The recent anti-Islamic feeling in America (49% of Americans in a recent poll), consisting in some places of hostility verging on hatred, is largely a result of fear, and this fear has been stimulated both by the media and exploitative politicians (you know who I'm talking about). But I would argue that it is confusion and ignorance that is at the root of this fear, as is so often the case. We fear what we don't know, just like we fear the darkness beyond the comforting light of our flashlight. And so we fear the boogeyman called Islam, because we know almost nothing about it, except for a few mythic (and either wrong or irrelevant) stereotypes. So it is incumbent upon us to learn something about this 'great religion', the second largest religion in the world next to Christianity. Even better, we need to understand Islam as a great civilization, arguably as important in the world history of the last 2,000 years as Western/Christian Civilization.
In my previous posts on Islam, we looked very briefly at the origins and foundations of Islam, particularly its holy book, the Koran. We saw that the Koran was, in large part, simply a paraphrase of the scriptures of the Jews and the Christians, because Muhammad saw himself as a prophet in the line of great prophets of Judaism and Christianity, and therefore he took over as his own the basic narrative of the Bible. (Anyone who has actually read the Koran, as I have, knows this is true.) Yes, there are differences, particularly concerning the divinity of Jesus (as there is with Judaism as well!), and there are peculiarities (to us anyway) stemming from ancient Arabic culture. But I think it is possible to say that the religion that developed out of the thought, speaking, and life of Muhammad is more similar to than different from the two great religions that it followed (especially when compared to the Asian religions or modern Western secularism or neo-paganism). If you wanted to find a 'common denominator' among the three religions, you probably couldn't do better than the two great biblical commandments to love God and neighbor.
How then did Islam spread so far and so fast, developing into one of the largest political empires in history within a century after the death of Muhammad? You could ask the same question about Christianity, actually. How did the religion of a few fisherman from Galilee become the official religion of the great Roman Empire within 300 years after the death of the simple preacher/healere from Nazareth? And the answer is largely the same in both cases: although the believers spread the faith personally to others, most people converted to the religion once the political leaders had converted and it was 'politic' to do so.
In the case of Christianity, once Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity around 320 AD, within the next 60 years or so, most members of the Roman Empire became Christian, because it made sense to do so for social as much as religious reasons. Likewise, in the 7th-8th centuries, once the Arabian tribes expanded their political rule both east and west, the conquered peoples found it 'politic' to adopt the religion of the rulers, Islam. They were, for the most part, not forced to do so, they wanted to do so, for social as well as religious reasons.
In this way, the areas of Europe and the Middle East (mostly present-day Turkey, Syria, and Israel/Palestine) under the rule of the Roman Empire became Christian, while the areas of the Middle East, Central and South Asia, Africa, (and a little of Europe), became Islamic. And in turn, these became great 'civilizations', one Greco-Roman-Christian (speaking Latin) and one Arabic-Persian-Egyptian-Asian Islamic (speaking Arabic). Each civilization flourished in terms of the economy, political complexity, arts and sciences, literature, and inventions, though at different times. The Islamic civilization grew and prospered from the 8th to the 13th centuries primarily (its 'Golden Age'), while Christian civilization went into a slump we call the 'dark ages', from which it did not recover until around 11th century and the high 'Middle Ages'. (At the edges of the two civilizations, there was armed conflict which we refer to as the 'Crusades'. But for the most part, the two civilizations stayed separate and apart, developing their own distinct cultures.)
Around the 16th century, the Christian West entered the modern period of its life, with the advent of science, technology, and the Enlightenment. From here, the West entered into a new phase of power and expansion which Islam never duplicated. Instead, over time, beginning largely with Napoleon at the end of the 18th century, the West militarily and politically (though not culturally) conquered and dominated Islam. And that has been the case now for over 200 years.
Our Western/Christian domination/exploitation of the Islamic world for the last two centuries is the elephant in the room and largely explains what is happening now. Many Westerners fear Islam, yet it is we who have dominated the Islamic world with our military and economic power. (Many Americans, with their pathetic ignorance of world history, are unaware of this, it seems.)
The current political radicalization of Islam (which goes back almost a hundred years) has been largely a result of our imperialism toward that area of the world, their (fairly feeble and largely defensive) response to our Western interventions. If they had done to us what we have done to them, we would have been radicalized too. Interestingly, the radicalized parts of Islam still represent only a small minority.
In summary, if we take an historical perspective, then we can see that (1) Islam developed over the centuries into a profound world culture and civilization, and (2) that the political radicalization of Islam that we are dealing with now is largely a result of Western/Christian domination of Islamic areas for the last 200 years.
Shalom/Salam/Eirene/Pax/Peace. (To be continued)
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