The latest attack against members of a Sikh temple has commonly been placed in context of a mistaken identity by a lone and ignorant supremacist. The target should have been a Muslim mosque, so it is believed, as if that would constitute an entirely different and understandable, probably even tolerable act of violence. This broad “consensus” about the real target raises some fundamental questions about American Islamophobia: Is there any substance to the suspicions of (Christian) America that their territory might be subverted with Sharia law?

 

Considering the widespread religious killings and arson attacks across the world, including on our home soil, we should ask whether the various Judaic religions are indeed as peaceful as they claim to be. The simple answer is to be found in history: since the birth of Judaism, heresies – whichever that means - have kept the world to hold its breath. The trouble with all Judaic sects is that there is only one truth, theirs. All others are to be excluded, shunned, or terminated until there is only one in a happy theocracy of fearful believers.

 

The more disturbing answer pertaining to Islam is given by the great Muslim scholar Mohammed ibn Khaldun of the fourteenth century:

 

 

We can continue to dismiss the atrocities of one religious group against another and excuse them as mishaps of extreme individuals. Instead, we should have a better ear for the conduct of leaders in the synagogues, mosques, churches, and temples. We find Koran burning priests, Catholic preachers against homosexuality, political opportunists, pedophiles, filthy rich gospel prophets, and other charlatans across the country and the world, not to forget some prominent imams with their expressed hatred of mankind – other than their own supporters. Many build their followings on the exclusion of others and on stimulating violence and war, however, always out of the spotlight. The triggers are then pulled by the ignorant foot-folks, and these are excused because God conducts the killings (Koran 8:15). They die as martyrs in God’s way.

 

“Peace” in any religious context is always to be understood by the terms of the individual sect, not as an approach to mutual toleration. More specifically, the Koran is a message of peace and kindness, but only among their own disciples. The rest of humanity is to be viewed in the context of victory.

 

 

Sharia law is somewhat “better” than the Koran. On one hand, it puts the authority to violence into the hands of the imams. Muslims are, according to their laws, not allowed to act alone and not without provocation. On the other hand, it launches jihad between Shi’ites and Sunnis, and against the Jews, a war of bomb attacks and killings of innocents that has been ongoing ever since up until this very day.

 

 

We can twist and turn as we wish, American Islamophobia rests on substance. However, in the end, the Muslim doctrines are only part of a larger religious context that plays within the same core rule: exclusion of all that do not submit to their single truth. This rule does not justify any violent acts against Muslims or any other religious groups.

 

To defend the straight forward jihadist commands in the Koran and in the Sharia laws, one would have to put jihad into the greater historical context, an undertaking that would rewrite the story of Prophet Muhammad and the rise of Islam. What would emerge is a call to jihad against a holy war that had been declared against the “Arabs” by the Byzantine Empire – an act of self-defense. They were taking a stand against the forced conversion to Orthodox Christianity. A historical view of jihad would bring about the hope that the wars among believers were in the past.

 

The modern jihad is to be won in a cold war of freedom and prosperity for all, not a piling up of weapons of mass destruction and a demonstration of force by extremists who blow themselves up and indulge in poverty and self-inflicted suffering.

 

August 12, 2012

A.J. Deus