The answer to Islamic State: by sword – or word?

More than by military attacks, the Islamic State, commonly known as ISIS or ISIL, can be defeated if more Muslims counter its message that faith can come through coerced acts of presumed piety rather than freely chosen spiritual understanding.

|
AP Photo
Displaced Christians wait for relief last July near Mosul, Iraq. Iraqi Christians fled the city in the wake of threats from Islamic State militants who imposed a deadline for Christians to convert to Islam, pay a tax, or face death.

As world leaders try to counter the killing spree of the militant group Islamic State, better known as ISIS, they should take note of this trend: More Muslim leaders are challenging the group’s core message that faith can be compelled by the threat of violence.

The basic error in the group’s message is more than simply that terror in the name of religion – in this case Islam – is permissible. Rather, the Islamic State is also mistaken in a more fundamental way: It demands an outward conformity in behavior, such as women being veiled in public or men wearing beards, as a necessary first step for a person to achieve an understanding of doctrine.

In other words, doing religion will necessarily lead to believing in it. Action somehow begets spiritual thought. And if a person does not act with certain physical signs of faith, then killing is justified.

Many religions have fallen into this trap of trying to compel understanding through coerced deeds. But debunking it is crucial to countering IS. The more Muslims stand up for the idea that faith is first from the heart – a personal commitment to the peace and selflessness that all major religions teach – the more likely is it that young Muslims will decide not to join IS.

The ultimate response to this jihadi advance, in other words, is active persuasion by the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims about their peaceful approach to faith.

To be sure, IS’s advances in Iraq and Syria will likely need a military response to halt the ongoing killing of innocents, whether Muslims, Christians, Kurds, or others. But the more critical “frontline” is among Muslims in those countries where young men are being tempted to join IS, often through social media. And those countries range from North America to Europe to the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia, of all such places, is on that frontline. Hundreds of young Saudis have joined IS over the past year. They have not been deterred by a law against doing so. This finally pushed King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud to strongly denounce the Islamic State last month, saying Islam teaches tolerance and a maximum preservation of life.

But his words were not enough. On Aug. 19, the leading religious figure in Saudi Arabia, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, also spoke out. “Extremist and militant ideas and terrorism which spread decay on earth, destroying human civilization,” he said, “are not in any way part of Islam, but are enemy number one of Islam, and Muslims are their first victims.”

His words are an echo of similar sentiments uttered recently by top Islamic figures from Iran to Egypt, a sign of how much IS challenges Muslims.

For Saudi Arabia, such denunciations are a sign of progress. The kingdom has long promoted a brand of Islam that uses the authoritarian, nonelected state to impose religious behavior as a way to prevent apostates and create a society based on a literal interpretation of ancient texts. The Islamic State is simply a more virulent and less organized version of that approach. The IS commander, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has proclaimed himself as both the military and religious leader of a newly declared caliphate, or a state built on the kind of strict rule as recorded in the early centuries after Islam’s founding.

The long history of spreading a faith by the sword – which includes Christianity – must come to an end. But using sword against sword will not be enough. Religion, to live up to its role as a fount of peace, must be seen as something freely chosen. And that starts in a person’s thinking, not acts of enforced piety.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to The answer to Islamic State: by sword – or word?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2014/0901/The-answer-to-Islamic-State-by-sword-or-word
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe