Toxic Piety
The holiest month in the calendar year for Muslims is now ongoing. Ramadan is the period of the year dedicated to religious spirituality and devotion, at a more concentrated level than is usual, even for a religion whose adherents represent as utterly devoted to their all-encompassing holy muse, as it were, that controls every aspect of life from cradle to grave. In that same tradition Ramadan is seen as a month of jihad; on a personal level a struggle to become, inwardly, a more fervently observant and pure Muslim.On the other hand, the other kind of jihad, the one best known to those outside the conventions of Islam who have witnessed first hand and by news distribution, the jihad expressed by violence and destruction, is also encouraged, celebrated and expressed. Since there is a historical tradition of violent jihad - warfare mounted in support of Allah's wishes to spread the faith - there is a certain legitimacy within the heritage of the religion reflecting past such events.
Battles of note within the tradition of Islam ranging from the year 614 in the battle of Badr, to 630 represent the conquest of Mecca; later a defining battle that saw Islam ensconced in Spain, and finally the 1973 Yom Kippur War with Israel. Islamist jihadists are called to jihad, to do battle in the name of Allah. But these struggles in the sacred name of Allah don't necessarily target the despised West, so much as they do Muslims themselves.
With massive bomb blasts exploding in Iraq killing scores of people, injuring manh hundreds of others. And Afghanistan experiencing one attack after another at the hands of pious mujaheddin, excoriating the Muslim government over its complicity with the West in surrendering to the concept of democracy where only Islam should rule. African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu find themselves targeted.
For fanatical Islamists dedicated to re-establishing a version of universal Shari'a and a political victory that would see Islam's umma revisit its former glory in conquest of reluctant nations outside Islam, the targets are also closer to home. And for Muslims dedicated to Islam it is somehow not seen as blasphemous and injurious to Allah to bomb and destroy mosques, to slaughter other Muslims, simply because factions within Islam detest one another.
Radical Islamists target their moderate brethren-in-religion in countries as diverse as Indonesia, Philippines, Algeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Chechnya, and Bosnia during the holy month of Ramadan, when activities are stepped up notably. Al-Qaeda has not been mute in exhorting that Ramadan campaigns of terror materialize "to come closer to Allah through the blood of infidels". And moderate Muslims are seen as betrayers of the faith, as needful of death as infidels.
"In such pious times, participate in jihad and continue the support to the mujaheddin", urged a spokesman for the Pakistani Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam. "Nowadays, infidel forces want to destroy Islam and the Koranic orders. The fight [against the infidels] is not the responsibility of Taliban and Arab mujaheddin alone; rather it is the responsibility of the entire ummah [Muslim world]."
As a counterbalance, the director of Islamic studies at University of Delaware mourns the current state of Islam in the world: "Ramadan is about returning to the fountain of truth and drinking from it as deeply as possible. Unfortunately, for some Muslims, murder and mayhem rather than prayer and fasting have become a way to celebrate Ramadan."
Of course Islamic nations, their clergy and their academics, experts in Islam, have an obligation to exert themselves in an all-out effort to contradict, to disown and to decry the mass murderers who claim that their atrocities are led by their piety, the dedication to the spirit of jihad as exemplified by the offensives mounted by the Prophet Mohammad, who had Allah's ear.
And, it would appear, to save themselves as much as their religion, they are responding.
From Bangladesh which has begun a public awareness campaign rejecting calls for violent jihad, to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Indonesia, steps are being taken to apprehend terrorist attacks, to campaign against militancy and the provocation leading to bloodshed.
In the spirit of Ramadan.
Labels: Human Relations, Political Realities, Religion
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, August 29, 2009
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