The Caged Virgin - Ayaan Hirsi Ali [80]
On reading the Koran and the traditional writings, it is apparent that Muhammad’s life not only provides rules for the daily lives of Muslims, it also demonstrates the means by which his values can be imposed. Yet remnants from some of the earliest Korans in existence, dating from the seventh and eighth centuries, show small aberrations from the text that is now considered the standard Koran. Nonetheless, just as some fundamentalist Christians cannot understand that the Bible went through numerous changes, interpretations, and translations before it became the contemporary text now widely used, and consider it inerrant, many fundamentalist Muslims consider the Koran a perfect, timeless representation of the unchanging word of God.
To spread his visions and teachings, which he believed to be from God, and to consolidate his secular power, Muhammad built the House of Islam using military tactics that included mass killing, torture, targeted assassination, lying, and the indiscriminate destruction of productive goods. This may be embarrassing, and even painful, for moderate Muslims to admit and to consider, but it is historical fact. And a close look at the propaganda produced by the terrorists reveals constant quotation of Muhammad’s deeds and edicts to justify their actions and to call on other Muslims to support their cause.
In their thinking about radical Muslim terrorism, most politicians, journalists, intellectuals, and other commentators have avoided the core issue of the debate, which is Muhammad’s example. In order to win the hearts and minds of those millions of undecided Muslims, it is crucial to engage them in a process of clear thinking on how to evaluate the moral guidance of the man whose compass they follow. The advantage of this rational process is that it provides an alternative to the utopia as well as the hell promised by the terrorists. Indeed, the threat of hell is the single most effective menace that the fundamentalists hold over the heads of young men and women in order to indoctrinate and intimidate them into violent action. Yet the literal translation of utopia is “not [a] place,” from the Greek “ou,” meaning not, or no, plus topos, meaning place. The dictionary defines a utopia as “an imaginary and indefinitely remote place.” The true alternative to such an impossible place is the open society, democracy, which has already been empirically proven to work. The open society gives Muslims, as it gives Christians and Jews, the opportunity to liberate themselves from the ever-present menace of hell. The extremists tell the young people that they must defend their faith, avenge insults against Muhammad and the holy word of God, the Koran. What is it exactly that they think they are defending?
A call for clear thought on this important question should not be offensive, or hurtful, to Muslims. And yet many people in the West flinch from doing so. The communis opinio seems to hold that questioning or criticizing a holy figure is not polite behavior, somehow not done. This movement for cultural relativism within Western society betrays the basic values on which our open society is constructed. As thinking human beings, we should never censor our analytic thoughts; we should never censor our reason.
Along these lines, I would argue that Prime Minister Blair should rethink his bill against blasphemy. Years ago, some British Muslims unsuccessfully called for Salman Rushdie to be tried under Britain’s blasphemy law after