Raymond
Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the Freedom Center, was recently
interviewed by Fronda, a leading website in Poland. The
English-language version of the Polish interview, originally titled “Raymond Ibrahim: Prostration before Islam,” follows:
1. Who is Raymond Ibrahim? A scholar, a writer, an activist? What is his mission and the main goal?
Raymond Ibrahim: I am a little of all that and more. Due to my
background, academic and personal, I have had a long interest in the
Middle East and Islam, especially the historic and contemporary
interaction between Islam and Christianity. After the strikes of
September 11, 2001, I took an interest in the current events of the
region vis-à-vis the West, and what immediately struck me was how, on
the one hand, the conflict was almost identical to the historic
conflict, one of continuity—at least that is how many Muslims were
portraying it.
But on the other hand, in the West, the narrative was very different
and based on a “new paradigm,” one that saw Islam and Muslims as
perpetual victims of all sorts of outside and material pressures, mostly
from the West. Thus the analyses that were being disseminated through
media and academia were to my mind immensely flawed and, while making
perfect sense to people in the West—for they were articulated through
Western, secular, materialistic paradigms—had little to do with reality
as I saw and understood it.
That was one of the reasons I left academia and began writing for
more popular audiences, to try to offer a corrective to these flawed
narratives. My first book,
The Al Qaeda Reader
(2007), was meant to do precisely this—to compare the words of al-Qaeda
as delivered to the West and as delivered to fellow Muslims, and to
show how when speaking to the West, al-Qaeda and other Islamists used
Western arguments, claiming any number of grievances, political and
otherwise, as being the source of their jihad. Obviously such
arguments, widely disseminated by Western mainstream media, made perfect
sense to the West.
But al-Qaeda’s Arabic writings that I discovered when I was working
at the African and Middle Eastern Division of the Library of Congress,
Washington, D.C., and which I translated for the book, made completely
different arguments, basically saying that, irrespective of all
grievances, Muslims must hate and wage jihad on all non-Muslim
“infidels” until they come under Islamic authority, according to the
worldview of Sharia, or Islamic law.
So in a way, you can say my mission since then has been to open
Western eyes to the truths and reality of Islam—at least the reality of
how it is understood and practiced by many Muslims—for Western eyes have
been closed shut in recent times.
2. You have a dual background. You were born and raised in
the U.S. by parents who were born and raised in a Coptic community in
Egypt. Are you the ‘clash of civilizations’ personified? What kind of
advantages and disadvantages does such an identity and upbringing lead
do?
Raymond Ibrahim: That’s an interesting way of putting it. Along with
obvious benefits—being bilingual (Arabic and English), for example—yes,
I do believe my background gives me more subtle advantages. Growing up
cognizant of both worlds and cultures has, I believe, imparted a higher
degree of objectivity to my thinking. Most people’s worldviews are
colored by whichever culture they are immersed in—hence exactly why so
many Western people tend to project their own values on the Islamic
world, convinced that any violence and intolerance that comes from that
region must be a product of some sort of socio-political or economic
“grievance”—some sort of material, not religious, factor. While I
understand, appreciate and participate in Western values and norms,
because of my “dual” background, I also cannot project such values and
norms on non-Western peoples (and vice-versa, of course).
This has caused my worldview to be, I believe, more neutral and
objective, less colored by cultural values and references. Conversely, I
have, so far, not encountered any notable disadvantages from such a
background—other than perhaps being overly objective and not always able
to participate in the common.
3. In addition to numerous articles in a variety of media, you are also the author of two books. The last one, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians argues that martyrdom is not a thing from the past. It is not a book with a happy ending, is it?
I prefer to think of it as a dire wake up call to the West. The
topic of Muslim persecution of Christians is a perfect example of what
I’m talking about. In
Crucified Again, I look at the history of
this phenomenon, the Islamic scriptures that support it, and the modern
era. And what I find and document is unwavering continuity. According
to Islamic teaching, Christians and other non-Muslims are “infidels,”
and as such, they are seen as at best third class subjects in Islamic
states. They cannot build or renovate churches, display crosses or
Bibles; they have to pay tribute with humility, according to Koran 9:29;
they cannot speak well of Christianity or criticize Islam. They are
even required to give up their seats to a Muslim if he demands it,
according to strict Islamic teaching (and as found in the “
Conditions of Omar,” an important text that discusses how Christian minorities are to be treated under Islam).
Now if you look at history—as recorded by early Arabic/Islamic
historians—you will see that that is exactly how Christians were treated
under Islam for centuries; that is exactly how nations like Egypt,
Syria, Turkey, and all of north Africa, went from being Christian
majority to Muslim majority over the centuries: most Christians opted to
convert to Islam rather than constantly suffer from third-class status
as well as sporadic persecution.
And today, what we are seeing is simply the ongoing continuation of
history, as Christians continue to be persecuted, continue to dwindle in
numbers in lands that were Christian centuries before Western Europe
embraced the faith. Yet, according to Western analysts, etc., all of
this is some sort of “misunderstanding” or because Muslims are angry
about Israel—anything and everything but codified religious intolerance,
even though the latter is so well documented, doctrinally,
historically, and in current events.
4. There are many initiatives aimed at bringing the ‘spirit
of dialogue’ between the religions. In the Catholic Church we even
celebrate a Day of Islam. What is your opinion on this kind of
inter-faith outreach? Will it be successful in decreasing the
persecution of Christians or helping individuals like Asia Bibi?
Raymond Ibrahim: No, it will exacerbate Christian persecution. From
my perspective, the more the West and/or Christianity kowtow to
Islam—and that is what modern day “interfaith outreach” often amounts
to—the more aggressive that religion becomes.
Here, again, is another example of Westerners projecting their norms
onto others, namely, Muslims. In the Western paradigm, itself an
offshoot of Christianity, showing tolerance and forgiveness will
supposedly cause some sort of reciprocation from the one being forgiven
and tolerated—since everything is always supposedly a
“misunderstanding.” Yet in Islam, might has always made right, and
“tolerance” has always been seen as sign of equivocation or weakness—a
lack of conviction. If Christians praise Islam, so many Muslims
conclude, that is because they feel it is the truth—not because they are
trying to find commonalities, a paradigm that is foreign to classical
Islam, which sees the world in terms of right (Islam) and wrong
(non-Islam).
Again, history sheds some light on this. In the medieval era, there
were Christians like Francis of Assisi who tried to have dialogue with
Muslims—but in order to get to the truth, including by asking hard
questions about Islam often in the context of Christian teaching. Such
dialogue is of course admirable because it is sincere. But trying to
have dialogue in order to find and parade some minor
“commonalities”—while overlooking and ignoring the fundamental
differences, which are much more immense and the true sources of
conflict—is simply a game of wasting time.
5. In your writings regarding the Muslim persecutions of
Christians, two themes are constantly recurring. Firstly, you claim that
it constitutes “an elephant in the room” and secondly you believe that
liberal academia and media are biased “whitewashing Islam and blaming
the West” for Islamic attacks against non-Muslims. Can you explain the
reasons for such arguments?
It’s the “elephant in the room” because few things show such
remarkable continuity between the past and the present—while still being
thoroughly ignored and treated as an aberration by academia, media, and
government—as Muslim persecution of Christians. If you look at the
true history recorded by both Muslims and Christians during the Medieval
era—one Muslim historian tells of how one caliph destroyed 30,000
churches—you will see that the persecution and subjugation of Christians
is an ironclad fact of history.
Today, not only do we see Christians persecuted from one end of the
Islamic world to the other, but we see the same exact patterns of
persecution that Christians experienced centuries ago, including
hostility for and restrictions on churches, hostility for the crucifix
and other Christian symbols and icons, restrictions on Christian worship
and freedom. (I discuss this in more depth
here and
here.)
As for academia and media, they reject modern day persecution of
Christians for a plethora of reasons—not least because they tend to be
ideologically anti-Christian—but primarily because it contradicts their
entire narrative, specifically the notion that, far from being
persecuted, Christians themselves are the most intolerant groups, and
that Muslims are “misunderstood others” who have been oppressed by the
West.
These themes are today so predominant in the West that few can
believe they are almost entirely fabricated—but so they are, according
to both history and current events, both of which are naturally
suppressed or distorted by academia and media in the interest of keeping
their ideologically-charged narrative alive.
6. In her book, Tenth Parallel, Eliza Griswold writes
that religion becomes means of political emancipation, especially
between the equator and the tenth parallel, where Christianity and Islam
meet. So perhaps it is not about spirituality but power?
Raymond Ibrahim: Again, one need only turn to history, followed by
doctrine, to see that mainstream Islam has always been about power. Its
founder and prophet, Muhammad, was a warlord, who went on caravan raids
and incited his followers to attack and plunder other tribes that
rejected his “prophecy,” seizing their property and women and
children—and all in the context of “God told me so.” After his death,
his followers did the same, giving people three choices: be part of
their “team” by converting, or else keep their religious beliefs, but
pay tribute and live as third class subjects, or else die. In this
context, and over the course of several centuries of jihadi conquest,
the Islamic world was forged.
All this is well justified by the Koran and Islamic Sharia. Compare
and contrast this with Christianity’s founder, Jesus Christ: far from a
warlord, he preached mercy, peace, and spirituality. And that’s one of
the problems: Westerners are so well acquainted with Christianity that
they tend to project its approach to Islam—naively thinking that all
religions must be the same, primarily spiritual, not concerned with the
temporal. But Islam is immensely concerned with the temporal—with
power.
7. You have written about conceptual failures dominating the
Western discourse on Islam. What are the main fallacies and why are they
dangerous?
Raymond Ibrahim: Along with the aforementioned fallacy of projecting
Christian/Western worldviews onto a distinctly different
religion/civilization like Islam, secular Westerners almost always try
to understand Islam through secular and materialistic paradigms—the only
paradigms they themselves are familiar with. Thus the mainstream
interpretation in the West is that “radical Islam” is a byproduct of
various sorts of material discontent (economic, political, social) and
has little to do with the religion itself.
Westerners apparently think this way because the secular, Western
experience has been such that people respond with violence primarily
when they feel they are politically, economically, or socially
oppressed. While true that many non-Western peoples fit into this
paradigm, the fact is, the ideologies of Islam have the intrinsic
capacity to prompt Muslims to violence and intolerance vis-à-vis the
“other,” irrespective of grievances.
Conceptually, then, it must be first understood that many of the
problematic ideologies associated with radical Islam trace directly back
to Sharia, Islamic law. Jihad as offensive warfare to subjugate
“infidels” (non-Muslims); mandated social discrimination against
non-Muslim minorities living in Muslim nations (the regulations
governing
ahl al-dhimma); the obligation to hate non-Muslims—
even if a Muslim is married to one—all
of these are clearly defined aspects that have historically been part
of Islam’s worldview and not “open to interpretation.”
For example, the obligation to wage expansionist jihad is as “open to
interpretation” as the obligation to perform the Five Pillars of Islam,
including praying and fasting. The same textual sources and methods of
jurisprudence that have made it clear that prayer and fasting are
obligatory, have also made it clear that jihad is also obligatory; the
only difference is that, whereas prayer and fasting is an “individual”
duty, jihad is understood to be a “communal” duty (a
fard kifaya). All these intricacies must be understood before Westerners can understand Islam on its own terms.
8. One of the most popular views as to the reasons of Islamic
terrorism is that it is based on political and economic grievances. The
recipe to achieve the peaceful world would be then to remove the
factors contributing to poverty or oppression and this way disarm the
‘relative deprivation’ bomb. Do you think it is feasible?
Raymond Ibrahim: Again, as mentioned, political and economic
grievances may be a reality; yet it is a distinct fact that, wherever
Islam is—including in immensely rich nations like the Gulf
nations—violence and intolerance of non-Muslims exist. For example,
Christian persecution around the world today is being committed at the
hands of Muslims of all races, languages, cultures, and socio-political
circumstances: Muslims from among America’s allies (Saudi Arabia) and
its enemies (Iran); Muslims from economically rich nations (Qatar) and
from poor nations (Somalia and Yemen); Muslims from “Islamic republic”
nations (Afghanistan) and from “moderate” nations (Malaysia and
Indonesia); Muslims from nations rescued by America (Kuwait) and Muslims
claiming “grievances” against America. Moreover, much of the
underdeveloped world is suffering from economic, political, and social
problems—and yet it is the Islamic world where terrorism in the name of
God (Allah) is rampant. One does not hear of, say, disenfranchised
Cuban dissidents crashing explosive-laden vehicles into government
buildings—while screaming Jesus is great. Yet sceams of Allah is great
in the context of terror attacks are ubiquitous.
9. You have devoted one of your publications to the concept of taqiyya. Can you explain what taqiyya is and why is it important to know it in the West?
Raymond Ibrahim: Although Muslims are exhorted to be truthful,
taqiyya
is an Islamic doctrine that permits them to deceive non-Muslims, who by
nature are deemed enemies. Some Western scholars and apologists for
Islam insist that taqiyya is a very arcane teaching developed by Shi’a
and to be used only when their lives are in danger. In reality,
however, taqiyya—as well as its sister teaching,
tawriya—is
used by mainstream Islam (Sunnism) and gives Muslims great freedom to
deceive infidels if the deception can be rationalized as a way to help
empower Islam over non-Muslims.
Normative Islamic teaching is so that, almost anything can be
rationalized as permissible—for example “martyrdom operations” (even
though suicide is banned by Islam)—as long as they can be perceived as
helping empower Islam. Islamic prophet Muhammad himself permitted
deceit, including to one’s wife. One of the few Arabic language books
devoted to the subject,
At-Taqiyya fi’l-Islam (Dissimulation in Islam) makes it clear that
taqiyya is
hardly limited to Shi‘a dissimulating in fear of persecution. Written
by Sami Mukaram, a former Islamic studies professor at the American
University of Beirut and author of some twenty-five books on Islam, the
opening sentences of the book clearly demonstrate the ubiquity and broad
applicability of
taqiyya: “
Taqiyya is of fundamental
importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and
practices it … We can go so far as to say that the practice of
taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream …
Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.”
10. Do you have any words of advice to countries like Poland
where the influence of Islam is still relatively weak but increasing due
to immigration and certain radicalization of indigenous Muslim groups
(e.g. Polish Tatars stopped their traditional prayers for Poland which
used to be their custom)?
Raymond Ibrahim: My advice is to take heed of what I call “
Islam’s Rule of Numbers,”
which is basically the unwavering, statistical fact that, the more
Muslims grow in numbers (and thus strength), the more aggressive they
become. In the U.S., for example, where Muslims are
less than 1% of the population,
acts of Islamic intolerance are relatively uncommon. Islamic
assertiveness is limited to political activism dedicated to portraying
Islam as a “religion of peace,” the painting of any and all critics as
“Islamophobes,” and sporadic, but clandestine, acts of terror.
In some Western European nations, where Muslims make for much larger
minorities—for example, the UK and France—open violence and religious
intolerance is common. But because they are still a vulnerable minority,
Islamic violence is always placed in the context of “grievances,” a
word that, as we have seen, pacifies Westerners.
Where Muslim numbers reach 35-50% of a population, the full-blown
jihad is often declared, as in Nigeria, which although is half Christian
half Muslim is also one of the most dangerous places in the world to be
a Christian. In short, Islamic aggressiveness is very much a product
of Islamic strength in numbers. I discussed this at length
here.
11. Inevitably one stumbles upon the ‘so what?’ question.
Nobody persecutes Christians in France and churches are not burnt in
Germany. It is doubtful that Europe will be washed away with the waves
of Islam. To the contrary, it looks like Europe wants to leave religions
behind. Would you not say so?
Raymond Ibrahim: Much of this view is based on selfishness, of the
modern West’s egoistic and highly individualistic worldview. What such
people are really saying is that, by and large, if nothing changes and
people remain indifferent, they themselves and their generation will go
through life fine without much worry from the Islamic question. But
this position also shows absolute indifference to future generations and
the world they will inherit. In short, yes, most Europeans today may
not personally suffer from Islam. But they are opening the floodgates
wide to the potential suffering of their descendants.
