CARL BENJAMIN: A Liberal Perspective On The Notion Of Moderate Islam
Richard Braine, UKIP’s new leader, has recently been criticised for a series of statements he has previously made about Islam, to which I would like to make a defence. The first statement is something to the effect that that there is no such thing as “moderate Islam” or “moderate Muslims”, there is only Islam and Muslims.
The question is not one of moderation, the question is one of interpretation. This is not just the opinion of Richard Braine, but also of Muslim leaders and scholars.
Recep Erdogan, for example, believes that the idea of “moderate Islam” and “moderate Muslims” is a Western invention, alien to the Islamic world and one designed to weaken the power of Islam as a social and political force.
The president of Turkey is completely correct. Since the liberal revolutions of the Enlightenment, Western societies have valued secularism over theocracy. Religious rule has always been a rather alien concept to Christianity, based in the worldly power of the Catholic Church and not the spiritual guidance of the Bible. This is why, in 1517, German professor Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses sparked a popular revolution.
Luther legitimately attacked the strength of the Catholic Church’s temporal power, by attacking the corrupting practice of the sale of indulgences. From the new Protestant perspective, scripture alone, not papal edicts from Rome, was meant to govern the souls of men.
English philosopher John Locke attacked the philosophical foundation of religiously-inspired governance in his Letter Concerning Toleration. Locke argued that because the validity of religion is a personal matter, no one religion can claim to have authority over all men and government should not be partial in this respect. He concluded that:
“I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other.”
This line of thought was hugely influential in the English-speaking world and became one of the core principles upon which the American republic was created. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson codified Locke’s ideas and coined the term “separation of Church and State”.
To the post-Enlightenment Western mind, it is unthinkable that a theocratic religion can be allowed to exist and flourish in any form that seeks to gain control and govern. It undermines the very nature of our societies and reverses the Western achievement of raising reason above faith.
Islam does not appear to recognise the separation between Church and State. Where Christianity was primed to render unto Caesar that which was Caesars, and render unto God that which was God’s, there is no such doctrine in the Muslim world, and does not appear to have emerged throughout the development of the Islamic faith.
Muhammad, as a conqueror, was forced to design a religion that not only organised one’s personal life, but which also defined a political order for the world. The Quran contains governmental and legal injunctions, unlike the New Testament. Jesus Christ did not preach a political philosophy, he preached a personal one, whereas Muhammad, the Caliph of Islam, was not only the spirital leader of his flock, but also their temporal one.
Religious governance is a core part of Islam, which is why there are Islamic schools of jurisprudence to interpret the Sharia. Moral and legal instruction in the Islamic world is derived from the Quran, and so it is difficult to fathom why they would consider a literalist interpretation of scripture to be anything other than pious.
This explains the recurring phenomenon of “Sharia patrols” in Muslim-dominated areas in Western countries. There is a moral imperative inherent within Islam to establish the Sharia and maintain it, as Muslims believe God instructed through his prophet.
Islamic sects do not appeal to Enlightenment axioms of liberty and human rights to establish right from wrong; they appeal to the commentaries around the Quran and Hadith to understand precisely what Muhammad was attempting to drive at with each of his statements.
The purpose is not to try and limit the degree to which Muslims follow his teachings, the purpose is to be rightly guided by correct interpretation of Muhammad’s words. To attempt to limit a Muslim’s adherence to Muhammad’s will is, as Erdogan said, a Western innovation, an attempt at limiting the power of Islam. This must be done because the West is seeking to avoid theocratic governance.
The term “moderate Muslims/Islam” is one the British have created in an attempt to distinguish between Muslims who wish for theocratic government and those who do not. It is not a part of Islam and Richard Braine is correct to identify this.
by Carl Benjamin · Published August 26, 2019