The Cordoba Initiative, the organization which first promoted the controversial Park51 project, works to “cultivate multi-cultural and multi-faith understanding” and “to strengthen the bridge between Islam and the West.” But how is Islam to be understood? One of the conceptual fixtures of the modern world is the yoking together of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism as “The Three Great Monotheistic Religions.” In a global environment which prizes the search for unity, commonality and consensus above all other values, this idea is an easy sell. Too bad it's not true. Whatever the Big Three are, they are not three of a kind. Managing 21st century international relations would be so much simpler if being a Muslim meant the same sort of thing as being a Christian which meant the same sort of thing as being a Jew. But they are not the same sort of thing, and the assumption that they are makes us stupid. Based largely on the national experience of Protestantism and Catholicism, it is assumed that Americans know what a religion is. Islam, pigeon-holed as another religion, must be analogous to Christianity. On the other hand, Islam is more similar to Judaism in that it traditionally encompasses an entire way of life: religious tenets, dietary rules, ethical principles, familial requirements, communal activities, community loyalty, political traditions, cultural values, and more. Islam certainly includes religious beliefs and practices but is far broader than what Americans think of as religion. A good example of the perpetuation of this misconception of Islam as only a religion is found in a recent piece by Jocelyne Cesari, a French political scientist and currently director of the Islam in the West program at Harvard. She asks what she considers to be a provocative question: “Why is Islam no longer considered a religion?” A more useful question might be: “Is Islam best understood as a religion, in the same way that we understand Christianity as a religion?” By reducing Islam to a religion we limit how we look at it and how we conduct public discourse about it. To call it a political ideology is likewise misleading. But in America, where most people believe in the separation of religion from politics, a thing must be one or the other. So which is it? Is Islam a religion or a political system? One only has to look back to the earliest days of Islam to see that Muhammad served as a prayer leader, a religious teacher, a moral exemplar, a general, a lawgiver, a community organizer, and a political decision-maker – all rolled into one. Islam was a unified whole, not just religion, not just politics, not just a moral system. Much of the current debate about the proposed new Islamic center and mosque in lower Manhattan is misguided precisely because pundits and politicians categorize Islam as a religion. Then they weigh in on issues of religious freedom, which are largely irrelevant to the question of whether placing the building at 51 Park Place is a good idea or not. The constitutional right to build a mosque on that site is not in dispute. Thomas Jefferson, the father of American religious freedom, wrote that “Religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God.” But this description certainly does not fit either Islam or Judaism, both of which heavily emphasize the temporal and communal as well as the transcendental dimensions of life. Despite the shortcomings inherent in his vision of religion, Jefferson's view has come to be America's view. The overt distinction between religion and politics in American life, already referred to, also owes something to Jefferson. Most Americans are still comfortable with the Jeffersonian interpretation of the First Amendment as “building a wall of separation between Church and State.” This particular idea has a pedigree stretching back to the New Testament. “Render under Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's” represents a uniquely Christian perspective on the distinction between the spiritual and material realms. One cannot just as simply take Jefferson's “wall of separation between Church and State” and substitute “Mosque” for “Church”. Drawing such a line was anathema to the integrated, all-inclusive Islam as originally conceived and as practiced for centuries. For some Muslims today, the re-integration of the religious and political dimensions of Islam is a goal to be desired and worked towards. Other Muslims wish to move in the opposite direction, towards a further separation of these two realms, in keeping with a more western-style approach to governance and religious belief. While it makes sense that many American-born or American-educated Muslims adhere to the church-state separation principle and wish to apply it to the Islam they profess, such a distinction rings false to millions of Muslims living in Muslim-majority countries from Morocco to Indonesia. In many of these countries the state supports mosques, pays the salaries of imams, and applies at least some aspects of sharia law. Several of these countries call themselves Islamic republics; several others have declared Islam to be the official state religion. All of them are members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Religion and politics are interwoven in these countries in a way that is unfamiliar to Americans and difficult for us to understand, let alone consider as a legitimate alternative model for a modern society. The nature of Islam, its similarities and differences from Christianity and Judaism, its compatibility with an American tradition of distinct roles for religion and politics – these are questions that need to be asked, whether the questioner is accused of “Islamophobia”, a failure to appreciate the First Amendment, or any other charge designed to silence criticism and stifle debate. To ask these questions specifically of Islam does not exclude the possibility of asking similar questions of Christianity and Judaism. Yet there is a difference. The United States was founded by Protestant Christians for Protestant Christians. Catholics were only begrudgingly included in the experiment. Jews were an afterthought. Muslims were not part of the equation at all. Two hundred years later, and with a national Muslim-American presence only emerging in recent decades, Islam is still the new kid on the block. There is another difference, and that is the not irrational fear of domestic lethal terrorist acts committed by Muslims. Certainly Jews and Christians are capable of committing atrocities in the name of their faith or their community. Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli religious Jew originally from New York, murdered twenty-nine Muslims and wounded dozens more while they were praying in a Hebron mosque. The massacre occurred on the Jewish holiday of Purim, which also fell during Ramadan in that year of 1994. Judaism did not launch that attack, but a Jew did, and he did so as a Jew. The atrocity that directly affects America and Americans is 9/11. Islam did not launch that attack, but Muslims did – not all Muslims or most Muslims, but at least nineteen Muslims planned and executed a deadly attack against civilians on U.S. soil. Their faith was strong enough that they were willing to blow themselves up, to become martyrs as they saw it. They didn't just happen to be Muslims anymore than Baruch Goldstein just happened to be a Jew. Whether we are Muslims, Christians, Jews, or none-of-the-above, as we re-think Islam and its role in the United States, we need to be willing to ask tough questions and to critically evaluate the answers we receive. Some offer answers designed to vilify and condemn all of Islam and all Muslims. Others give answers intended to exonerate Islam of all responsibility for deadly violence and to deny that real Muslims could possibly perpetrate 9/11 or other such acts. Both these sets of answers should be rejected as inaccurate and inadequate. A new Islamic center in New York City, wherever it is finally built, could serve a useful purpose by providing a forum for honest discussion of these issues. If, however, its founders have already decided to represent Islam's best face as its only face, then the effort is misguided and America will be the poorer for it. ** To read more from Michael Lame, click here BM
