While I share some of the goals which are espoused in What’s Right With Islam - namely, its ecumenical spirit, as well as its emphasis on such qualities as: peace, liberty, harmony, justice, democracy, plurality, and moral reciprocity - nevertheless, there seem to be a number of issues that are relevant to the realization of such goals, yet, which are not actually rigorously pursued in Imam Rauf’s book, or if they are engaged, this seems to be done in ways that are of questionable persuasiveness, if not tenability.
The construction of an logical argument can be a complex, layered, nuanced process. Often times, this is the purpose of writing a book - to devote the time, space, and effort necessary to develop, in as persuasive a manner as possible - at least in principle - the essential features of a perspective together with the reasons, demonstrations, proofs, and so on that may assist other individuals to not only understand the world of discourse as one does, but, as well, to agree with what is being said.
Such arguments build on ideas both little and large. The dynamics of such ideas, which are expressed through the inner structure of a work, form the woof and warp through which the horizon and foci of a discourse are woven.
A lot of little things can matter as much as one large issue. Each informs, shapes, and colors the other. Consequently, the validity of each is often caught up with the logical character of the other.
The following analysis examines some of the little and large aspects of Whats Right With Islam. This critical exploration is not exhaustive with respect to all which might have been discussed in conjunction with the aforementioned book, but I believe the reader will get the gist or drift of where I stand in relation to much of what is contained with Imam Rauf’s book.
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On page xviii of the Preface, one finds the following statement:
“The US military victory over Saddam Hussein’s
regime in Iraq means that America is now responsible
for shaping a new Iraq.”
The foregoing assertion presumes much and evades even more.
One can think of a lot of possibilities which might have been said - perhaps, should have been said - in the foregoing observation rather than what was said. For example, one might have said: America is now morally responsible for re-building the infrastructure of Iraq at its own expense; or, America is now morally responsible for paying indemnity to the tens of thousands of innocent families who lost loved ones as a result of the actions of the US government but who had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein’s regime; or, America is now legally and morally responsible for leaving Iraq and permitting Iraqis to shape their own destiny.
One has trouble understanding how a war which was predicated on lie after lie, and falsehood after falsehood, or which was conducted in violation of international law, and which was undertaken without legal authority to do so gives one any morally sanctioned responsibility to shape another country and people. Invading another country because one wishes to do so, or because it serves one’s imperial designs or desire for hegemony, does not constitute legal authority, for, if one may wage war simply because of unjustified desires, then, Nazi Germany had legal authority to invade Czechoslovakia and Poland, or the former Soviet Union had legal authority to invade Hungary, and so on.
Moreover, while Saddam Hussein and most of the rest of his pack of jokers may have been apprehended, any talk of victory in the foregoing quote is rather premature. A “victory” which entails, collectively, thousands of additional dead and in which it is not safe to walk the streets or go about life in a normal fashion is not like any victory I have ever heard of - except, of course, that of a Pyrrhic victory which some might say is a euphemism for the fact that much more is at stake in Iraq than a PR banner hanging from the upper decks of an aircraft carrier somewhere off the coast of San Diego, far from the realities of what was transpiring in Iraq. A “victory” which stands a very good chance of, sooner or later, inducing Iraq to slide into a civil war is not much of a victory - except to those who want some sort of trophy to mount on the walls of their war room and who are not really all that concerned about what happens to the millions of innocents who have been placed in harm’s way by the actions of the US government.
Whatever the sins of Saddam Hussein may have been - and they were many - there are three things which need to be kept in mind. First, almost all of his sins were aided, abetted and subsidized by the United States Government across a number of administrations, both Republican and Democrat. Secondly, it is an oxymoron to suppose one can generate democracy by fiat or through brutal oppression - and this is as true for the United States as it was for Saddam Hussein. And, finally, the oil resources in Iraq do not belong to the West, or to Saddam Hussein, or to whomever else forms the government there, or to this or that corporation ... those resources belong to the Iraqi people - all of them, and anything else is theft.
Imam Rauf goes on to liken what the US military has done, and must do, in Iraq as falling under the rubric of a saying of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) concerning the distinction between the lesser and greater jihad. According to Imam Rauf,
“America has now won the lesser jihad,
that of toppling the Saddam regime.”
Something can be a jihad only if it is in compliance with Divinely established conditions of morality. There is nothing about the US invasion of Iraq which is moral.
Even the pretext of liberating Iraq is an ethical farce because the forces within the Executive Branch, the Pentagon, and among the leading defense contractors who were architects of this tragedy never had any intention of really permitting the Iraqi people to have self-determination. As has happened so many times before in US history when the US wants a regime change somewhere (e.g., Noriega in Panama, Allende in Chile, Mossadegh of Iran), the central, motivating factor is that whomever is to be removed is someone who is refusing to comply with, or creating problems for, US plans for economic and political hegemony in some given part of the world.
The US government wants a tyrant in Iraq. But, they want their kind of tyrant - one who would be in harmony with US interests - and the people of Iraq be dammed.
As long as Saddam served US purposes (e.g., waging war against Iran), then, Saddam was ‘the man’ and he was given wide latitude to amuse himself with the lives of the Iraqi people as he desired. When he stopped serving the purposes of US hegemony and became too big a liability, the US government (or, at least, certain elements within that government) began to plan for a regime change - not for the purpose of establishing democracy, but for the purpose of arranging for a new government which would be subservient to the interests of the cartel that is now, and has been for quite some time, running the US government (Dwight Eisenhower knew very well what he was talking about when, nearly fifty years ago, he warned the people of the United States about the military-industrial complex which was undermining democracy in the United States.).
It is a travesty of all that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught and lived to try to claim that what the US has done, and is doing, in Iraq is a lesser jihad, even remotely similar to anything in which the Prophet participated. Indiscriminate killing, injustice, wholesale destruction of a society’s infrastructure, and brutal oppression have no place in even a jihad of a lesser kind.
Imam Rauf goes on to say:
“Its (the US’s) larger challenge lies ahead; winning
the hearts and minds of Iraqis, and through them,
the rest of the Muslim world. This waging of peace
is now America’s greater jihad.”
The greater jihad is about purification of oneself. Before - if ever - one seeks to try to tell others how they ought to live their lives, one should put one’s own house in order. Otherwise, at the very least, one is guilty of sheer hypocrisy.
If the US government were really interested in waging peace, they never would have begun any of the wars - not under Bush II and not under Bush I. If the US wants to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis, then, it should stop killing them, oppressing them, destroying their means of livelihood, and interfering with their country.
The US government is not capable of truly assisting other countries until it cleanses itself of its imperial ambitions. Until the US government stops seeking to control the people of other countries (via corrupt, tyrannical governments) or refrains from exploiting those people and cheating them (via dealings with corrupt, tyrannical governments), any mention of the ‘greater jihad’ in conjunction with US policy is nothing but a charade which misdirects attention away from the actual, insidious activities of the US government and its corporate buddies.
Just as the desire for anything beyond the struggle for truth sullies the idea of the greater jihad in relation to individuals, so, too, the desire for anything beyond the struggle to live in accordance with truth taints the intentions of the US government. One can’t lust after the resources of another country and claim that one is merely engaging in the greater jihad. One can’t dream of exploiting another people and say, with any sincerity, that one’s actions are those of the greater jihad.
The greater jihad for the US government has nothing to do with winning the hearts of the Iraqi people or the rest of the Muslim world. The challenge facing the US government is not waging peace in the world, but to purify its own political house and, thereby, liberate America from the stranglehold which bad government and large corporations have on the American people.
If, God willing, the US government is capable of accomplishing this process of self-purification, then, in many ways, world peace will follow naturally. After all, if the United States government (or the corporations it sponsors and subsidizes) is not marauding about and interfering in, oppressing, terrorizing, undermining, and destroying the lives of other peoples, then, many (although, regrettably, not all) of the causes of conflict in the world would disappear. Unfortunately, so far, the US government has had neither the honesty nor the insight of an old Walt Kelly comic strip called “Pogo” in which one of the characters utters the line: “We have met the enemy, and they is us.”
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