Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now by Ayaan Hirsi Ali Page B
Authors: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
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now something of a joke not only among non-Muslims who mock the “religion of peace” (or the “religion of pieces”) but also among Medina Muslims, who openly express contempt for those Muslim clerics who declare that the “peaceful” Meccan verses of the Qur’an somehow abrogate the later and more violent Medina ones.
Consider Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the accused Boston Marathon bombers. Growing up, the brothers were typical of Mecca Muslims: they rarely observed Islamic strictures: one had dreams of becoming a boxing champion and spent most of his days training while the other had a busy social life, dated girls, and smoked pot. The parents—at least in their early years in the United States—do not seem to have been very devout. When Dzhokhar, a graduate of the prestigious Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, wrote a bloodstained note in the final hours before his capture, the first words he invoked were the same words that I first learned from my grandmother as a very small child: “I believe there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger.” 3 As we have seen, that is the Shahada, the Muslim profession of faith, and it is the most important of the five pillars of Islam. Today the Shahada is the banner of IS, Al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram. It is also the banner of Saudi Arabia, the country that has used so much of its wealth to spread to every corner of the world the practice of Islam in Medina fourteen centuries ago.
Embracing violent jihad has become an all-too-common means for young Muslims to resolve the cognitive pressures of trying to lead an “authentic” Muslim life within a permissive and pluralistic Western society. As we saw earlier, many first-generation Muslim immigrants to the West opt to cocoon themselves and their families, trying to put a wall between themselves and the society around them. But for their children this is simply unsustainable. For them, the choice becomes a stark one between abandoning their faith or embracing the militant message of Medina. “If I were younger and instead of 9/11 it was the Syrian conflict,” Maher recently admitted, “there’s a very, very good chance I would go. Instead of studying them, I would be the one being studied.” 4
These pressures are not going away. The question is whether or not a third way exists. Must all who question Islam end up either leaving the faith, as I did, or embracing violent jihad?
I believe there is a third option. But it begins with the recognition that Islamic extremism is rooted in Islam itself. Understanding why that is so is the key to finding a third way: a way that allows for some other option between apostasy and atrocity.
I left Islam, and I still think it is the best choice for Muslims who feel trapped between their conscience and the commands of Muhammad. However, it is unrealistic to expect a mass exodus from Islam. This fact leads me to think of the possibility of a third option. A choice that might have enabled someone like me to remain a believer in the God of my family. A choice that might somehow have reconciled religious faith with the key imperatives of modernity: freedom of conscience, tolerance of difference, equality of the sexes, and an investment in life before death.
But in order for that choice to become possible, Muslims have to do what they have been reluctant to do from the very beginning—and that is to engage in a critical appraisal of the core creed of Islam. The next question that has to be addressed is why that has proved so incredibly difficult. After all, I am far from being the first person to call for a Reformation of the religion of my birth. Why have all previous attempts at a Muslim Reformation come to nothing? The answer lies in a fundamental conflict within Islam itself.
CHAPTER 2
WHY HAS THERE BEEN NO MUSLIM REFORMATION?
I n 2012, the Harvard Kennedy School invited me to lead a study group dealing with the intersection of religion, politics,
Consider Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the accused Boston Marathon bombers. Growing up, the brothers were typical of Mecca Muslims: they rarely observed Islamic strictures: one had dreams of becoming a boxing champion and spent most of his days training while the other had a busy social life, dated girls, and smoked pot. The parents—at least in their early years in the United States—do not seem to have been very devout. When Dzhokhar, a graduate of the prestigious Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, wrote a bloodstained note in the final hours before his capture, the first words he invoked were the same words that I first learned from my grandmother as a very small child: “I believe there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger.” 3 As we have seen, that is the Shahada, the Muslim profession of faith, and it is the most important of the five pillars of Islam. Today the Shahada is the banner of IS, Al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram. It is also the banner of Saudi Arabia, the country that has used so much of its wealth to spread to every corner of the world the practice of Islam in Medina fourteen centuries ago.
Embracing violent jihad has become an all-too-common means for young Muslims to resolve the cognitive pressures of trying to lead an “authentic” Muslim life within a permissive and pluralistic Western society. As we saw earlier, many first-generation Muslim immigrants to the West opt to cocoon themselves and their families, trying to put a wall between themselves and the society around them. But for their children this is simply unsustainable. For them, the choice becomes a stark one between abandoning their faith or embracing the militant message of Medina. “If I were younger and instead of 9/11 it was the Syrian conflict,” Maher recently admitted, “there’s a very, very good chance I would go. Instead of studying them, I would be the one being studied.” 4
These pressures are not going away. The question is whether or not a third way exists. Must all who question Islam end up either leaving the faith, as I did, or embracing violent jihad?
I believe there is a third option. But it begins with the recognition that Islamic extremism is rooted in Islam itself. Understanding why that is so is the key to finding a third way: a way that allows for some other option between apostasy and atrocity.
I left Islam, and I still think it is the best choice for Muslims who feel trapped between their conscience and the commands of Muhammad. However, it is unrealistic to expect a mass exodus from Islam. This fact leads me to think of the possibility of a third option. A choice that might have enabled someone like me to remain a believer in the God of my family. A choice that might somehow have reconciled religious faith with the key imperatives of modernity: freedom of conscience, tolerance of difference, equality of the sexes, and an investment in life before death.
But in order for that choice to become possible, Muslims have to do what they have been reluctant to do from the very beginning—and that is to engage in a critical appraisal of the core creed of Islam. The next question that has to be addressed is why that has proved so incredibly difficult. After all, I am far from being the first person to call for a Reformation of the religion of my birth. Why have all previous attempts at a Muslim Reformation come to nothing? The answer lies in a fundamental conflict within Islam itself.
CHAPTER 2
WHY HAS THERE BEEN NO MUSLIM REFORMATION?
I n 2012, the Harvard Kennedy School invited me to lead a study group dealing with the intersection of religion, politics,
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