I don't actually agree with everything he says here, and thought I'd provide my own analysis on the chasm of misunderstanding between the West and the Muslim world on particular Islamic terms, specifically, caliphate and jihad.
Omer, while criticizing the "Islam means peace" crowd much like I do, does more or less adopt their framework for what jihad means, namely some variety of methods of struggle that subsume but are not limited to violence, and caliphate, which is God's vice-regency on earth, through means again that subsume but are not limited to political institutions. So we can have, according to this, a caliphate that is less political than a moral institution, and a jihad that involves no violence at all. Following this is a criticism of how the Bush administration and the fringe right uses these words--jihad as total world domination through force, caliphate as a religious dictatorship that is heartless, anti-intellectual and rigidly violent.
Technically, purely linguistically, I guess sort of, maybe. But allow me a thought experiment. If we get into a cab in Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Iraq and after striking up a conversation with a cab driver, trading complaints about the US and its policies (that's inevitable) we tell the driver "we have come to your country to help reestablish the caliphate through jihad", what reaction? Of course it's going to depend on the driver, but I would guess it is quite likely that this guy is likely to drop you off at a police station. Because we all know, for reasons that have nothing to do with Fox News, what reestablishing the caliphate through jihad means, and it doesn't mean "peacefully struggling to bring a moral center to the Muslim world".
Jihad is I think deeply misrepresented by the Muslim apologists. We keep being told that it means more than just violence, but here's the thing. In my life, hearing the world many, many times, it is more or less used in two contexts: (i) violence and (ii) as part of a point that jihad means more than violence. It's quite rare, almost unheard of, for someone to use the phrase (at least in the modern era) as part of a peaceful struggle except to make the point that the word retains such a meaning.
But to retain that meaning, you can't actually just say it means that, you have to actually make it mean that through using it that way, and nobody does. Certainly, again, if I go to southern Iraq and say I am here to reestablish true Islam through jihad, nobody thinks I mean anything other than violence. No one. The one time I heard it used in that non violent context, was by I believe nonMuslim white schoolgirls on the #1 line in Manhattan. One told the other that their friend Amanda was, and I quote, "on a total jihad to lose weight".
Similarly, caliphate generally is used to mean the political institution that ruled the Muslim world for centuries (or in the highly stylized history did that, anyway). Generally speaking, that's what people refer to. Again, that meaning is so deeply imbued that the only time Muslims refer to caliphate, they mean that institution, or they are making a point that it can mean something other than that.
So returning to our taxi driver, you say you want to re-establish the caliphate through jihad, he hears "I want to obliterate the Muslim world's nation-states through violence", and he takes it to mean what George Bush takes it to mean, and drops you off at the police station.
At the same time, that does NOT mean there isn't a chasm of misunderstanding respecting the terms "caliphate" and "jihad", but it's more in the connotation. Muslims overwhelmingly view "jihad" positively, which is precisely why Bin Laden uses the term. Jihad is not a bad thing. And so if Muslims take Bin Laden to task, say Shi'a of southern Iraq who despise the guy, they would never say jihad is evil, they would say what kind of jihad is it where innocent people are killed. This is no jihad.
Thus, to the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world, jihad means violence, but legitimate violence. Resisting an evil occupation. Fighting for self determination against colonialism. The romance we associate with the American revolution against England is what pops into the Muslim mind when the term jihad is used. Fighting in defense of what is right. Now I'm not saying that the conception of resistance to colonialism is without flaws, when it involves clear acts of terrorism a la Hamas. But in rejecting that conception, it is important to note that jihad retains a positive tone and that to make it into an evil concept is counterproductive. Far better not to say jihad is evil, but instead to challenge the legitimacy of the supposed jihad in question to say that this use of violence is despicable and why. Because you are not going to get Muslims to agree that the Qur'an's exhortation to jihad is evil, and in the modern world you're not going to be able to disassociate violence from the term jihad, but easily you can have a conversation of what violence is sanctioned through jihad and what is not, and since every society exalts some violence and decries others, this is a conversation that can lead to fruitful places.
I think for caliphate for Sunni Muslims, it's similar. Ironically, though Omer doesn't mention it, Bush's idea of a caliphate as a dictatorship that is cruel, illegitimate, pseudo-religious and anti-intellectual is precisely what Shi'a Muslims think of the institution for historical reasons. But for Sunnis, the caliphate, and particularly the first four caliphs following the Prophet Muhammad's death, are deeply revered and honored, as an idyllic Golden Era. If you say you want Islamic society to be as good as it was in the days of the Righteous Caliphs, well that's considered a good thing. Nothing to criticize there.
The idea that one is going to make the term in Sunni Islam refer to something bad is silly. But one can say, legitimately, that Muslim society is not structured for the return of the truly good caliphs, that the idea of returning Sunni Islam to the caliphate is silly and driven by people who are far, far away from the lessons of truly pious caliphs, etc.
So our taxi driver,depending on who he is, then is likely to agree heartily that Islam needs to be practiced as it was in the time of the early caliphs. He would share the view that there is nobility in jihad against the occupier (for better or for worse). But he would be likely to panic if you said you wanted to restore the caliphate through jihad. Because he knows jihad means legitimate violence, and a caliphate means an honored political institution, and his instinctive reaction is that your notions of legitimacy with violence and the resulting idea of what you consider a legitimate political institution quite frankly are likely to terrify him.
So he actually ends up AGREEING with the Bush administration view of the fellow who says he wants to reestablish the caliphate through jihad, but would be deeply OFFENDED by any categorical notion that jihad was bad, or the caliphate an entity from which to flee.
What's the ultimate moral? I'm not sure, though I think that it would be better for American government officials to approach the terms "jihad" or "caliphate" as they do "Islam", as something that has been sullied rather than as something inherently bad.
But I'm sure that's politically unpalatable in American politics these days, the terms have come to mean what they mean here, which to me only suggests that the tension with the Muslim world is so entrenched that it is likely to continue for decades.
HAH
My friend David E. Guinn (who is a writing a book on religion and violence entitled "Constantine's Standard" that you should all pick up when it comes out) put me on Omer Muzaffar's recent laudable post on caliphates and jihad. Though I think he is a careful scholar, I don't actually agree with everything he says here, and thought I'd provide my own analysis on the chasm of misunderstanding between the West and the Muslim world on particular Islamic terms, specifically, caliphate and jihad.
Omer, while criticizing the "Islam means peace" crowd much like I do, does more or less adopt their framework for what jihad means, namely some variety of methods of struggle that subsume but are not limited to violence, and caliphate, which is God's vice-regency on earth, through means again that subsume but are not limited to political institutions. So we can have, according to this, a caliphate that is less political than a moral institution, and a jihad that involves no violence at all. Following this is a criticism of how the Bush administration and the fringe right uses these words--jihad as total world domination through force, caliphate as a religious dictatorship that is heartless, anti-intellectual and rigidly violent.
Technically, purely linguistically, I guess sort of, maybe. But allow me a thought experiment. If we get into a cab in Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Iraq and after striking up a conversation with a cab driver, trading complaints about the US and its policies (that's inevitable) we tell the driver "we have come to your country to help reestablish the caliphate through jihad", what reaction? Of course it's going to depend on the driver, but I would guess it is quite likely that this guy is likely to drop you off at a police station. Because we all know, for reasons that have nothing to do with Fox News, what reestablishing the caliphate through jihad means, and it doesn't mean "peacefully struggling to bring a moral center to the Muslim world".
Jihad is I think deeply misrepresented by the Muslim apologists. We keep being told that it means more than just violence, but here's the thing. In my life, hearing the world many, many times, it is more or less used in two contexts: (i) violence and (ii) as part of a point that jihad means more than violence. It's quite rare, almost unheard of, for someone to use the phrase (at least in the modern era) as part of a peaceful struggle except to make the point that the word retains such a meaning.
But to retain that meaning, you can't actually just say it means that, you have to actually make it mean that through using it that way, and nobody does. Certainly, again, if I go to southern Iraq and say I am here to reestablish true Islam through jihad, nobody thinks I mean anything other than violence. No one. The one time I heard it used in that non violent context, was by I believe nonMuslim white schoolgirls on the #1 line in Manhattan. One told the other that their friend Amanda was, and I quote, "on a total jihad to lose weight".
Similarly, caliphate generally is used to mean the political institution that ruled the Muslim world for centuries (or in the highly stylized history did that, anyway). Generally speaking, that's what people refer to. Again, that meaning is so deeply imbued that the only time Muslims refer to caliphate, they mean that institution, or they are making a point that it can mean something other than that.
So returning to our taxi driver, you say you want to re-establish the caliphate through jihad, he hears "I want to obliterate the Muslim world's nation-states through violence", and he takes it to mean what George Bush takes it to mean, and drops you off at the police station.
At the same time, that does NOT mean there isn't a chasm of misunderstanding respecting the terms "caliphate" and "jihad", but it's more in the connotation. Muslims overwhelmingly view "jihad" positively, which is precisely why Bin Laden uses the term. Jihad is not a bad thing. And so if Muslims take Bin Laden to task, say Shi'a of southern Iraq who despise the guy, they would never say jihad is evil, they would say what kind of jihad is it where innocent people are killed. This is no jihad.
Thus, to the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world, jihad means violence, but legitimate violence. Resisting an evil occupation. Fighting for self determination against colonialism. The romance we associate with the American revolution against England is what pops into the Muslim mind when the term jihad is used. Fighting in defense of what is right. Now I'm not saying that the conception of resistance to colonialism is without flaws, when it involves clear acts of terrorism a la Hamas. But in rejecting that conception, it is important to note that jihad retains a positive tone and that to make it into an evil concept is counterproductive. Far better not to say jihad is evil, but instead to challenge the legitimacy of the supposed jihad in question to say that this use of violence is despicable and why. Because you are not going to get Muslims to agree that the Qur'an's exhortation to jihad is evil, and in the modern world you're not going to be able to disassociate violence from the term jihad, but easily you can have a conversation of what violence is sanctioned through jihad and what is not, and since every society exalts some violence and decries others, this is a conversation that can lead to fruitful places.
I think for caliphate for Sunni Muslims, it's similar. Ironically, though Omer doesn't mention it, Bush's idea of a caliphate as a dictatorship that is cruel, illegitimate, pseudo-religious and anti-intellectual is precisely what Shi'a Muslims think of the institution for historical reasons. But for Sunnis, the caliphate, and particularly the first four caliphs following the Prophet Muhammad's death, are deeply revered and honored, as an idyllic Golden Era. If you say you want Islamic society to be as good as it was in the days of the Righteous Caliphs, well that's considered a good thing. Nothing to criticize there.
The idea that one is going to make the term in Sunni Islam refer to something bad is silly. But one can say, legitimately, that Muslim society is not structured for the return of the truly good caliphs, that the idea of returning Sunni Islam to the caliphate is silly and driven by people who are far, far away from the lessons of truly pious caliphs, etc.
So our taxi driver,depending on who he is, then is likely to agree heartily that Islam needs to be practiced as it was in the time of the early caliphs. He would share the view that there is nobility in jihad against the occupier (for better or for worse). But he would be likely to panic if you said you wanted to restore the caliphate through jihad. Because he knows jihad means legitimate violence, and a caliphate means an honored political institution, and his instinctive reaction is that your notions of legitimacy with violence and the resulting idea of what you consider a legitimate political institution quite frankly are likely to terrify him.
So he actually ends up AGREEING with the Bush administration view of the fellow who says he wants to reestablish the caliphate through jihad, but would be deeply OFFENDED by any categorical notion that jihad was bad, or the caliphate an entity from which to flee.
What's the ultimate moral? I'm not sure, though I think that it would be better for American government officials to approach the terms "jihad" or "caliphate" as they do "Islam", as something that has been sullied rather than as something inherently bad.
But I'm sure that's politically unpalatable in American politics these days, the terms have come to mean what they mean here, which to me only suggests that the tension with the Muslim world is so entrenched that it is likely to continue for decades.
HAH
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