A fantastic essay, brilliantly argued and written... The ideological response to ISIS must be cast from outside the realm of religious authority altogether. You see, Islam in particular, and holy text religions in general, are open to interpretation and selectivity. By responding to ISIS from within its own paradigm, one only validates its basic premise - that there is some authority to be derived from religion, and that there is one valid interpretation that trumps all others. There isnt. ISIS has used religion as vehicle for a political project, rather than used politics to advance a religious vision. There is still no honest reckoning about this, and the fact that many Muslims are indeed selective with literal application of the religious text. To admit this would be to concede to the fact that Islam should be a personal matter, not imposed by the state or any political body in any form, and open the doors to secularism. This is the knot at the heart of the question of Islamic reform. (...) The Arab Muslim state, from Egypt to the UAE, is the most complicit in this hypocrisy, promoting non-negotiable religious values and enshrining them in the constitution, education and public order laws, in a sort of curated Islam (dare I say, a real Islam), that dovetails as closely as possible with the governments political needs. (...) The most powerful response to ISIS is to not play the religion game at all - to recognise that all religious rhetoric can be instrumentalised to suit whatever political purpose. So far Arab governments and clergy most threatened by ISIS have chosen to go further down the hypocrisy route, to distance ISIS from their version of Islam while explaining away ISIS extrapolations as out of context or misunderstood. This is a fools game. The start, is less religion as justifier for political actions, not more.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 10:19:56 +0000
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