WRITING New books shed light on Islam

A perverted sense of honor threatens world peace.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
As the country's resources are focused on the war on terrorism and rebuilding Iraq, 68 percent of Americans say they know little or nothing about Islam.
Yet rising numbers (44 percent, up from 25 percent in March 2002) say that Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its followers, according to a Pew Research Center poll released last week. Americans seem willing to reach conclusions with little knowledge.
In this unhappy milieu, two very different books by Muslim scholars shed light on Islam and issues central to the world's well-being. Both men have worked in Muslim and Western societies and been involved in trying to bridge gaps of misunderstanding.
"Islam Under Siege: Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World" is the work of Akbar Ahmed, the chairman of Islamic studies at American University in Washington. A Pakistani social scientist, Ahmed is regularly called on by local Islamic centers across the U.S. and by American think tanks.
His new book seeks to explain "the world that created bin Laden and the world he has helped to create." His thesis cuts through simplistic notions that either religious teachings or an evil mind have produced bin Laden and his many supporters.
Rather, a breakdown in social cohesion has occurred in many Muslim societies, he contends, which has helped produce an extreme sense of group loyalty and a perverted sense of honor.
This breakdown is the effect of colonization on local institutions, the failure of post-independence Muslim leadership, and the profound disruption of traditional cultures by globalization. These societies have lost their moorings and moved away from central features of Islam, including the goal to create a just and compassionate society.
"In the process of dislocation," Ahmed argues, "they develop intolerance and express it through anger. ... Even those societies that economists call 'developed' fall back to notions of honor and revenge in times of crisis."
"By dishonoring others, such people think they are maintaining honor," he adds. "Many in our time consider it honorable to indulge in acts of violence."
What happens
Religious loyalties are used to disguise those acts of violence, though they are contrary to religious teaching.
He points to bin Laden's extensive use of the concept of honor, the depiction of suicide bombing as an honorable act despite the Koran's complete prohibition, and rape being employed to dishonor other groups (by Christian Serbs and Indian Hindus, for example, as well as Muslims in Pakistan). This is neither Islam nor tribal custom, he says, but moral collapse.
Ahmed says the real battle will be between exclusivists and inclusivists -- between those who promote a faith-based group loyalty vs. those who promote understanding and dialogue.
The widespread use in various cultures of a perverted sense of honor suggests we are living in a post-honor world, he argues.
U.S. example
In a startling example in the United States, Paul Hill, the former Christian minister executed last week for killing an abortion doctor, said in his final interview, "I feel very honored that they are most likely going to kill me for what I did." His followers call him a martyr.
Mohammed Abu-Nimer, a specialist in conflict resolution who also teaches at American University, has written "Nonviolence and Peace Building in Islam." Primarily a work for practitioners in the field of peace-building, the book is illuminating for its discussions of Islamic principles of nonviolence and traditional Arab-Muslim methods of conflict resolution, which include forgiveness and reconciliation.
At this time of despair in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, his in-depth exploration of the extensive, organized nonviolent actions during the first Palestinian intefadah is revelatory.
Abu-Nimer underlines the strong obstacles to peace-building in Arab-Muslim societies today, including officials who discourage criticism of political and social institutions and states that co-opt religious leadership, which has spurred the emergence of radical Islamic leaders.
Both these books make clear the primacy of justice as an Islamic ideal, promoted consistently in the Koran.
"The Islamic tradition calls for resistance to injustice through activism," says Abu-Nimer. "Peace is the product of order and justice."