Vincent J. Curtis
8 July 2015
President Barack Obama spoke on Monday on the achieving of
5,000 airstrikes against ISIS since last summer. In the course of his remarks, he recognized
the near impossibility of destroying an ideology by military means alone. From military science we know that to defeat
an ideology it may require a competitive idea, or it may require the passage of
time, when the ideology simply passes out of fashion.
His exact remarks are as follows:
[ISIS] relies on fear, sometimes executing its own disillusioned fighters.
Its unrestrained brutality often alienates those under its rule,
…our strategy recognizes that no amount of military force will end the
terror that is ISIL unless it’s matched by a broader effort -- political and
economic -- that addresses the underlying conditions that have allowed ISIL to
gain traction
…in order for us to defeat terrorist groups like ISIL and al Qaeda it's
going to also require us to discredit their ideology -- the twisted thinking
that draws vulnerable people into their ranks
It’s going to be up to Muslim communities, including scholars and clerics,
to keep rejecting warped interpretations of Islam, and to protect their sons
and daughters from recruitment.
But what is it that makes ISIS, ISIS? It is its strict interpretation of Islam, of
Sharia law, and the opportunity for self-appointed guardians of Islam to impose
Islamic punishments. ISIS represents the
fullest application of Sharia and Islam.
It is the most authentic Islam that presently exists on earth. And what is found is that such application is
intolerable, even among those raised in such a culture.
Where Obama is wrong is where he says that Muslim scholars
and clerics keep rejecting warped interpretations of Islam. Muslim scholars and clerics don’t reject ISIS’s interpretation of
Islam because it is Islam. The most authentic kind, in fact. I have yet to hear of a consensus emerging
among Islamic scholars that ISIS is engaged in heresy. And one won’t because every ISIS action can
be justified on the basis of some passage or other of Islam’s holy books, which
testifies to its authenticity.
As a practical matter, ISIS is proving the utter
impracticality of Sharia law. It is
absurd to propose that God made man in order to make him miserable, and Sharia
law – supposedly God-made - is making men miserable. But if Sharia is false, then all Islam is
false.
The atrocities committed by ISIS and the suffering of the
Muslims who live under ISIS rule demonstrate that Sharia law is false. God did not create Sharia law. Sharia law does not follow from God’s words,
despite the claims of Islamic scholars.
Islamic scholars are silent in the face of the atrocities of ISIS, which
means that they understand that the Sharia law applied by ISIS and the
punishments imposed by ISIS for the violation of Sharia law are all authentic
Islam. And the application of Sharia by
ISIS proves to the world that Sharia is false.
And that therefore Islam is false.
How can Muslims who are suffering under ISIS and are
discovering the falsity of Sharia and, consequently, of Islam repudiate
ISIS? What is that competitive idea that
can defeat the ideology of ISIS? What
can make that ideology pass out of fashion?
That competitive idea, the one that repudiates ISIS’s
ideology, that result which can make that ideology pass out of fashion is
Christianity and the widespread adoption of Christianity by the people under ISIS rule. If there was widespread conversion
to Christianity of the people under ISIS rule, the caliphate so precious to
ISIS would cease to be dar al Islam. It would cease to be Islamic territory, and become
Christian territory. Such an event would not only repudiate ISIS and its ideology,
but it would cause Islam itself to begin to pass out of intellectual
fashion. And there is no reason why a
Muslim would want to hang on to Islam since ISIS has now proved that Islam is
false.
President Barack Obama is on the right track when he says
that military force alone will not defeat the ideology of ISIS. That ideology is authentic Islam. ISIS is doing a good job on its own to
discredit Islam. Where Obama errs is in
his belief that Islamic scholars and clerics will reject the “warped
interpretations of Islam”, because those interpretations are not warped; they
are authentic Islam. For political
reasons, and perhaps personal ones too, Obama cannot make a full-throated call
for the Muslims under ISIS rule to reject Islam and become Christian.
Nevertheless, widespread conversion is what needs to happen.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment