53334-141204-the-islamic-state-movement-elaborating-on-a-well-established-ideology

Based on media publications, many Islamic State fighters are not Arabs, but rather volunteers who travel to Iraq and Syria to join the organization. Among these volunteers are thousands of Western educated young men, but also women, and a few Arab Israeli men. There are also millions of sympathizers around the world who praise the IS ideology and practices.

One of the paramount questions is what prompts these individuals to leave careers and families to join this radical organization. What type of education did they receive in their democratic homeland and how did this influence their decision?

Many Muslim scholars condemn the practices of IS, yet refrain from criticizing the Islamist ideology that has fueled the organization’s popularity. The origins of this ideology are to be found in the Islamic education system that teaches the speeches and practices of Prophet Muhammad as being above question and literal Truth. The US-led coalition raids may sooner or later defeat IS. Yet, defeating it without eradicating this education system is like, in Marx’s terminology, destroying the building’s roof while keeping the pillars standing.

Indeed, every religion claims to be the best, and Islam in this regard is no exception. Islam, however, is unique among the monotheistic religions in that it seeks to disseminate its beliefs among non-Muslims through force. IS has adopted this practice and taken it one step further. In the name of Islam, IS has committed atrocities reminiscent of the most radical and ethnically intolerant movements in human history.

Like Nazism, that elaborated on the already existing anti-Semitism in Europe, IS builds upon a well-established consensus that non-Muslims, especially members of religious minorities established after Islam, are heretics. Akin to fundamentalist Christians who believe that Jesus is the Messiah and that Jews should abandon their religion and believe in him, Islamists take this step further and promote the use of force against those who refuse to believe in Prophet Muhammad as the Envoy of God and the last prophet.

For IS, bringing Sunni Kurds under the rule of Sharia`a law and eliminating those, such as the Yazidis of Iraq, who refuse to abandon their religion and adopt Islam, is blessed by God. Indeed, while IS does not in any way represent Islam as a religion, and most Muslims around the world condemn its practices, many still refuse to condemn its ideology because that would be considered a condemnation of Islam itself.

Yet, is it possible for Islamic nations to ultimately be transformed into democracies without defeating the Islamist religious establishment? Should secular Islamic scholars who “dare to criticize”, Islam such as Salman Rushdie, Wafa Sultan, Farag Foda or Nasr Abu-Zayd, be compelled to go underground and into exile because they express their opinion about Islam?

On a different note, I was recently reading one of my students’ seminar papers about the perception of King David in Islam. Muslims regard David as a prophet, and ancient Arab writers found it hard to accept the Jewish interpretation that Prophet Dawood committed adultery by sleeping with a married woman, Bathsheba, and sent her husband Uria to the front lines in the hopes that he would be killed so that King David could marry his widow. These writers do not accept that even prophets are humans who could commit misdemeanors, and that in modern democracies, where we make our judgments based on universal values, prophets are simply not above criticism for their deeds.

The only way to stop young men and women from joining IS is to start with the Islamic education system. People who condemn IS practices should not stop short of criticizing the Islamic religious teachings that endorse using force for the sake of imposing Islam on others. By the same token, Islamic education must facilitate multiculturalism and reinforce the need to accept the Other. Further, secular Muslims should counter Islamists head to head. A clash with the Islamists is inevitable given that they condemn anyone who criticizes Islam or in essence, disagrees with them.

Lastly, I agree with many Arab-Israeli scholars who criticize the definition of Israel as a Jewish (democratic) state, yet what seems to me hypocritical is that these same scholars refuse to criticize Islamic tenets that do not tolerate freedom of religion.

The author is an Arab-citizen of Israel, assistant professor of international relations and fellow at the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies, Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.