The reformist Muslims’ mixture of truth and illusion

Hassan Butt is a former jihadist in Britain who became a reformist Muslim. Reformist Muslims need to be distinguished from moderate Muslims. Moderate Muslims say: “Islam does not support extremism and terrorism, the jihadists are not real Muslims, they have nothing to do with us.” By contrast, the reformists, such as Butt and Irshad Manji, speak the truth about Islam (though Manji is ambiguous on this, see below), that Islam does indeed allow extremism and terrorism, and they say further that their aim, in Butt’s words, is to “dissect the radicals’ interpretation of Islam and fight back against terrorism.”

But this is still an illusion. Yes, the reformists are more honest than the moderates, in that they straightforwardly admit the jihadist elements in Islamic doctrine. But they are still living in a dream, in that they imagine that this doctrine can be changed. In reality, the radicals’ interpretation of Islam is perfectly in keeping with orthodox Islam. There is and can be no Islam that forbids the sharia-commanded jihad against non-Muslims, that forbids the sharia-commanded killing of apostates, that prohibits the sharia-commanded spreading of sharia law.

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Further insights about moderate Muslims and reformist Muslims can be gleaned from a March 2005 thread at Jihad Watch. Discussing a statement from a group called Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism, Robert Spencer starts off by making, with his usual excellent clarity on this subject, the same point I make above about the moderate Muslims:

All I am saying is this: if someone wants to identify himself as a Muslim and yet eschew the jihad ideology now and in the future, a good way to start would be by being honest about what his religion actually teaches, and working from that basis. Saying that Islam actually teaches peace is not only inaccurate and deceptive; it also won’t hold up against questioning from jihadist Muslims. Unless the vision of peaceful Islam that these groups put forward is strong enough to convince Muslims that violent jihad is not the way, it has no value.

In the same thread, Hugh Fitzgerald asks:

And just how many Believers would believe this “new” Islam, this Islam which would interpret away virtually the entire geopolitical aspect of Islam…

And the Qur’an cannot be the only canonical text so treated. What about the Hadith and the Sira? Is Muhammad a model for all mankind or is he not? If he is, what about the assassination of Asma bint Marwan, and several others, or the execution of the hundreds of prisoners of the Bani Qurayza, or the attack on the inoffensive Jewish tribe in the Khaybar oasis, or dozens of other events in his life, including the consummation of his marriage to Aisha when she was nine, which has taken on great significance because it has had practical consequences—in the Islamic Republic of Iran, one of Khomeini’s first acts was to reduce the marriageable age of girls to 9 (Khomeini himself had married a 10-year-old when he was 28).

What about those Hadith? Will someone anoint himself a new Bukhari or Muslim, and winnow the stories differently, casting out as “inauthentic” (and on the basis of what isnad, or transmission-chain?) all the Hadith that spell trouble for Infidels…

Note that Fitzgerald criticizes the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism group for saying that Islam can be re-interpreted, which makes the group sound like reform Muslims rather than moderate Muslims. This only shows how close the two ideas really are. After all, how much difference is there between saying, a la moderate Islam:

“The terrorists and jihadists are not real Muslims but criminals. The real Islam is peaceful.”

and saying, a la reform Islam:

“The sad truth is that terrorism and jihadism are indeed based in Islamic doctrine. But this is not the only possible interpretation of Islamic doctrine. We can go back and re-interpret Islam as a peaceful religion.”

The moderate Muslims say that there is a peaceful Islam. The reform Muslims say that there can be a peaceful Islam. Both assertions are interpretations of Islam that require support in the canonical Islamic texts to be believable. And such support is, of course, non-existent. So in this sense, moderate Islam and reform Islam are the same.

The only difference between moderate Islam and reform Islam concerns their view of jihadist Islam. The moderates say that there is no basis in Islam for jihadism and that the jihadists are simply criminals. The reformists say that there is a genuine basis in Islam for jihadism. But both the moderates and the reformists insist that Islam is, or can be interpreted as, a peaceful religion, and in this sense they are equally dangerous. In both cases, they convince Westerners that the Westerners simply need to align themselves with the moderate or reformist Muslims and that this will strengthen the good Islam and ultimately the bad Islam will cease to be a problem. Thus both the moderate Muslims and the reformist Muslims lead the West into letting down its guard against Islam, enabling the power of Islam to continue to grow among us.

Finally, it should be noted that the reformist Muslim Irshad Manji is contradictory on whether there is a genuine basis in Islam for jihadism. Sometimes, as in her New York Post article which I discussed recently, she says jihadism is based in Islam. Thus she approvingly quotes the former jihadist Hassan Butt’s statement that the “real engine of our violence” is “Islamic theology.” From this follows her conclusion that Islam needs to be “reinterpreted.” But in the same article, indeed in the same paragraph, she says that “it’s time to admit that Islam’s scripture and history are being exploited.” But if the jihadists are “exploiting” Islam, then jihadism is not a true interpretation of Islam but a false interpretation of Islam, which would obviate the need to “re-interpret” Islam, wouldn’t it? If one of the leading reformist Muslims can’t decide whether jihadism is or is not legitimately based in the Islamic texts, what does that say for the reform movement, the supposed mission of which is to confront the negative truths about Islam?

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Ortelio writes:

Your explanation of the difference between reformist and moderate Muslims is illuminating and important. But another feature of Hassan Butt’s articles—this new one and earlier ones alike—is worth comment. He writes English well enough to know that his sentence, “We need to discuss and refashion the set of rules that govern how Muslims—whose homes and souls are firmly planted in the West—live alongside non-Muslims,” includes the assertion that Muslims in the West have not only homes but also souls firmly planted in the West. Not some but virtually all Muslims in the West.

“We’re firmly planted, we’re determined to stay, don’t even think of us not being around any more, whether or not we Muslims reform”—that is surely the meaning he wanted his British, non-Muslim readers to take away as his main message to them.

He’s a brave man, daily menaced by Muslim extremists. But he is still promoting a deception. How does he know that the older generations of Muslim immigrants in Britain were loyal in the main? Those loyalties were never tested. The overwhelming prevalence among Muslims in Britain of the belief that 9/11 was not the work of Muslims is just one of many indications that the older generation as well as their children and grandchildren were and are living in a parallel universe, where real loyalty to real-world Britain—which would be a real indication of a soul firmly planted in the West—was and is practically impossible.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 15, 2007 01:20 AM | Send