I 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:- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
Raymond Ibrahim: 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.
- 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.
- 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?
Raymond Ibrahim: 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… Keep reading
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