It has become fashionable to criticize Islam and even to harass Muslims because their religion is not separated from, but integrally governs their daily life. Critics claim that Islam has not advanced to the state where it can distinguish between government and religion. Indeed the American critics, point out, that they, as Christians accomplished this separation some time ago. To justify this they point to the glorious American Constitution, which accomplished historians such as Charles Bread have claimed, is nothing but an attempt by elites to protect their own property. At least, Americans claim, even by this standard the separation is apparent.
What these critics fail to consider is that Islam is a wholistic religion because, apparently unlike Christianity and other religions it does not believe that God distinguishes between what people do in the name of religion and what people do in the name of politics or other social causes. Surely, no Christian, Jew or Hindi would argue that God only wakes up to our actions when we are in a church or a temple? What Islam does in practice then other major religions do in theory, but only in theory. Would it not be better if they carried their beliefs to the realm of every daily practice?
In fact they do. Many of the structures that maintain the systems of oppression of the majority of the world’s people are underwritten by the Catholic church, the Jewish community or a Protestant sect. This includes public institutions and states. Just look at the United States. This country is willing to strangle other countries through its economic policies and to use force to kill their people when economic coercion does not work. This is a country that alleges to live under one God. Undoubtedly, they do, but equally undoubtedly this God, if just and merciful would never sanction the atrocities tat the United States has committed around the world—ranging from the genocidal destruction of the native American Indians to its latest attacks on Vietnam, Cambodia, Panama, Haiti, Grenada, Afghanistan, and Iraq—all accomplished according to a succession of American presidents in God’s name. And Israel is a country whose Supreme Court has upheld the legality of torture and whose armed forces regularly practice this and numerous other gross violations of human rights, including the regular killing of unarmed civilian women and children. Yet, this country openly professes a common faith in the God of the Jewish people. When I was last in Israel and visiting the holy city of Jerusalem I saw this faith in the eyes of the numerous men and women who carry automatic weapons allegedly to protect themselves, but on this occasion used to beat me because I had voiced my objection to their human rights violations.
Yes, there are Muslims who carry out human rights abuses and Muslim countries that do not adequately respect human rights, but there is a big difference. While Americans, Israeli’s and their western allies possess most of the world’s wealth, use most of the world’s resources and sell most of the world’s arms, the Muslim world is by and large of the half of the world’s population that live on less than two dollars per day. Muslims are more often the victim rather than aggressor today. Perhaps this too makes little difference the critics will undoubtedly respond.
Indeed, Islam is not a religion of victims, but of victors. Muslims do not submit to marginalization and violations of their rights. They fight back. They fight back because their religion tells them they should and requires them to fight for justice.
Anyone who has read the Quran is struck by the strong sense of empowerment and social justice that it includes. At the same time it identifies Muslims not by the sprinkle of holy water, but by their actions. A person is a Muslim because he or she fights for social justice. This is the view that many Catholics priests and their followers took in the Americas has they created a liberation theology. Many were however, excommunicated by the Catholic Church, which had ties to the oppressors against whom the oppressed were willing to fight. Islam is also a liberation theology in so far that one must fight for social justice if he or she is to call him or herself a Muslim. Unlike their Christian counterparts, however, there is not church hierarchy to decide how far the struggle must go. Each Muslim must determine this in personal consultation with God, through prayer, reflection, and meditation.
So yes, Islam is a religion that flows into every aspect of human life. And yes, Islam empowers to those who are subject to or who witness injustice to take all necessary measures to defeat injustice. And yes, Islam does not divorce God from our daily lives or our daily deeds. But perhaps it is not the religion of Islam that makes it sometimes appear as a threat to our way of life, but rather our way of life that is a threat to Islam and to the will of God. Is God pleased with a world in which half of the people live on less than $2 a day? A situation of greed that has reached such proportions that the 250 richest Americans have more wealth then the 43 poorest countries? Was it not God who in the traditions of the Jewish and Christian faiths slew those who held his people hostage and gave Mosses the authority to act violently against his oppressors. Muslims are not arrogant enough to believe that they have the endowment of God to kill others, but some are willing to take any measures necessary to redress the injustice of the world. These people are not to be feared, except by those who perpetuate injustice and act in ungodly ways. Perhaps what the west, especially America fears, is not Islam, but what we see in the mirror.
