Toward a kinder, gentler Islam
We often hear it said that the war against ISIS is a war between two competing ideologies. The ideology of ISIS is clear - it is a perverse distortion of Islam, in which an apparently bloodthirsty deity approves of massacres, beheadings, torture, murder,
What is the ideology of its opponent, the largely secular West? Presumably it is liberal democracy, which includes freedom, equality, human rights and the will of the people. That will sound fine to secularists. Dyed-in-the-wool jihadis will merely laugh.
Secularists and zealous monotheists are locked into mutually exclusive mindsets that make it impossible for them to understand each other. Secularists care about the rights of the individual. Zealous monotheists care only about the will of God. The difficulty lies in interpreting that elusive concept.
Fortunately, Islam has at its core a message that can refute the malign interpretation of ISIS, if only “moderate” Muslims will champion it with sufficient vigour. It will not convince hardened jihadis, who are too set in their beliefs to listen to anybody. But it might convince fence-sitters and Muslims who are tempted by ISIS rhetoric.
This golden message is the Bismillah, an invocation that appears at the beginning of every chapter of the Koran except the ninth. Because the Koran repeats it so frequently (113 times), and because it is so prominent in Islamic liturgy, it can be considered to embody the essence of Islam. In Arabic it reads “Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim.” In English this translates as “In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful” (A Yusuf Ali translation).
Other translations render al-Rahman as “the Compassionate” (NJ Dawood) and “the Beneficent” (Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall). In whatever way al-Rahman may be translated, every translation of al-Rahim I’ve ever seen renders it as “the Merciful” or “Most Merciful”.
We may reasonably assume that, if God were gracious, compassionate, beneficent and merciful, he would want us to emulate him and cultivate the same virtues in ourselves. This gives us a template for interpreting Islam. Every thought, word, deed, belief, practice, movement, organisation and institution that is gracious, compassionate, beneficent and merciful is in accordance with Islam. Those that are the exact opposite – cruel, pitiless, maleficent, merciless – are antagonistic to Islam and ought to be opposed by every right-thinking Muslim.
Judged by this standard, the so-called Islamic State is actually anti-Islamic. Massacres, beheadings, torture, murder, rape and the other atrocities they commit can hardly be considered desirable by a gracious, compassionate, beneficent and merciful God. By assuming that God approves of such atrocities, ISIS insults him and commits blasphemy. Presumably they don’t listen to anybody, because by now somebody must have told them.
It is by championing and striving to emulate God’s virtues of graciousness, compassion, beneficence and mercy that what is best in Islam can triumph over what was never part of Islam to begin with.
William Page
