Islamofascism Speaker Misses The Point

Note: This article was published today in the Brown Daily Herald. Originally a blog post, it was written in response to a recent speech by Robert Spencer who visited the campus for Islamofascism Week. As I outline here, I think it is a serious mistake to reference random passages in the Koran in order to paint Islam as inherently violent or oppressive. It's the interpretation that matters, and there are very broad differences in how Muslims view their faith. Most don't, in fact, believe in those more violent or exclusivist elements that Spencer and other such commentators are quick to cite.

There was an elephant in the room during Robert Spencer's provocative speech last Thursday night. Spencer, the director of the website Jihad Watch, spoke as part of "Islamofascism Awareness Week" and presented a simple but highly controversial argument: that Islam is a religion of violence and oppression. Citing passages in the Quran, Spencer suggested that the Islamic faith inherently condones misogyny, abuse of homosexuals, authoritarianism and the killing of non-believers. "I do not believe that Islam at its core is a peaceful religion," he said.

But while there is little debate that segments of the Quran could be read as a justification for bigotry or abuse, what Spencer left unsaid - a glaring omission that many in the audience later commented on - is that the overwhelming majority of Muslims don't actually follow the passages that he cited. Throughout the Islamic world, there is little support for the notion that apostates should be killed, that non-Muslims should be taxed separately or that women should be mistreated. As with all religions, most adherents of Islam view the Quran as flexible and open to interpretation. While certain passages are embraced and followed carefully, others are tacitly rejected and ignored.

In fact, there are numerous ways of reading and interpreting the Quran in its historical context. As'ad AbuKhalil, a professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, suggested in a recent phone conversation that there is a "very broad interpretation of Islam across many different countries and cultures."

In 2003, AbuKhalil debated Spencer for FrontPage Magazine, an online conservative publication. Responding to Spencer's assertion that Islam inherently condones violence and misogyny, he pointed out that it is absurd to cite random passages of the Quran and assume that "every Muslim is now looking for a pagan to kill, or that every Muslim engages in the beating of his wife." The reality, he said, is that "people of every religion react to their holy text, whether it is the word of God or prophet, with much more flexibility." Only fanatics follow the more "disturbing, intolerant, and exclusivist elements of the three holy religions."

Indeed, as AbuKhalil indicates, the nature of a religion's holy book is rarely a good indicator of whether or not its followers will adopt violence or radicalism. Instead, it is the interpretation - dependent on numerous social, political and material factors - that is transmitted by local religious authorities and community leaders that matters most.

Few would disagree, for instance, that the Bible contains many of the same intolerant elements that the Quran does. The Old and New Testaments include passages that could be read as condoning the objectification of women, violence towards non-believers, and the abuse of slaves. Take Samuel I 15:2-3: "Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." Or Ephesians 5:22-23: "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife..." Or read Titus 2:9-10, in which it is stated that "slaves (are) to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them..."

Despite these passages, most observers would not argue that Christians and Jews believe in the subjugation of women, the continuation of slavery or harsh punishment for non-believers. As with Islam, most of those who follow the Judeo-Christian faiths disregard certain passages in favor of more tolerant ones.

Although Spencer was quick to paint Islam as flawed and incompatible with international human rights norms, the reality is much more nuanced, as events in the Muslim world over the past few years illustrate. Consider the following examples: a prominent Saudi cleric, and a former mentor to Osama bin Laden, recently argued that Islam rejects all forms of violence "regardless of what justification is given"; the ruling Islamist party in Turkey has passed the greatest expansion of women's rights in almost a century; Iranian citizens came out in huge numbers after 9/11 to protest against terrorism; the Muslim king of Morocco has allowed women to become imams; and Egypt's largest opposition political party, the Muslim Brotherhood, openly affirms pluralism, democracy and welfare for women.

The ways in which Islam, with roughly 1.6 billion adherents, is understood and practiced vary dramatically across different cultures and regions. Citing harshly-worded parts of the Quran to suggest that Islam is inherently a religion of violence and oppression, as Spencer did in his speech, dehumanizes its followers and irresponsibly ignores the vast majority of Muslims who do not subscribe to such an interpretation. Regrettably, rather than building ties and commonalities between people of different faiths and backgrounds, Spencer used his appearance here at Brown to sharpen divisions and to perpetuate false and destructive stereotypes.