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God-Fearing PeopleWhy are we so scared of offending Muslims?

By Christopher HitchensPosted Monday, July 30, 2007, at 12:33 PM ET

During the greater part of last week, Slate's sister site On Faith (it is jointly produced by Newsweek and washingtonpost.com, both owned by the Washington Post Co., which also owns Slate) gave itself over to a discussion about the religion of Islam. As usual in such cases, the search for "moderate" versions of this faith was under way before the true argument had even begun. If I were a Muslim myself, I think that this search would be the most "offensive" part of the business. Why must I prove that my deepest belief is compatible with moderation?

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Unless I am wrong, a sincere Muslim need only affirm that there is one god, and only one, and that the Prophet Mohammed was his messenger, bringing thereby the final words of God to humanity. Certain practices are supposed to follow this affirmation, including a commitment to pray five times a day, a promise to pay a visit to Mecca if such a trip should be possible, fasting during Ramadan, and a pious vow to give alms to the needy. The existence of djinns, or devils, is hard to disavow because it was affirmed by the prophet. An obligation of jihad is sometimes mentioned, and some quite intelligent people argue about whether "holy war" is meant to mean a personal struggle or a political one. No real Islamic authority exists to decide this question, and those for whom the personal is highly political have recently become rather notorious.

Related in Slate

Lee Smith reviewed Abdul Rauf's book What's Right With Islam, which makes a case for moderate Muslims. In the wake of the reported "Quranic abuse" at Guantanamo, Christopher Hitchens argued that we were indulging Islamist violence. He also wrote that there will always be Muslim fanatics enraged about something, and there isn't much we can do about it.

Thus, Islamic belief, however simply or modestly it may be stated, is an extreme position to begin with. No human being can possibly claim to know that there is a God at all, or that there are, or were, any other gods to be repudiated. And when these ontological claims have collided, as they must, with their logical limits, it is even further beyond the cognitive capacity of any person to claim without embarrassment that the lord of creation spoke his ultimate words to an unlettered merchant in seventh-century Arabia. Those who utter such fantastic braggings, however many times a day they do so, can by definition have no idea what they are talking about. (I hasten to add that those who boast of knowing about Moses parting the Red Sea, or about a virgin with a huge tummy, are in exactly the same position.) Finally, it turns out to be impossible to determine whether jihad means more alms-giving or yet more zealous massacre of, say, Shiite Muslims.

Why, then, should we be commanded to "respect" those who insist that they alone know something that is both unknowable and unfalsifiable? Something, furthermore, that can turn in an instant into a license for murder and rape? As one who has occasionally challenged Islamic propaganda in public and been told that I have thereby "insulted 1.5 billion Muslims," I can say what I suspect—which is that there is an unmistakable note of menace behind that claim. No, I do not think for a moment that Mohammed took a "night journey" to Jerusalem on a winged horse. And I do not care if 10 billion people intone the contrary. Nor should I have to. But the plain fact is that the believable threat of violence undergirds the Muslim demand for "respect."

Before me is a recent report that a student at Pace University in New York City has been arrested for a hate crime in consequence of an alleged dumping of the Quran. Nothing repels me more than the burning or desecration of books, and if, for example, this was a volume from a public or university library, I would hope that its mistreatment would constitute a misdemeanor at the very least. But if I choose to spit on a copy of the writings of Ayn Rand or Karl Marx or James Joyce, that is entirely my business. When I check into a hotel room and send my free and unsolicited copy of the Gideon Bible or the Book of Mormon spinning out of the window, I infringe no law, except perhaps the one concerning litter. Why do we not make this distinction in the case of the Quran? We do so simply out of fear, and because the fanatical believers in that particular holy book have proved time and again that they mean business when it comes to intimidation. Surely that should be to their discredit rather than their credit. Should not the "moderate" imams of On Faith have been asked in direct terms whether they are, or are not, negotiating with a gun on the table?

The Pace University incident becomes even more ludicrous and sinister when it is recalled that Islamists are the current leaders in the global book-burning competition. After the rumor of a Quran down the toilet in Guantanamo was irresponsibly spread, a mob in Afghanistan burned down an ancient library that (as President Hamid Karzai pointed out dryly) contained several ancient copies of the same book. Not content with igniting copies of The Satanic Verses, Islamist lynch parties demanded the burning of its author as well. Many distinguished authors, Muslim and non-Muslim, are dead or in hiding because of the words they have put on pages concerning the unbelievable claims of Islam. And it is to appease such a spirit of persecution and intolerance that a student in New York City has been arrested for an expression, however vulgar, of an opinion.

This has to stop, and it has to stop right now. There can be no concession to sharia in the United States. When will we see someone detained, or even cautioned, for advocating the burning of books in the name of God? If the police are honestly interested in this sort of "hate crime," I can help them identify those who spent much of last year uttering physical threats against the republication in this country of some Danish cartoons. In default of impartial prosecution, we have to insist that Muslims take their chance of being upset, just as we who do not subscribe to their arrogant certainties are revolted every day by the hideous behavior of the parties of God.

It is often said that resistance to jihadism only increases the recruitment to it. For all I know, this commonplace observation could be true. But, if so, it must cut both ways. How about reminding the Islamists that, by their mad policy in Kashmir and elsewhere, they have made deadly enemies of a billion Indian Hindus? Is there no danger that the massacre of Iraqi and Lebanese Christians, or the threatened murder of all Jews, will cause an equal and opposite response? Most important of all, what will be said and done by those of us who take no side in filthy religious wars? The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant, or neutral, without inviting their own suicide. And the advocates and apologists of bigotry and censorship and suicide-assassination cannot be permitted to take shelter any longer under the umbrella of a pluralism that they openly seek to destroy.

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Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the Roger S. Mertz media fellow at the Hoover Institution.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

I think the Pace case may fall into the gray area. If I pile burning Qurans in the yard of a Muslim, well, that's not desecrating the Quran so much as it's a not-so-veiled threat of violence on my part. If I flush a Quran down a public toilet, however, the threat is much less clear. The vandalism is clear, maybe even the distaste for the religion, but it is not in itself a threat of violence against an actual person or group.

That should be the standard in these cases, whether or not actual threat of violence is behind an act, or whether an act merely offends by flaunting someone else's religious beliefs. Hitchens is right, though, that we should be very careful indeed not to slip into the role of enforcing someone else's religious beliefs with the coercion of law.

--kolmogorov

(To reply, click here.)

Hitch is slightly less than ignorant when he asserts that those who claim to KNOW that scripture is to be taken literally are kinda nutty. Of course, the same charge is equally valid against those who claim to know that scripture is solely manufactured by self serving charlatans. Both Hitch and the literal interpretists belong to the same category of arrogant buffoons who spend their sordid intellectual lives creating a small number of vast, absolutist categories to lump the rest of us in.

I don't know very intimately what actual impact Muslim fundamentalists have on the gov'ts of most Muslim nations. From what I read, outside of Iran and a few other far more insignificant places, the role of the Muslim fundamentalist is that of jail bird and torture subject. That's one of the major gripes that Muslims of all stripes have against the Good Ol' US of A -- we sponsor gov'ts that repress Muslim practice.

Conversely, in our country, Christian fundamentalists, due to their self promoted and highly dubious claims to electoral muscle, get a direct line into the most influential policy makers in D.C. Combined with the Israeli lobby-- a group of hard core idolators if ever there were-- they have had immense impact on setting the terms of our foreign, and particularly middle eastern-- policy.

Muslim fundamentalists, in seeking to impose Sharia law on whatever society are at least promoting a system that is functional, even if not consistent with our republican form of gov't. Christian fundamentalists, on the other hand, in addition to imposing fundamentalist Christian theology on our Republic, seek, policies which would hasten the coming of Armageddon.

In which case, not only is Hitch throwing stones from a glass house, he's ignoring his housemates who are throwing stones from inside their own glass house, hoping to bring the whole thing crashing down.

I and others can raise our objections to fundamentalist Christian nutbaggery without bringing in the billion or two non-fundamentalist Christians into the mess. Episcopaleans don't have to wake up every morning and fret about what some evangelical a-hole did the night before that he's got to account for. That just isn't right.

Yet, Hitch seems to think it is the duty of every Muslim to wake up and worry about what some Rushdie hating fool might have done or is planning to do. Worse, he asserts that simply by being foolish enough to avow that there is but one God and Mohammed is his prophet, one does indeed take on the sins of all Muslims. Certainly, he seems to think that some extraordinary duty of oversight and correction is imparted.

Well, bullshit. For years, I avoided any claim of being a "Christian" precisely because I felt that in doing so I'd be taking on the sins of the nutbag "Christians" who act out. Then I realized how unfair that was to me and to all other Christians. I am not responsible for what they do in Christ's name, and I refuse to impart any responsibility on any Muslim for what others do in the name of Allah.

In fact, under my belief system, which Hitch would undoubtedly ridicule, only one person ever had to take on the sins of everyone else.

Done and done.

Or, as that fella said, "It is accomplished."

--doodahman

(To reply, click here.)

I disagree about purposefully insulting any religion because it only gives them ammunition. Most deeply religious people are simple, naive, or paranoid. The more you insult them, the more they are convinced that you are the devil's hand-children. That incites violence.

--Ex-Pat

(To reply, click here.)

"The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant, or neutral, without inviting their own suicide." I would assume that if one is an enemy of intolerance, tolerance would come natural -- and more than mere tolerance: Respect and understanding. Yes, the enemies of intolerance need to be the enemies of the intolerant, and act accordingly. But in doing so, if they want to achieve anything at all, they need to show scrupulous respect for the rights, interests and beliefs of others.

"And the advocates and apologists of bigotry and censorship and suicide-assassination cannot be permitted to take shelter any longer under the umbrella of a pluralism that they openly seek to destroy." It is not about anyone seeking or being granted shelter under "the umbrella of pluralism." If you seriously believe in a secular society, as I assume Hitchens does, then its most logical basis is a universal set of human rights, agreed upon by people, consenting and informing, without appeal to any divine origin. But the point about such rights is that to be valuable, and useful as a basis of society, they have to be all-inclusive. No exceptions to be made, however convenient.

--Mutatis Mutandis

(To reply, click here.)

(7/30)

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