Andrew Morris proposes an alternate view of Islam; he calls it the Truth About Islam. I’m thoroughly impressed with his prose but mostly disagree with his view of Islam for reasons we shall see going forward.

The problem with his essay is it is entirely one-sided and depends heavily on personal anecdotal evidence and observation. I’m not one to deny his personal experience of living in an Islamic society, but that is wholly insufficient to arrive at the truth especially in face of a mountain of historical and contemporary documentary evidence. His perspective begins at a place

…where for the vast majority of the population, Islam is part of the home, the street and the village. Where it is a lived religion, not just a media construct. And you know what? Like all religions played out from day to day, it’s pretty uneventful. It’s not an ideology: it exists in the commitment of minuscule acts of human friendship. It gives people a vocabulary to understand their grief, their moments of elation, their losses and the pressures they are under. It keeps families together, (but doesn’t necessarily stop them bickering or smouldering with resentment: it’s a faith, not a magic potion). It works through and around individuals. It offers a seasonal catalogue of festivals to mark the passing of the months. It provides, in short, the whole background to the grind and flow of daily life. Islam here is in the air, but not in your face.

This one holds uniformly true for all religions. And it also shows how easy it is to draw conclusions by mixing up basic religious tenets with daily-life experience. A community bereft of any kind of religion/belief eventually learns to live, to tolerate, and be and remain a cohesive whole. Islamic societies are not unique in this respect. But there’s more.

Living here, you first notice the impact of Islam on people’s names: the same given names that are used by the Muslim Umma or community throughout the world. And then of course in the language. Arabic or Persian greetings such as Assalamu Aleikum (Peace be with you), for hello, and Khoda Hafez (May God be with you) for goodbye….

Again, it is true for almost all societies. Today’s Western societies still carry Biblical/Christian names as David, John, Paul…all denoting religion in some way or the other although religion pays an insignificant part in their daily lives. Different cultures have similar terms of greetings, farewell, etc but because somebody doesn’t invoke God (Hi! Mornin’! G’Night!) doesn’t make them lesser mortals…ok, Andrew didn’t say they were lesser mortals so let me put it this way: these features don’t put Muslims above par.

All in all it’s a pretty laid-back place, where you practise at a level of your own choosing, not dictated to by the imposition of orthodox or fundamentalist belief.

Perhaps you’re free to practise at your level but the key word is practise. Islam imposes you to practise, unlike most of the secular Western countries, or for that matter Hinduism where you can even ridicule your Gods without fear of inviting a fatwa on your head. Actually, I’ll take this a step further. Show me one Muslim in Bangladesh who is willing to openly abandon Islam and proclaim that he’s an atheist or worse, convert to another religion. I don’t need to spell out the consequences. A certain Ibn Warraq (not his real name) has been condemned to live in anonymity for this precise reason.

..but there is very little communal violence today of the sort which marked the birth pangs of Bangladesh.

Indeed, because most of the Hindu population in Bangladesh has either been wiped out or driven away to India. Second, Bangladesh was created as a result of violent tensions between East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and the “main’ Pakistan. Why millions of Hindus were murdered in a Muslim-Muslim conflict is inexplicable. Or is it really inexplicable? There’s little communal violence today because Hindus/other minorities there are powerless. I suggest Andrew to carefully read the history of Bangladesh: the violence at Bangladesh’s birth pangs had nothing to do with any communal tensions.

Meanwhile, those Islamic students or elders who do have a more fundamentalist interpretation are given scant respect by most of the people I know, despite the inroads they have made to political power. And the whole country rejoiced when the most notorious religious extremist, whose nickname was Bangla Bhai (Bangla Brother) was caught recently in a police raid.

This is another Big Myth about Islam’s “interpretation.” This forces me to ask whether Andrew has really read the primary sources: the Koran and the Hadis. Both these are pretty clear about the said interpretation. Just two verses suffice for a sample of what Islam asks of its followers:

1. When the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them, besiege them and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. (5th verse of Sûrah Taubah)

2. Fight in the name of Allah and the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah… When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action… Invite them to (accept) Islam… If they refuse to accept Islam, accept from them the jizya. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them” (Sahih Muslim, No. 4294).

These are, I think, pretty straightforward in meaning and require no special knowledge to interpret them. The second verse especially reeks of intolerance. What Al-Qaeeda and other terror outfits are doing is entirely consistent with this, and other similar verses that you can find liberally in the Koran and Hadis. It is also noteworthy at this junction, to recall the wars Islam has waged on other cultures/religions. Their battlecry dating back to several centuries has always been Jihad, and remains the same till date. In their own words, Bin Laden & co state that they have declared a Jihad on the US/West.

Nothing extreme then. Nothing to be alarmist about.

Perhaps not in the city/town/country where Andrew currently lives. But there should be some point when the whole world is concerned about the “increasing threat of Islamic terrorism.” Can we simply sweep this point away as gross exaggeration despite regular reassurances from Al-Qaeeda and others that they have openly sworn to destroy the West, Israel and India? Further, what explains statements of prominent people in the US and UK who have openly stated their intention of converting the whole of US to Islam, forcing a civil wars, etc? More fundamentally, why is it so hard for Muslims to integrate with other cultures? Why do they demand special concessions as they’re doing now in Europe and have done in India for more than 50 years? How about the record of Islamic societies in this regard? What freedoms do they grant to immigrants/people belonging to other faiths and religions? Do they allow non-Muslims to freely practise their religion? Do they allow them to build places of worship: temples, Buddhist monastries, and Churches? Do they grant them a fair trial the way democracies do?

The media is obsessed with those who preach and proclaim the ‘truth’ of Islam, and concentrates on the outlandish personalities, the orthodoxies, the narrow interpretations, the perceived ‘mediaevalism’ and ‘inflexibility’ of the faith.

And the obsession is not entirely groundless. For the record, I wouldn’t call it obsession: caution is more appropriate. I cannot recount/bring all evidence in the space of this blog entry but it is true. On the other hand, the obsession lies with Muslims to revert to some imagined period where “pure” Islam was practised. For example, how Pakistan’s rape-law reform was passed amid stiff opposition from the advocates of pure Islam, and how even Musharaff had earlier succumbed to pressure from these lunatics. These advocates are certainly not a minority and they’re doing nothing that’s not mandated by the Koran and other sacred Islamic literature.

But all that is a long way from people’s experience here, as they go about their daily lives, looking out for each other, complaining about the government, dodging cars, getting food on the table and kids into school. They care as much for dogma as your average Saturday shopper back home worries about the meaning of the Trinity.

The problem with Andrew Morris’s “alternate view of Islam” is one of anecdotal evidence, as I noted earlier. Assuming this is a correct approach, a famous writer has recorded humongous anecdotal evidence on this subject. Please read Naipaul’s classic explorations of the Islamic world: Among the Believers and Beyond Belief for not just another alternate view, but a harsh, violent reality.

Andrew Morris’s “alternate view” is neither new nor original. In one line it is: Islam is good versus Muslims are bad and vice versa. The answer to this is a detailed examination of Islam and the demands it makes on its adherents. The result of such examination is clear: Islam makes a whole lot of demands that mandates its adherents to not tolerate divergent views, cultures, and beliefs even if expressing such intolerance means inflicting violence. We have a few centuries’ worth of evidence to prove its truth.

While all fulminations of armchair critics are not meritorious, it is certainly not necessary for one to live in an Islamic society to examine its basic tenets. Nor do all of these commentators base their analyses on a few cardboard caricatures. Nor do all these critics make their points based on a Bin Laden or a few aggressive, cave-dwelling Mullahs. Rather, some of these armchair commentators delve into the roots that motivate the likes of Bin Laden.