The Greatest Jihad

“The Greatest Jihad is the battle against evil in ourselves”.

I came across the above quote (or something very similar – can’t remember the exact words), which I’m guessing is a translation of something from the Koran whilst watching the American drams series Sleeper Cell on DVD. Whilst it might lack the big names, big budgets, frenetic pace and excitement of 24, it interested me for a number of reasons. The main was its portrayal of the battle against Islamic extremism and terrorism as, fundamentally, a battle within Islam. The undercover FBI agent who is the hero of the series is a devout Muslim who sees his actions every bit as much serving Allah and his faith as the extremist terrorists see theirs. Yes, the series is sometimes rather heavy-handed in delivering its message – a scene where the hero is invited to speak at a primary school springs to mind (“My daddy says Muslims don’t eat bacon and hate us”) – but this central idea sets it apart from other shows which tackle the same subject and might be crucial to our thinking on the subject.

Islamic fundamentalism won’t be defeated by Jack Bauer in 24 hours and it won’t be stopped by Western military involvement in the Middle East. Quite the contrary, our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, whether you think them justified or not, have only played into the hands of those seeking to recruit for extremist causes. Personally I think the war in Iraq was wrong, although I don’t think it was part of a religious crusade or even that it was primarily about oil. Although, I do think that there are those in the American administration who have sought to turn the situation to their own advantage and that on both sides of the Atlantic, information was misrepresented in order to create a justification for a war that had already been decided upon. I do believe that both Bush and Blair genuinely saw Saddam as a threat that needed to be tackled, but history will be judge their wisdom in this, and I suspect judge them quite harshly. But I digress, the point is that, whether justified or not, the recent actions of the West seem to only be strengthening the very extremist forces they seek to oppose. I’m coming to believe that the only solution to Islamic extremism will be an Islamic one.

Attitudes in the UK towards Muslims at the moment seem to polarise towards the two extremes of those who attack mosques, blame all Muslims for terrorist attacks and wish to drive them from the country and those who carry political correctness to a ridiculous extreme and to avoid offending Muslims would rename Christmas as Winterval and change the Three Little Pigs to the Three Little Puppies. Of course these are the extremes and many people are somewhere in the middle, but both extremes have this in common – they are not listening to Muslims themselves about what they think and what they want.

I wish I could say that as Christians we displayed a better attitude and there are some Christians and churches who are a wonderful example of reaching out to Muslims in love. However, there are also those who seem to display an ignorance and a resentment towards Islam. Several times over the past six months or so I have heard stories of Christians responding to situations with comments along the lines of “You wouldn’t say that to me if I was a Muslim” and then being offended when this landed them in trouble. Somehow this was being held up as an example to follow. Leaving aside the part of this that appears to come from a perverse desire in certain aspects of the Christian church in this country to see themselves as a persecuted minority (get over it, brothers, and be thankful for the freedoms we have in this country), these comments seem to display an attitude which lacks respect and love for those they speak to, displays resentment and disrespect for the Muslim community. Most of all it is not the kind of thing that I could ever imagine Jesus saying. Yes, there are times when the Muslim community seems rather better at getting their voice heard about issues they find offensive, but I say that’s a good thing – a sign of a society which is prepared to listen to the voices of minorities. Maybe if we lost the chip from our shoulders, we’d be rather better at getting our own voice heard. Instead, maybe more of us should follow the example of those believers who are reaching out to Muslim community in love, engaging them in dialogue and trying to understand. This dialogue need not be based on a relativistic nonsensical idea that we’re all worshipping the same God (most Muslims certainly wouldn’t go for that) but on the basis that we disagree on some fundamentals, we can still respect each others beliefs, find several issues on which we share common ground and can stand together. And I speak to myself here as well, there are areas of Islam I feel very ignorant of, but I would like to understand more, not so I can argue against it (in my experience, such arguments are almost entirely fruitless) but so I can understand where people are coming from better.

Returning briefly to Sleeper Cell, one of the other things that struck me was the international make-up of the terrorist cell. Notably including a Bosnian Muslim who was radicalised by his experiences in the Bosnian war when, whilst the West stood by, extremist Islamic groups fought for them. It is now widely acknowledged that the West did too little too late in Bosnia, it is a scary thought that history might judge that as one of the biggest missed opportunities to form a positive bridge to the Muslim world.