Sometimes the summer break is a time when, thankfully, we can get away from the News. We put away our gadgets, refuse to spend money on English newspapers abroad, and stop watching television or listening to radio in whatever language. This year, however, shutting ourselves off from the News may have been a cause of anxiety. What was happening in Gaza and Israel, how were things developing in Iraq, was there any hope for Syria and what new acts of terrorism and communal atrocity were happening in parts of the Middle East of which we have never before been aware?
And returning as I did last week, we find the headlines full of terrible pictures of a kneeling journalist and a man with his face covered and a knife in his hand standing next to him. And the man it seems is British. And subsequently we read that the kneeling man, James Foley, has been beheaded.
The Muslim Council of Great Britain has condemned ‘the psychopathic violence’ of the IS (Islamic State) organisation. The British Government is redoubling its efforts to stop young Muslims going to fight in the Middle East. And yet other than by increasing the surveillance of fundamentalist Islamic groups how might this be done? What might be the result of asking searching questions about why young, often well educated, Muslim men go to fight and to die as ‘martyrs’ in Syria or Iraq? There might be several ways of answering that question; they have been brain washed; they are simply evil. And no doubt brain washing does occur and some of their leaders may be very evil men – but such answers don’t go far enough in helping us to understand why these men are inspired by the ethos of jihad – of holy war even though to us there seems nothing holy about it. It may be that they go because they want to help the Muslims they identify with who are suffering in the conflict in Syria or Iraq. It may be that they have become disillusioned by their parents’ way of life. It may be that in one way or another they have come to feel inadequate and need a cause to establish their sense of self worth. Yet these last issues are perhaps more personal, beyond the bounds of government policy making.
On the other hand, a willingness to fight, however mistaken we might think the cause to be, may at some level be born out of a sense of idealism, a desire to change the world for the better. It is not obvious that young jihadists are being recruited out of self-interest. The promise of martyrdom, though it may involve a reward, is always understood as being in a good cause. So what is it that jihadists find wrong with our society? And what is it that leads them to think that only a violent jihad can change the world?
We might think for a moment about what the word ‘jihad’ actually means. The concept can be divided into a greater and a lesser category. The former is the internal struggle against sin in oneself; the latter is the defence of Islam against aggression or persecution. It may be the jihad of the pen or tongue as well as of the sword. The Qu’rān contains strict guidelines as to how such conflict is to be regulated which involve sparing women, children and the sick, and the homes of non combatants, and their means of subsistence. And violence is not to be used to convert others, as there ‘cannot be compulsion in religion.’
We might wonder how it is that some Islamic groups seem to us to be bypassing elements of the Qu’rān that seem to contradict their position, but more importantly we need to know why it is that Muslims in our own society can adopt such a violent view of Jihad? One obvious reason might be that they find much about our society to be in contradiction with the Qu’rān as they read it, though such readings may be selective, and they despair of being able to do anything about it other than by force of arms.
Islam holds that the existence of a multiplicity of nations is the result of humankind’s disobedience to God’s law – as we see in a story like that of the Tower of Babel. The sovereignties of land, resources, languages and race came to replace the sovereignty of God. Thus human loyalties became divided between spiritual obedience to God and the claims made by worldly values and governments on the other. Hence the desire among Muslims for the establishment of a world order, which would establish a just and lasting peace without tyranny. For some Muslims this means the restoration of a Caliphate in which Islamic law governs the life of such a world order. For others there is a recognition that such a world order must embrace all the religious, social and cultural distinctions and differences in the world as legitimate. Whichever the case the underlying recognition is that the world needs a new order of international ethics, law and jurisprudence. Humanity desperately needs to be saved from endless competition, mistrust and meaningless suffering, destruction of the environment and the possibility of nuclear war.
How are we to commit ourselves to bringing about such a new world order, or are we too cynical or pessimistic even to think that such commitment could be worthwhile? In this context we might begin to understand how some Muslims of all ages might be tempted to join groups which they see as fighting for a new world order – even though such groups may be naive, misguided, cruel, violent and in the end deeply un-Islamic.
But the question remains; to what extent do the politics and politicians in our British society offer any kind of vision or ideal which might inspire us and help us to work for improvements in our neighbourhood or country? What might our politicians and communal leaders do to counteract cynicism and pessimism, and a retreat into a me-first culture? How might all the faiths join together in a spiritual jihad, a jihad of pen and tongue, a jihad which is akin to the Christian preaching of the good news of the Kingdom of God?
Sunday 24th of August – St Bartholomew’s Day – which we have just celebrated – is notorious in Christian history, because of the St Bartholomew’s day massacre which took place in Paris in 1572, when an attack by Catholics on leaders of the Protestant community lead to similar persecutions in different parts of France. It is now hard to estimate exactly how many people were killed for their faith (anywhere between five and thirty thousand), nevertheless, it was a culmination of the French wars of religion and the worst of the 16th century’s religious massacres. It “printed on Protestant minds the indelible conviction that Catholicism was a bloody and treacherous religion”. (Chadwick, H. & Evans, G. R. (1987), Atlas of the Christian Church)* As we read now about the religious massacres going on in the Middle East, it is perhaps salutary to remember that we have been there too, and in understanding our own history, not to condemn other faiths but to join with them to see how we can work together for greater peace and justice in our society and in our world.
With my love and prayers,
The Vicar writes
Stephen Tucker