Islam as a World Power

1
Islam as a World Power

• Michael Goheen
• Trinity Western University
• Langley, B.C.

2
Importance of Understanding Islam

• Size 1.2 billion 2025 1.8 billion
• Growth fastest growing religion in world
  (percentage-wise)
• History of animosity between Christianity and
  Islam, and West and Islam
• Misunderstanding of Islam
• Global power

3
New World Order

• 20th Century Bipolar (US, USSR)
• Fall of Communism
• New world order
• One world order globalization and modernization
• Bipolar north/south east/west
• Chaos
• Clash of civilizations

4
Major Forces of Global Power

• West globalization/modernization
• Islam
• China and economic power
• Third world church and Pentecostalism

5
Clash Between Islam and West

• Major clash Islam and West
• Problem Understand religion as private belief
• Islam is not a religion in the common,
  distorted meaning of the word, confining its
  scope to the private life of man. It is a
  complete way of life, catering for all the fields
  of human existence. Islam provides guidance for
  all walks of life . . . The Quran enjoins man to
  enter the fold of Islam without any reservation
  and to follow Gods guidance in all fields of
  life. (Ahmed)

6
Clash Between Islam and West

• Major clash Islam and West
• Problem Understand religion as private belief
• Clash between two major religions and
  civilizations built on those beliefs
• I dont think there is a conflict between
  religions. There is a conflict between
  civilizations. (Muslim lawyer from Tunisia)

7
Mohammeds Formative Influence

• Mohammed/Koran Final revelation of God
• Historical and cultural context
• Religious animistic polytheism
• Moral immorality and corruption
• Social warfare, tribal strife, poverty, injustice

8
Mohammeds Public Life

• 15 years preparation (595-610)
• Night of power (610) Gabriel Proclaim
• Rejection and hostility in Mecca
• Hijra to Medina
• Turning point in world history (calendars)
• Rejected prophet to powerful leader
• Capable of establishing ummah
• Includes politics, society, economics

9
Koran

• Recorded revelations from Gabriel to Mohammed
  Final revelation of Allah
• Given to Mohammed over 22 years
• One God, One Law for One People
• Intended to create ummah united in faith and in
  submission to Allahs law
• Memorized by Mohammed written down by scribes
  collected into present form 20 years after
  Mohammeds death

10
Ummah and Its Mission

• Ummah Community of believers submitted to will
  of Allah
• Includes political structure, social community,
  economic system, civil law
• Early ummah of Medina normative
• Peace Comprehensive submission to Allah
• Two regions dar al-salaam/islam and dar al-harb
• Mission Establish peace throughout world by
  striving (jihad)

11
Formative Core of Islam

• Mohammed was possessed by two great religious
  aims--to proclaim God as the sole, almighty God,
  the Creator and the King of the day of judgement
  to found a community, in Arabic called umma,
  ruled by the Law of God and His Apostle. These
  two objects constitute the core of Islam, its
  strength and its weaknesses (Hendrik Kraemer).

12
Muslim Resurgence

• Growth and vitality
• Self-consciousness of world power
• Quest to establish states governed by shariah law
• Anti-western
• Military tendency
• Oil-based wealth

13
Struggle with the West

• Struggle between two comprehensive religious
  beliefs
• The underlying problem for the West is not
  Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different
  civilization whose people are convinced of the
  superiority of their culture and are obsessed by
  the inferiority of their power. The problem for
  Islam is not the CIA or the U.S. department of
  defense. It is the West, a different
  civilization whose people are convinced of the
  universality of their culture and believe that
  their superior, if declining, power imposes on
  them the obligation to extend that culture
  throughout the world. These are the basic
  ingredients that fuel conflict between Islam and
  the West. (Huntington).

14
Struggle with the West

• Struggle between two comprehensive religious
  beliefs
• Three Muslim responses
• Acceptance of West and modernity

15
Acceptance of Western Modernity

• To escape anomy, Muslims have but one choice,
  for modernization requires Westernization. . .
  Islam does not offer an alternative to modernize
  . . . Secularism cannot be avoided. Modern
  science and technology require an absorption of
  the thought processes religious beliefs which
  accompany them. . . . Only when Muslims
  explicitly accept the Western model will they be
  in a position to develop (Daniel Pipes).

16
Acceptance of Western Modernity

• The restoration of religion to the sphere of
  the personal, its depolitization, is the nettle
  that all Muslim societies must grasp in order to
  become modern. . . . If terrorism is to be
  defeated, the world of Islam must take on board
  the secularist- humanist principles religion . .
  . in other words convert! on which the modern is
  based, and without which Muslim countries
  freedom will remain a distant dream (Salman
  Rushdie).

17
Struggle with the West

• Struggle between two comprehensive religious
  beliefs
• Three Muslim responses
• Acceptance of West and modernity
• Accept modernity, reject Westernization

18
Accept Modernity, Reject West

• Islam and modernization do not clash. Pious
  Muslims can cultivate sciences, work efficiently
  in factories, or utilize advanced weapons.
  Modernization requires no one political ideology,
  or set of institutions . . . The Sharia has
  nothing to say about the changes that accompany
  modernization . . . (Daniel Pipes).

19
Struggle with the West

• Struggle between two comprehensive religious
  beliefs
• Three Muslim responses
• Acceptance of West and modernity
• Accept modernity, reject Westernization
• Rejection of West and modernity

20
Rejection of Western Modernity

• Growing among Muslims
• Taliban example
• Return to original ummah as model
• Problem of static religion in world of change
• Response of terrorism

21
Islam is . . .

• . . . a comprehensive system that tends to
  annihilate all tyrannical and evil systems in the
  world and enforce its own program. . . . a
  revolutionary concept and ideology which seeks to
  change and revolutionize the world social order
  and reshape it according to its own concept and
  ideals. (Mawlana Abul Ala Mawdudi 1903-1979)

22
New Style of Terrorism

• Primary purpose is not to defeat or even weaken
  the enemy militarily but to gain publicity and to
  inspire feara psychological victory. (Bernard
  Lewis)

23
Response of Muslims to Muslim Terrorism

• Genuine Islamic actions
• Allah has answered our prayers. (Hamas Weekly,
  13 September 2001)
• Our driving motivation does not come from
  tangible commodities that this world has to
  offer. Our religion is Islam, obedience to the
  one true God, Allah, and follow in the footsteps
  of the final prophet and messenger Muhammad
  (Mohammad Sidique Khan)

24
Response of Muslims to Muslim Terrorism

• Genuine Islamic actions
• Cannot be justified by Islamic teaching
• Those who plan and carry out such acts are
  condemned by Islam, and the massacre of
  thousands, whoever perpetrated it, is a crime
  against God as well as humanity. (Zaki Badawi,
  Muslim College, London, UK)

25
Response of Muslims to Muslim Terrorism

• Genuine Islamic actions
• Cannot be justified by Islamic teaching
• Sympathize with motives yet condemn actions

26
Sorting it all out

• Two crucial questions
• Historical origins associated with violence yet
  claims to be religion of peace?
• Meaning of jihad?
• Muslim jurists saw jihad as a requirement in a
  world divided between what they called dar
  al-islam and the dar al-harb. The Muslim
  community was required to engage in the struggle
  to expand the dar al islam throughout the world
  so that all of humankind would have the
  opportunity to live within a just political and
  social order. (John Esposito, on way jihad has
  been understood for centuries)

27
Jihad

• . . . a defining concept or belief in Islam, a
  key element in what it means to be a believer and
  follower of Gods will . . . A universal
  religious obligation for all true Muslimas to
  join the jihad to promote a global Islamic
  revolution. (John Esposito)
• For most of the fourteen centuries of recorded
  Muslim history, jihad was most commonly
  interpreted to mean armed struggle for the
  defence or advancement of Muslim power. (Bernard
  Lewis)

28
Questions

• Offensive and/or defensive?
• Include violence?
• Is Islam a religion of peace, as Muslim
  moderates (and Tony Blair and George W. Bush)
  say, or is it a religion prone to violence and
  holy war, as statements by radical groups
  suggest? . . . The answer lies not in an
  either/or response, but rather in a bothand
  response. The Islamic texts offer the potential
  for being interpreted in both ways. It depends on
  how individual Muslims wish to read them.
  (Riddell and Cotterell)

29
Christian Response

• Sympathetic understanding of roots of Muslim
  rage

30
Major Grievances (Chapman)

• The weakness and humiliation of the Muslim world
• New forms of Western imperialism
• Failure of ideologies imported from West
• Establishment of Zionist state in midst of Islam
• Presence of foreign troops in Saudia Arabia
• Corrupt and autocratic governments in Islamic
  countries
• Double standards

31
Christian Response

• Sympathetic understanding of roots of Muslim
  rage
• Distinguishing between gospel and Western culture
• Diversity of Islam and battle for Muslim mind
• . . . there is a titanic struggle taking place
  between moderates and radicals for the hearts and
  minds of the Muslim masses in the middle.
  (Riddell and Cotterell)

32
Christian Response

• Sympathetic understanding of roots of Muslim
  rage
• Distinguishing between gospel and Western culture
• Diversity of Islam and battle for Muslim mind
• Interpreting terror
• Violence and terrorism do form an intrinsic part
  of classical Islam (Patrick Sookhdeo, Institute
  for Study of Islam and Christianity)
• Ambiguity of Koran but mainstream Islam, in law
  and theology as well as in practice, in the end
  has always rejected or maginalized extremists and
  terrorists (Esposito)

33
Sorting out theological and political factors

• Theological
• Ummah as social-religio-political community
• Mission of ummah dar al-salaam, dar al-harb,
  jihad
• Islam eschatology
• Resentment toward West
• Historic resentment toward Christianity
  (Crusades)
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Sanctions against Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan
• Ascendency and universalizing of West moral,
  political, legal, religious, economic
  implications
• Critique of West godless, immoral, arrogant,
  materialistic, seductive, imperialistic
• Back pro-Western regimes

34
Christian Response

• Sympathetic understanding of roots of Muslim
  rage
• Distinguishing between gospel and Western culture
• Diversity of Islam and battle for Muslim mind
• Interpreting terror
• Distinguishing gospel and Islam

35
Islam and Gospel

• Both Islam and Christianity see religion as
  comprehensive and not simply private
• Islam has been more consistent in maintaining
  this
• We need to repent of dualism
• Yet fundamental difference Islamthis-worldly
  victory gospelintervention of Christ

36
Tolerance Christianity and Islam

• What is unique about the Christian gospel is
  that those who are called to be its witnesses are
  committed to the public affirmation that it is
  truetrue for all people at all timesand are at
  the same time forbidden to use coercion to
  enforce it. They are therefore required to be
  tolerant of denial . . . not in the sense that we
  must tolerate all beliefs because truth is
  unknowable and all have equal rights. The
  toleration which a Christian is required to
  exercise is not something which he must exercise
  in spite of his or her belief that the gospel is
  true, but precisely because of this belief. This
  marks one of the very important points of
  difference between Islam and Christianity.
  (Lesslie Newbigin)

37
Christian Response

• Sympathetic understanding of roots of Muslim
  rage
• Distinguishing between gospel and Western culture
• Diversity of Islam and battle for Muslim mind
• Interpreting terror
• Distinguishing gospel and Islam
• Repentance and dialogue

38
Dialogue about . . .

• Toleration and Islam
• Islamic imperialism in first centuries
• Debate about democracy among Muslims
• Treatment of minorities and women
• Issue of conversion
• Preservation of democracy after used to gain
  power
• Human rights Islam and UN
• (Colin Chapman)

39
Christian Response

• Sympathetic understanding of roots of Muslim
  rage
• Distinguishing between gospel and Western culture
• Diversity of Islam and battle for Muslim mind
• Interpreting terror
• Distinguishing gospel and Islam
• Repentance and dialogue
• Bold and humble witness to gospel