By Khurram Dara – Wall Street Journal –
It is gut-wrenching that a 15-year-old boy, who raised his hand at evening prayers after the local imam asked who among them did not love the Prophet Muhammad—mistakenly thinking that the cleric had asked who did love the prophet—would cut off his own hand to prove his faith to the imam, who had accused him of blasphemy after the incident.
What’s even more troubling is that, even as attempts were made to arrest the cleric, many in Khanqah, the eastern Punjab village where the spectacle occurred, defended both the imam and the boy’s actions, praising his devotion to God.
On so many levels, this story is illustrative of the disease spreading within Islam. There is no prescribed punishment for blasphemy in the Quran and no legitimate Islamic school of thought could conceivably find that self-inflicted amputation is warranted for an accidental gesture like Anwar’s. Yet the well-financed machine of radical Islam has successfully propagandized the people, like those in Khanqah, to the point where something as sad as Anwar’s actions are considered not just acceptable but also praiseworthy, even righteous. It is the result of a singular and supremacist view of Islam that stands in diametric opposition to justice in contemporary civil society, and indeed Islamic faith itself.
In the premodern Muslim world, before today’s nation-states and modern governments, harsh punishments combined with stiff burdens of proof were used to deter crime. Even as the region tried to transition to modern government after World War I, these practices—severe punishment but low rates of conviction—held somewhat.
Yet in the years since, dictators and Islamists alike have been keen on keeping these premodern punishments, only without the high evidentiary standards. Pakistan, for example, had just 14 reported cases of blasphemy before 1986. Since then, nearly 1,300 people have been charged with the crime, according to an investigation by the Pakistani newspaper Dawn.
In the 1980s Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul–Haq, who had risen through a coup, saw an opportunity to consolidate his power by aligning with radical Islamists to bolster blasphemy laws and silence minority opposition. His blasphemy ordinances became a conduit for settling political and personal scores. The laws also further legitimized the supremacist attitudes of radical Islamists. It is a tragic example of political maneuvering under the guise of religious duty—capitalizing on extremist ideologies that have grown stronger.
Treating this as a problem with all Muslims and all of Islam is not helpful or accurate. But neither is denying that this has anything to do with Islam. There is a problem, not with, but within Islam. There is more to this than the war in Syria, the rise of Islamic State, and self-radicalized terrorist attacks in the West.
This is not just about repressive regimes and foreign-policy miscues that have helped this radicalism spread. This goes beyond the misogyny that says it’s acceptable to abuse women and the medieval customs that endorse a boy’s decision to sever his hand. This is an assault on diversity of thought and free thinking.
There is not an obvious military solution to deal with the instability and violence in the Middle East and North Africa, nor is it clear (even if we were successful in finding one) what the subsequent political resolution would be—the Arab uprisings have taught us as much. But we can all agree that radical Islam is a menace that is claiming not just lives, but hearts and minds too.
If we are fighting terrorism on all fronts then shouldn’t we be tackling the underlying ideology instead of casting this as something completely devoid of religion?
U.S. policy makers ought to put greater pressure on foreign governments, including longtime allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, to stop the funding and exporting of radicalism. And contrary to what some presidential candidates are saying, it is crucial that Washington and the West work with Muslim communities at home and abroad not against them.
Because if this horrifying extremism that continues to claim innocent life and limb is to be defeated, it will require Muslims, who have watched radicalism soil their faith and define its image, to lead the fight.
Mr. Dara, an attorney, is the author of “The Crescent Directive” (Tensile, 2011) and “Contracting Fear” (Cascade, 2015).
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PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES/ARABIANEYE
http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-a-boys-hand-the-islamist-disease-1454022599?mod=djemMER
